The world is not our home
August 23rd 2008 09:20
Over the years, I don’t think I’ve been to many moving services in church. They’re a rarity rather than a regular occurrence. However, a few weeks ago we had a missionary couple back home for a visit (the first of two missionary couples in fact, that have been home in recent weeks), and the wife of the couple told us a very moving story about her trip to an island off the coast of Africa. It wasn't moving because the events in the story were particularly remarkable, but because of the way in which she showed great humility in exposing her weaknesses before the congregation, and helping others see that even missionaries need to keep on growing in God.
Having been brought up by strict parents who never showed her love, she finds it hard to reach out easily to other people in any physical way like hugging. But in this island, the children expected that she would touch them and hold them. The only problem was their hair was infested with lice, they had open sores, and they were often filthy. The woman told us how she had to keep on asking God to help her in this, and finally sensed that He told her that if He could come and live amongst ordinary everyday human beings with all their junk and rubbish, then she could do the same. And, with some difficulty, she did.
I don’t think she was saying that she’s broken through her personal barriers in this area, but it was a major step forward.
We tend to have a view of missionaries as being people who are superhuman, and have got their spiritual lives in order. For better or worse, that’s an idealistic view. I work with a woman who was a missionary in South America for nearly thirty years. She’s as down-to-earth and ordinary as I am, and struggles with the same sort of spiritual difficulties I struggle with. It kind of gives you hope!
Having been brought up by strict parents who never showed her love, she finds it hard to reach out easily to other people in any physical way like hugging. But in this island, the children expected that she would touch them and hold them. The only problem was their hair was infested with lice, they had open sores, and they were often filthy. The woman told us how she had to keep on asking God to help her in this, and finally sensed that He told her that if He could come and live amongst ordinary everyday human beings with all their junk and rubbish, then she could do the same. And, with some difficulty, she did.
I don’t think she was saying that she’s broken through her personal barriers in this area, but it was a major step forward.
We tend to have a view of missionaries as being people who are superhuman, and have got their spiritual lives in order. For better or worse, that’s an idealistic view. I work with a woman who was a missionary in South America for nearly thirty years. She’s as down-to-earth and ordinary as I am, and struggles with the same sort of spiritual difficulties I struggle with. It kind of gives you hope!
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