I often have the tendency to mentally romanticize missionaries and mission trips. Like all human beings, I am hard-wired to select only the images that glorify a particular idea as my bookmarks for the mental categorization of that idea. It’s completely natural. For example, if you were to mention the words “rock star”, the first image that would come to mind, without any deep consideration or pondering of the topic, would be an image of a man sweating while he sings his heart out in front of flashing lights and an arena crowd of many thousands. The first image that comes to my mind would not be that same rock star sitting with his agent in a long, boring meeting about ticket prices.
The same analogy holds true with my mental picture of mission work. Because my only frames of reference were the one short-term mission trip I’ve been on, and the similar (I’ve been told they are similar) experiences of others on short-term mission trips, I am prone to picture mission work as largely unchallenging and as a constant emotional high. A typical mission experience, as I pictured it, included three essentials: a brightly colored t-shirt with a Bible verse on the back of it, the tasting of an odd food, and a Facebook profile picture with an orphan in it.
To be clear, I don’t mean to condemn this picture of missions in any way, shape, or form. I can’t even begin to number the countless thousands (millions, perhaps) who have discovered their passion for missions during experiences like these. I myself own a brightly colored missions t-shirt and if you look on my Facebook page, you will indeed see my picture with Lluvia, the little girl who changed my life forever. Raw emotion is not a bad thing either, nor an invalid means of prompting an action. My decision to go on The World Race, no matter how deeply rooted it was in the stone-cold Biblical call to “Go” (Matthew 28:18-20), was accompanied by my own fair share of singing Hillsong United in the shower.
Despite all this, it has only taken me ten days to realize that a real missionary lifestyle is an incredibly challenging one. I have reached that inevitable point where the romanticism surrounding my conceptions of the missionary life has worn off and many of the realities are setting in. To draw the conclusion that the missionary life is “not all it’s cracked up to be”, however, couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, quite the opposite is true. This newfound awareness of the daily challenges of the missionary lifestyle only intensify the emotional experiences of God’s glory when they come, because of the deeper understanding and appreciation of the divine planning of God and the humbling obedience of man that becomes understood through the missionary lifestyle.
ow One challenge of the missionary lifestyle is the travel. We are here safely in Uzice, Serbia, and to say that thetravel here was exhausting would be an understatement! The six of us first took a thirteen-hour overnight train ride from Bucharest, Romania, to Belgrade, Serbia, transferred trains, and then hopped on another three-hour train ride to Uzice. We couldn’t afford a sleeper car with our budget, but we made due by splitting into two abandoned passenger cabins and sprawling two yoga mats across the floor. As I propped myself up against my backpack on the dirty floor of that old Romanian train, though, and watched the coal-black sky march by to the imperial cadence of the steel tracks underneath, I couldn’t help but to thank God for involving me in His grand mission.
Food is rapidly becoming a blessing (and good food, a luxury) as opposed to a given. Our personal budget for food is $3.75 a day, and we must pool our money and buy food in bulk to make our money go further. On this tight budget, meats, cheeses, and extra sweets are all luxuries. Eating every single meal with a community of six people is a new experience for me, but the fellowship we enjoy and the great conversations we have are already working to convert my individualistic personality into one that thrives on social community.
Perhaps the most challenging, yet rewarding aspect of the missionary lifestyle, at least in this first third of a month, has been the ministry work itself. I have certainly learned incredibly quickly to humble myself before God and accomplish the task He has cut out for me on each individual day.
Our team spent the first three days of this week in a nearby town helping our contact’s friend set up his Christian camp. For three days, we hauled enormous rocks, removed hedges, hacked out tree limbs and shrubbery, moved furniture, washed benches, and prepared cabins for the campers to arrive. It was demanding physical labor and we never did get to see the immediate fruits of our labor, as we returned to Uzice two hours before the campers came.
God clearly used those three days to give me a serious “heart check.” As my back tightened with fatigue and my undershirt became coated in sweat and dirt, there were many occasions when I let negative self-talk creep in as I told myself, “This is not what I signed up for.” As I cried out to God, though, during those three days, He convicted me of my selfish thinking. In addition, I was led to a quiet reassurance that everything would work out beautifully in the end. After all, God couldn’t care less about “what I signed up for”. God is about to “sign me up” for something so much greater than what I signed my own self up for, and He is most definitely using this time (as I am sure He will, time and time again, throughout the year) to cut me down to size—to make me appropriately broken. God doesn’t also use broken people—God only uses broken people.
I thank God for allowing me to experience the demanding lifestyle of a missionary. I can see more clearly than ever now, the reason why Jesus urged his disciples to count the cost of following him before they left (Luke 14:25-34). As the gear of the challenging missionary life grinds against the gear of my romanticized expectations, the friction that is created results not in lost heat, but rather in intensified heat—a heat so strong it makes knees bow and mouths sing, “blessed be the name of the Lord.”
