I’ve spent most of my life away from the United States. I moved with my husband and 1 1/2 year old son in 1987 to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) to begin our work as missionaries and we haven’t looked back. This calling, career, and lifestyle (it encompasses all three) isn’t easy to describe. I’ve tried time and again to give an adequate depiction but whenever I try, something is missing.
Something is missing in Florida
I have a vivid memory from the mid 1980s, before we left for Africa. I was standing in my mother’s kitchen in Florida. We were making dinner together and I looked out the window and said to her, “I feel like something is missing. I want to go work as a missionary in Africa.” She was a bit flustered and puttered around not knowing what to say (unusual for Mom always had a comeback). This wasn’t the first time I had mentioned missions service to her, I’d had dreams of Africa since I was a little girl. In retrospect she likely wasn’t surprised. My mom knew more than she let on.
Nothing missing living the dream
Fast-forward a few years and I found myself, with my husband and toddler son, standing in Kalemie, Zaire (DRC). We threw ourselves into learning language and culture. Jamie was happier than I’d ever seen him and I bounced from pillar to post learning how to stand on my own two feet. It was a whole new world for all of us. We were living our dream, every sunrise was magical.
A lot of work went into transitioning from the USA to Africa. Everything I knew, from language and how to prepare meals, was different. Even church and ministry life was different. I was accustomed to being faithful to church but had no idea how much that would change in Africa. Church and ministry became our life’s breath. There weren’t movie theaters for entertainment. Nor was there a TV to turn on to distract us in the evening. For news, we tuned into the Voice of America radio broadcast (now it’s even available online).
It was a steep learning curve but I was determined to make it. Somehow, I managed to learn and even began enjoying my new way of life. By the time we were five years into missions work, we had an unspoken understanding between us that this was going to be our life’s work. We were on the continent for the long-haul. There was nothing missing, no we weren’t turning back.
Without Publix something is missing
Life overseas is different. Especially in the developing world. It’s impossible to know what might happen from day to day. My normal went from having a Publix supermarket (if you know, you know, without Publix something is missing, really) nearby that I could run to for a quick dinner, to having to plan meals around what I could find in the open air market. It was time consuming and often stressful. Especially when we lived in wartime conditions or during economic embargoes as we found ourselves in when living in Burundi during the 1990s. It was not unusual for me to have large quantities of rice and beans in the pantry because we never knew when fighting would heat up. So, we had to be prepared.
The ministry grew from Burundi to other nations over the years that followed. Churches and outreaches were born and it was, and is, fulfilling. And, we were tired. But there was no stopping the landslide of work that we found ourselves in. There were newsletters and reports that had to be written to keep partners and supporters aware of what was going on. We also had to itinerate from time to time to raise funds and grow our partner base.
The world’s worst fundraisers
I found fundraising to be especially difficult. My husband Jamie and I are probably the world’s worst fundraisers according to what is expected when fundraising. We are of the opinion, like Hudson Taylor the founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM), that if we simply obey God, He will take care of what we need. Nothing will be missing. People are aware that it takes money to do what we do. If they want to know more and ask us, we provide information. It’s been challenging many times, but God has always come through. I never want to be known as the person who whines and cries about partners and support because God is bigger than that.
”God’s work done God’s way will never lack God’s supply.”
Hudson Taylor
Proving myself
What happened to me over the years, unconsciously, was the need to prove myself worthy of the support of our partners. There’s a silent understanding among missionaries that because our lives and ministries depend on partners and their donations, there is little room for personal enjoyment and rest. I felt, and still struggle with, feeling guilty when taking time off or going on a vacation. When itinerating, if someone says something like, “How was your vacation?” I’m quick to correct them and say, “Well, it’s not a vacation when we travel, it’s work.” And it is work, but we should make resting more of a priority than we have. There are many who have burned out of missionary work simply because something is missing in their lives. The burden becomes too heavy and instead of burning on, they burn out.
Connecting the dots
I did well for a number of years to keep up with the manic pace of life. It was easier then because I was young and full of energy. But even the young can burn out given the right circumstance. It took working myself almost to death (literally) to begin to connect the dots to what I was doing wrong.
During the Burundian civil war of the 1990s, I worked hard with a team of volunteers from the church to feed children displaced by the war. The fighting led to there being tens of thousands of internal refugees (displaced persons) in our city at the time. Therefore, it was natural for me to begin feeding. How could I justify sleeping soundly every night when I could do something to help those who were hungry?
