This is a response to a letter written to a missionary about what life is like over there.

Is mission life what I expected? I guess I’d say
yes it is. I don’t really remember what I expected, but I had enough
exposure through biographies and missionaries to know that mission life
would be tough. Spiritually tough. My parents went to the field before I
was born, but didn’t have any training on spiritual warfare and
cross-cultural problems and so ran home. Their training and rearing of me
was full of demonstrating a real walk with God, a trust of Him, and it
imparted to us their missionary hearts. My parents aren’t perfect, but they
grew a lot as I was growing up, and they were transparent with us kids. We
saw God miraculously provide for us for an entire year when my dad was out
of a job. All that was “training.” I knew my calling early and prepared
myself as much as I could through Jr. High, High School, and my two years of
college.

So, I have found missionary life as the most fulfilling work, but it is very
slow! It means plugging away day after day at learning a language and
culture (with no one but yourself to motivate and push you). It means
getting out of your comfort zone to talk to people daily (I’m kind of shy).
It means getting out and making friends. It means loving people no matter
how they treat you (or others). It means feeling like you’re not getting
anywhere in language and like you can never get your stuff done as planned.
It means a constant flow of interruption. It means boredom. It means
adventure (which is not very nice when it’s happening, but makes great
stories afterwards). It means seeing people die. It means helping to try
to save some lives. It means understanding their thinking and communication
so that when we share truth, it’ll make sense to them. This may be kind of
vague.

More specifically, my language learning was supposed to be something like
this before I got married. I study by myself for a few hours preparing my
lesson and a topic of conversation. I go to a little girl’s house and get
her to help me learn 20 or so words (with flashcards or objects or motions).
She says the word and I respond (by pointing or motioning or whatever). We
repeat until I’m sick of it. I tape her saying the words in context. Then
I go home for lunch (I lived with a X people group family) and hang out and chat
with them and drink tea. Later, I go visit a house or two and try to make
conversation. After, I come home and eat and chat until I go to sleep
shortly after dark. That’s my ideal, but it’s never been exactly like that.
I get sick. I have visitors at the wrong time. I have someone to take care
of–a sick family member or friend. I’ve spent weeks taking care of a child
in the hospital, only to have him die later. “Interruptions” to language
learning include funerals, weddings, baby naming ceremonies. But I’ve
learned that the interruptions ARE life, ministry and language learning.
Yet, sometimes I still feel I’m not doing what I’m “supposed” to be doing.
It’s our American training. Do, do, do. But being a missionary is like
being a Christian, it’s BEING that is most important: Being close to the
Father, hearing his word and following His plans. Demonstrating the
character of Christ in our everyday interactions. Resting in His grace and
being who He’s made us to be–in front of the people. Being transparent.
Being bold. Being the Mouth of God for His word to flow through.

The best experiences ever are just knowing you are the apple of His eye,
doing what’s closest to His heart. I love when I get to share the good news
to someone who’s ready to hear it but has never heard it before. (These
times are few so far.) We have had to work slowly and carefully, learning
the language and trying to understand the people first. Then we will have
to work chronologically and build their understanding of God. But one time
my teammate and I met a man at the airport who wanted to know why we wore their
X people group clothes. We told him. He wanted to know if we were Muslims. One
thing led to another, and he kept drawing us out with questions until we had
laid out the entire gospel except the Solution. He seemed to understand
then that we all are sinners and deserve death and that there is no way we
ourselves or another sinner could save us. We went over it to make sure he
understood, and then we shared Jesus. He was so impressed. He said that
this is so important. He said “We muslims hear about Muhammad a lot but we
never hear about Jesus. This is very important.” It was his first time to
hear about Jsus and he was so interested, but we didn’t feel it would be
right to press him for a “decision” at that time. We lost contact with him
since then (that was 4 years ago), but we know we are just part of God’s
plan to bring that man to Himself. That was the most awesome thing-someone
who has never seen, seeing for the first time. Tell you what, that’s
awesome! Most of what we have done so far is leading up to that moment
among our own village. We don’t know what God is going to do, how He’ll
lead us, but we see Him at work, and we mostly just watch! So many people
are into reading Genesis and Exodus that we’ve lent to people who beg for it
(not many can read, but those who can are eager to read the Bible.).

There are definitely rough times, but I’ll try to be brief (this letter is
getting very long). I can say I love my life and job way more than the
little work experience I had in the US! So I don’t know if it’s rougher
than life in the US, but anyone who seeks to serve and obey God will suffer.
Sickness and now injury are some of my biggest problems. We are often under
spiritual attack (lies from Satan about who we are or about who God is can
lead to depression and discouragement if we listen to them). Satan also
attacks our relationships with each other. These attacks are because Love,
Hope, and Joy are our motivation and strength, so if he can cut us off from
those, he can cripple us. Cultural stress was also rough especially in the
beginning.

Well, we’ve been here about 4 years (I arrived Christmas Day 2001 and my now
husband 8 months later). We are not in our village we work in right now. Normally we live in a village 20 kilometers from X city, which is another small town
where we have our team base for worship, meetings and an office for
computer and internet work. X city is about 8 or 9 hours from The Other City,
which is the capital and the biggest city. Don’t feel bad about not knowing about mission life. I didn’t know X country existed before I joined a team coming here.

