Sent to Need

American missionaries are weird. I can say that because I am one. (thinks to self, “actually, I probably shouldn’t write that”…shrugs and continues writing). The entire setup of how we even get ourselves from selling our homes to arriving in that foreign airport is also weird. We get commissioned and sent by our churches, which is how it should be. However, something happens in between the “surrender” and the “sending” that sets us up for certain disaster. We find ourselves selling our souls vision to churches and unsuspecting friends and family. We cast these visions for a place that we have never lived, for a culture we don’t yet understand and among people who did not invite us. 

The scariest part about this pre-field venture is that, somewhere along the way, we begin to believe what we are saying. Listen, I’m not saying that prayerfully planning, dreaming, and casting vision with expectation of what God can do is wrong. I am only asking if it strikes anyone else as odd that we get “sent to serve” before being “sent to learn.”  

I wish it was more like this: “Hi. I am sent to need. When I arrive in this foreign land, I will have no welcoming party. No one will know my name or my kid’s names and no one will be thankful for our arrival. I will need help. I won’t really have much to offer. It will be humiliating. I won’t be “serving” for years.  I will be busy learning how to buy vegetables and use pay-as-you-go electricity. I won’t have an easy time making friends (let alone making disciples) because the extent of my language skills “how much are bananas” doesn’t take anyone from stranger to friend easily. If I can let go of my desperate desire to prove myself (and instead humble myself to receive, to need, and to ask for help) then I may be able to last long enough to start that “serving” that I was envisioning on pre-field. I may even learn different and better ways to serve others and share the Good News from the people who know more than I do about their culture – because it’s theirs.

This may seem odd to American Christians. Aren’t we supposed to serve? Yes, of course. But let’s do a quick case study on the coolest missionary we know, the apostle Paul. Imagine him as a modern missionary (but with a super shady pre-conversion past). This missionary would have all the prerequisites: a doctorate in Jewish ancestral law, fluent in several languages, understanding of culture and with multiple citizenships/passports, the greatest business-as-missions strategies, with the most zealous passion and influential leadership skills. When God called Paul (Saul), he was struck with blindness. This blindness caused him to depend completely upon Ananias, a believer in Damascus. After Paul’s first time preaching in the synagogues, he was almost killed. When he went to join the other disciples in Jerusalem, they didn’t trust his intentions. Imagine his first newsletter, “Hey guys, things are awesome so far (was there something in greek text equivalent to the sarcastic strikethrough?). I need constant help. They want to kill me and the local church doesn’t trust me.”

There is a particular kind of faith and character built from being in need. For most of us, it is far more comfortable to serve. When we serve, we are typically in a state of control. When we need, we relinquish control and depend on others, and more importantly, upon God. Can we come to the mission field more as babies and the blind? Can we come as students instead of the ones with the plans and ideas? Can we come with listening ears instead of busy hands? After almost 13 years of living in East Africa, I can say that the greatest times of ministry and my strongest relationships have come from being in the greatest need. It has come when Tanzanian brothers and sisters reached out their hands to help. Our God has, over and over again, revealed his power and provided his strength in our neediest times. Our never-putting-this-in-a-newsletter moments are often when he is most at work. 

One of those not-for-the-newsletter moments happened for us over 12 years ago, before our missionary Teva sandals had even fully soaked up the stains of red, African soil. We visited a small orphanage just down the road from our language school. A skinny teenage boy named Joseph welcomed us. We showed up that day with a Swahili Children’s Bible and plans to read stories to the children. Only we couldn’t read well enough to be understood. Joseph heard our struggle and gently took the book from our hands. He read the stories to the children as we sat to the side; mortified and humiliated. We couldn’t even read a children’s book. But Joseph wasn’t humiliated. He was proud that he was able to help us. In fact, he began coming to our home on weekends to help us continue to learn Kiswahili. Weekends turned into weeks and weeks into months and eventually Joseph left his home at the orphanage and permanently became part of our family. Fast forward to today. Not only did our inability to read a children’s book bring us a son, it brought us a ministry partner. Joseph came to know Jesus. Through the many ways that Joseph serves the community, hundreds of children, youth and their parents have come to know Jesus. Countless young men have been discipled. Medical ministries are taking place in our city and in villages throughout Tanzania. I look at our son, who is now a remarkable married man and new father, and stand in awe of God’s sovereign plan that came forth from our desperate need.  

Back then, we didn’t write the following in our newsletter: “this week we went to an orphanage and failed at reading the easiest child’s Bible story book available, but God will do something miraculous from this.” We had no idea that, in that specific moment of “failure”, God’s redemptive plan, in Joseph’s life and in many other lives, was at work. I wish someone would have told us that it was okay to fail back then. I wish we knew that being in need was one of the greatest tools that God had given us. Now, looking back, I could fill a book with stories of God working through our neediness…maybe one day I will (I’m just not sure how great the title “sent to need” will connect with my intended audience).  I close this article with a prayer for those who are considering missions, going on a mission’s trip (please, please don’t wear shirts that say anything about “serving the least of these”), for pre-fielders, new missionaries, and for those who have been doing it far longer than we have – may God grant us the faith necessary to admit our need and may it all (even the failures and the sitting to the side), be used for his glory. 

Grace and peace,

-Steph (or one of my favorite titles – Mama Joseph)