This past month on the race taught me an incredibly important lesson that I really needed to learn. I needed to learn it because there is a great call on my life and without this knew knowledge I would have really held myself back.
The lesson that I learned is that not every missionary is what you expect a missionary to be, and I am not bound by those expectations. People have this idea of what a missionary is and does. You may not agree with all of these things, but at some point in my Christian walk I have been led to believe each of these things are considered criteria for a good, successful missionary.
~Women don’t really go to the field as single missionaries, unless you are the exception.
~You have to spend thousands of dollars and a few years raising support before you make it to the field.
~Missionaries plant churches.
~Missionaries dress, speak, and behave a certain way; anything else may not be okay. (Some missionary women even have the same type of hairstyle)
~Unless you are a missionary to a closed country, you do not get a job. You live off of the support that comes in each month because to work would take away from ministry opportunities.
As you can imagine, this criteria seems impossible; and while there are many missionaries in this world that have made it happen(Jesus), there are many missionaries in this world that simply will not live up to this list.
I think that I may be one of them that doesn’t live up to this list, and that makes me so excited!
You see, I have a college degree…I’m a teacher, and I stinkin love teaching! And in a world where it is really hard to raise support, because a lot of families don’t really know how they are going to make ends meet, I have a degree that literally opens doors in countries all over the planet…and those doors pay well! So not only can I live off of that income, I can also pay back those wonderful student loans that I oh so love!
I may not be planting a church, but I will be doing life with people and showing them what it is like to live an incredible life with Jesus by my side every step of the way. I will show them a lifestyle that they will want because it is so desirable, and in all of that I will get to partner with all kinds of missionaries who are planting churches…can you say community?!?!
As far as being single on the field goes….bring it! I have things to do while I have time to do them! And one day when God does cause my life to collide into my husbands we will do really awesome things together, but I’m not waiting on the awesomeness to start with him.
And I am who I am, that is actually who I was created to be…I’m probably not going to change all of those things to appease somebody’s idea of what a missionary is. I am in no way saying that I am perfect and have no room for growth, because I have a ton of areas in which God is growing me day in and day out. I am saying that I wear the clothes that I like, sometimes I say things that I shouldn’t, and I have great hair(or at least I will when I get home and my mom can fix it!).
So last month I learned that I can be a missionary; God called me to it, and he has equipped me for it, it just may look a little different than what some people think it should look like.