Until Christ returns,
Missionary pioneering a church among an unreached people

Well my story goes… I was saved when I was 17 years old. I was arrested for drug possession and my dad and I weren’t getting along very well at that time. It was when I was arrested that I thought about how I really like my dad and would like to get to know him more and I prayed that God wouldn’t have my dad yell at me when he picked me up from jail, and that he wouldn’t die of a heart attack or anything. If God did those things I would go to church every sunday for the rest of my life. That was the promise. Well Dad didn’t yell at me, and that wasn’t because he died of heart attack. So I started going to church again and about a year later I started walking with Jesus. When this happened I decided that I wanted everyone to know about this loving Savior that I had and the ones I wanted to know this news more was the group that was least likely to hear it. At the time I thought this group was the punks and gothics that I used to hang out with. A couple years later I learned about unreached people groups and how without a Christian witness among them they will never have a chance to hear. My vision of my future changed forever.

It was like I approached a building that was on fire and instead of me picking up one pale of water and begin dosing out the fire, the only option I could think of to do that would be better was to go and arouse the sleeping firemen who are next door to put out the fire. Hence, I found Heart of God Ministries and begin working as a mobilizer, to encourage and challenge the Church to wake up and “save others, snatching them out of the fire” (Jude 23). As C.H. Spurgeon once said, “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.” I have been mobilzing since 2001 and have enjoyed it since. My goal is eventually to become a missionary in Africa.

My plan? Well by 2011 I hope to have at least a BA in Global Studies (at most a MA), from Northwestern College. By 2016, my goal is to raise up 600 trained and sent out frontier pioneer church planters. Right now I am a little over 100. Along with this, my hope is that in the next ten years we will go from having 10,000 unreached people groups remaining to 8,000. “Jason are you saying that you think we can see 2,000 seperate people groups have self sustaining church planting movments?” You bet your bottom dollar I am saying that. In 1974, Ralph Winter gave a presentation at the Lusanne Committee for World Evangelisation. That this conference the terminology and strategy of reaching unreached peoples was birthed. At that time there was an estimated 12,000 unreached people by the US Center for World Mission. Today a little over 30 years later there are 10,000 unreached peoples. That is 2,000 peoples reached in 30 years!!! Because I believe God is the God of the impossible and because I believe that He answers prayer, my goal within the next 10 years is to “pray as if it all depends upon my prayers and work as if it all depends upon my work”, quote taken from William Booth founder of the Salvation Army.

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. Psalm 146:8

Jesus said to Saul, “Get up and enter the city, and you will be
told what you are to do.” Acts 9:6

I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and
who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!” Isaiah 6:8

Jesus answered Nathanael, “I saw you under the fig tree before
Philip called you.” John 1:48

Friends, I have recently signed up to receive the Moravian Daily Texts. They are awesome little devetionals. Above are some verses they send for meditation upon. I thought I would share my meditations with you. In Psalm 146:8 we recognize that it is repeating the same idea that God opposes the proud and exalts the humble. When we humble ourselves we are free to obey Christ in whatever He would call us to do. Acts 9:6 is an example of that, Paul was humlbed and the Lord spoke to him. Hearing God’s voice for direction necessitates obedience. In order for Paul to be shown more about what His destiny looked like he had to “get up and enter the city.” The same was true for Abraham in Gen 12:1-3 “Go to the land I will show you”, but humility I believe were actions of the heart that had to happen first before this. Now then once you obey You might overhear conversations the Lord is having about His plans, and in the state of humility how can you not want to volunteer (Isa 6:8)? Finally before you ever got to this place of humility and even hearing God’s voice on instructions about what you are supposed to do, or overhearing His conversations, you recognized, He saw you first before you ever saw Him. (John 1:48).

God of Hope, help us to trust in you to lead us, even though the
places in which we find ourselves are often difficult. Grant us
the vision to see how it leads to you. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Hey friends,

It is about that time again that I will bring to you another blog. I wanted to write you and let you know that I am still doing well. Jesus is still saving me, Praise the Lord!

Some fun news is that I am hosting a Taiwanesse guy at my house. He has been here for the last month and a half. To practice English we have been going through the Book of John, and He really likes the part that say they “believed” Jesus as He did miracles or spoke things. Please pray for His salvation.

Another guy I have been talking with is named David and he isn’t following Jesus at all. He has lots of questions about the Bible and seems earnest, but at the same time I think “the god of this age” has blinded his eyes (2 Cor 4:4) from seeing the glory that is found in Christ. He has a hard time letting people pray for him, and anytime he has listened to a sermon he says he hears voices that keep him from hearing the sermon. Oppression is here if you know what I mean. Please pray with me that his eyes would be open to the glory fo the gospel and that he would be set free from the oppression that is keeping him back.

The sad note that my heart aches for is after reading this story “Former Christian Minister now Buddhist monk dies“. The sad thing about this story is he died, without hope and without God. He was lost, and is now suffering in absolute darkness, burning in hell. My heart aches for this man. I can’t help but also think of others like him. Please read the article and know this, there are others within the church that have the same doubts that this man had, and given the right circumstances will come to the same fateful conclusions. “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Heb 3:12-13

Hey friends,

Here is an interesting comment. The devil really tries to cover up truth to keep us from living it. Look at this definition of Hospitality and how it changed. For those of you who don’t know the Webster Dictionary was published in the 1800’s and for Bible study, understanding some of the words in the KJV is more properly understood if you read the definition in the Webster’s 1828 dictionary. Here is what my friend send me in an email regarding this.

I spoke with Clyde Wilton (my greek teacher) today on the phone and he pointed this verse out to me.

Rom 12:13 Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality. (KJV)
Rom 12.13 Contributing to the needs of the saints, pursuing the love of strangers. (Wilton Translation)

Interesting…

Hospitality (Websters 1828) 1. Receiving and entertaining strangers, with kindness and without reward;
Hospitality (www.webster.com) a. given to generous and cordial reception of guests b : promising or suggesting generous and cordial welcome c : offering a pleasant or sustaining environment

So what happened to this definition?