“July 15, 2011.”
Each person at the table looked up from their menus in surprise. One of them had simply asked, “When did you come back from the field?” They were probably expecting me to give the year. If they only knew. I could’ve given the minute.
I went on to explain that I had served a three-year term in East Africa. Afterward I had returned home to get married, the wedding only three months after arriving back. Why the hurry? In part because we expected to move back to Africa as career missionaries together as soon as possible. But God had other plans.
The longer I have remained in the U.S., and the more I have surrendered the dream of missionary service in this season of life, the more July 15, 2011 has become a story to be told. It’s like a historic marker posted on a city street. Something significant happened here. Stop and learn.
Perhaps you’ve looked up in surprise as well. What can be gained from missionary service with such an underwhelming and abrupt conclusion? Far more than the disappointment associated with it. I now have a profound sense of the privilege and fleeting nature of being a missionary. And I know how to encourage others as they go.
“What Have I Done?!”
I grew up on a Kentucky farm an hour and a half from any interstate. It was one of those places where people don’t really leave, especially to go overseas. So when I stepped foot onto African soil for the first time, I felt so privileged. From that moment I sensed a clock ticking. This special season was already moving toward its end.
Don’t get me wrong, it was hard. There was the loss of being far from home. The language was difficult. Sickness abounded. Sometimes I said to myself in a panic, “What have I done?!” I had grown up, according to the American idiom, in “the middle of nowhere,” so in theory rural Africa shouldn’t have been a difficult adjustment. But this new “middle of nowhere” lacked the cultural pillars on which my identity had been formed. I struggled.
Still, my awareness of the clock never waned. Wonder always seemed close at hand. Yes, I was experiencing things that many people back home couldn’t imagine. But there was something more. Each time the Holy Spirit attuned me to the gospel, I remembered that I didn’t deserve to be a missionary. In fact, I didn’t even deserve to be a Christian. Near to my heart were Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 1:12 (CSB): “I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful, appointing me to the ministry”.
Like Paul, like any missionary, there were many things to suffer for Jesus’ name (see Acts 9:16). But when I encountered God’s loving presence, it all somehow felt like privilege. A privilege to savor because it could not last.
“I Wanna Stay Here Forever”
Now that I have four daughters, I love taking them on daddy-daughter dates. I’ll never forget taking my firstborn to a movie theater for the first time. As I buckled her into the carseat afterward, I asked, “So, what did you think of going to the movies?” With wide eyes and a dreamy gaze she said, “I love it—I wanna stay here forever!”
As human beings we were made for the eternal. This is why a four year-old, who’s usually only aware of the immediate, could express such transcendent longing. When we experience an environment that’s good and beautiful, we naturally want to stay.
I wanted to stay in Africa. I expected to stay in Africa. Logic said to me:
God asked me to do this.
I want to keep doing this.
So he will let me keep doing this.
But that’s not how it works in this life. Everything has its own July 15, 2011. Wisdom was inviting me to prepare for the end. I was simply too young to realize it could come so soon.
“The Work They Had Fulfilled”
This process of embracing the temporal is perhaps why I’ve been ruminating on a phrase from Acts 14:26. In the context, Paul and Barnabas had been sent as missionaries from the church at Antioch. After preaching the gospel among the Gentiles and forming new disciples into churches, we read that the two men “sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled” (emphasis mine).
Having preached the gospel and planted churches in my time as a missionary, I struggle to see how Paul and Barnabas’ work was fulfilled. As in my own service, the lostness remained vast and the needs of the churches seemingly endless. But the Holy Spirit, who had originally called for and specified “the work” (see Acts 13:2), said it was complete. This comforts me.
It comforts me because when I look back on July 15, 2011 and feel the pangs of unfinished work, a pilot light of hope flickers. Maybe I did everything God wanted me to do. The wider work remained unfinished, of course. It would carry on among the new believers and leaders. But my contribution to it in that particular time and space was—according to God—“fulfilled.”
On days that I can receive such an affirmation, my returning (and remaining) home is without shame. My Father is well-pleased. My joy is complete. My longing is oriented not only backward but forward, toward a place I can stay forever. I already share in Jesus’ job well done. What freedom to labor on!
“When Did You Get Back From the Field?”
It’s likely that someday you’ll be asked the same question I was. Until that moment, the historic marker of my fleeting missionary service might be helpful. The front side reads like this: as long as you have the opportunity to serve, let it be marked by savoring the privilege. Live wisely, even when it’s hard. You’ll soon fly away.
Then for when you do return, the other side of the sign reads like this: direct your ache of longing toward that environment which is truly good and beautiful, God’s new creation. Missionary service isn’t just preparing others for it, it’s preparing you for it. Stop and learn. Let it do its work.
