It can be hard to imagine what the reality of missionary life is truly like, before you've experienced it firsthand. We asked some of our missionaries about the gap between their expectations and experiences on the field.
I know that I imagined things happening much more quickly.
I thought the local church partners would catch the vision we had for starting small groups that would multiply and reach across the ethnic and cultural barriers where we lived, and that the SEND team would be unified in this. But, what I found is that others in the church and the SEND team had their own visions, priorities, or assumptions about how things should happen. I had to spend a lot of time building their trust, growing in my experience and slowly bringing people along in the vision God had given me. I needed to do this while also understanding how that might fit in with the visions God has given to others. In it all, I was continually challenged with the need to pray and to bring others into prayer so that God would work, and channeling less of my focus on my plan for how things should work. What is great, is that despite many of my original ideas not happening as I imagined, God has let me see parts of what I envisioned happening in ways I never pictured. That has allowed me to see other things happen that I never even thought about.
It involves a lot more time on the computer doing paperwork than I imagined!
I am a part of a non-governmental organization that provides community development efforts. To do this effectively, there is a significant amount of planning and paperwork involved. I also did not anticipate how challenging it would be to work without a consistent routine or schedule. I am simply in charge of completing my responsibilities, leaving lots of freedom for creativity.
I have mentioned this before, but the moments in between activities, the moments where I am simply being present with others and speaking truth into their lives have brought forth the most fruit in our ministry. The majority of these encounters have been unplanned. We intentionally seek them out and create space for them, but they often happen spontaneously. The programs we run are important, but it's not all we do.
For most of my life, I never imagined myself becoming a missionary or thought that it was what I would end up doing.
Formerly, my concept of what missionaries were was that they were people who lived in a jungle, ate bugs, created an alphabet for a native tribe, and then translated the Bible to share with them. While that is true in some regards and there are indeed people who do that, I never heard about the need for missionaries and the gospel in more developed parts of the world, particularly Europe. As a missionary, I live in a major city in Europe, have a car, go grocery shopping and my life here is the opposite of what I imagined missions to be. A lot of times my work is having coffee or ice cream with a young person and discipling them.
One friend of mine explained his work as a missionary as being a professional friend.
At first, this explanation sounded too simple, but I have since found it to contain some truth. I also didn’t realize how much work goes into serving the mission and mission community. Sometimes, I wonder if we are doing more for the mission than the target people. Finding the balance is more difficult than I previously expected.
Find out how you can become a SEND missionary.
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