It’s up to me
God supplied in miraculous ways. From 1995-2000 we fed 1,500 children in the displaced camps Monday through Friday. It was incredibly rewarding and incredibly stressful. We faced grenade attacks, theft, and the normal stresses of working with large teams of people. Added to this was the stress of having to account for the money that was sent to fund the project. I made sure every penny was accounted for, and I still go to great lengths to make sure all is balancing. Maybe I should have been an accountant?
After a couple of years of unending war, the countries surrounding Burundi enforced an economic embargo on the country. They supposed that this embargo would force peace negotiations among the warring parties. On the contrary, it made the rich grow richer and the poor, poorer. Our lives and work became doubly difficult. Medication, food, and fuel were difficult to find. In addition, flights in and out of the country ceased. Normal childhood vaccinations ran out. So, children weren’t vaccinated. This resulted in waves of measles, whooping cough, and even diphtheria (the d” of the Td tetanus vaccine) sweeping through the city. Many hundreds, if not thousands, died needlessly.
Exhausted with a sore throat
By then, I had worked myself to exhaustion. I had to do the work, I told myself, because no one else would. Local government officials were in contact with me and asked me to participate in a weekly meeting of organizations working in the city. I went to these meetings a few times and was angered by the lack of progress and ended up excusing myself. It’s up to me, echoed in my mind.
One morning, after one of those meetings, I woke up with a sore throat. I was usually able to shake those kinds of things off but that sore throat stuck around. I went to the doctor and was told that my problem wasn’t my throat. My blood tests were positive for malaria. I took the prescribed medication but didn’t get better. A few days later, my throat was so sore I could barely speak. And my neck and swollen to double its normal size. The doctor took a sample off my throat and sent it to the lab at the university hospital. In the meanwhile, he put me on intravenous quinine and heavy doses of antibiotics.
Not recovering quietly
All of this happened at home, Bujumbura is not where you want to be hospitalized. I was sick for many days before the lab results came in. My tests showed I had diphtheria. Because we had not been able to travel out and update our vaccines (as we usually did when traveling), my Td vaccine lapsed and I contracted the disease. I had to take several weeks off to recover. And, instead of recovering quietly, I stressed over how things were going to get done at the feeding outreach. But, the work did go on and I slowly understood that the work was God’s to worry about, not my own. My body has its limits, unlike God who has no limits.
Something was missing in my words
Of course I would say all the right words when talking about the outreach. But in those words, something was missing. I’d say that the work was God’s, that He is in control, yada, yada. But my actions spoke otherwise. The work had taken place, front and center, and I was proud of it. Until, that is, I was knocked to my knees and realized that the work really was God’s. He doesn’t need me to get His work done, He gives me opportunity to work with Him. I had begun to worship the things that I said I was doing for God. I was proud of my achievement.
Ok, you might be thinking I’m being harsh. Maybe I am. But the truth of the matter is that no matter what we do, even good and “godly” things, should never be done for any reason other than partnering with God. When we partner with Him, He bears the load (see Matt. 11:28-30). This way, we can push the “stop” button at nighttime and relax. He is truly in control even when it seems He is not.
My idol was my work
In today’s day and age our idols can come in many forms that aren’t classically considered to be idols. But they are idols nonetheless. I felt I had to measure up to what I was doing. The feeding outreach gave me a sense of pride. My work became my idol as my identity was tied to it. I had forgotten that I was a child of God before I was anything else. Before being a wife, mother, or missionary, God is my Father and He wants to include me in what He does – not the other way around.
Our lives aren’t meant to be lived apart from God. If we try to work without Him, we will quickly find that something is missing. Our efforts just don’t do enough to fit the bill. You see, everything we do is linked to who He is. And if we can disconnect from our pride and connect to His power, what He can accomplish will go far beyond what we can imagine.
Some strange paths
We have come far from those days in Burundi. The work has grown in obscurity. We aren’t famous, we don’t want to be. God forbid we get any credit for anything good that has been done. It is God’s Kingdom that is expanding and we get to participate in what He’s doing. We have seen more than we could have ever dreamed possible. This journey has taken us on some strange paths that I wouldn’t have thought of – but here we are. We’re living the dream, His dream, and it’s amazing.
Lesson learned? Less really is more, less of me and more of Him.
