Our pastor’s wife in Japan recently texted me that her son, a close friend of our four boys, is the only boy coming to church these days. She mentioned that he is a bit lonely and isn’t enjoying church as much since we left for our six-month home assignment.
I immediately thought of the churches we’ve attended since being back in the US: dozens and dozens of kids, oodles of involved parents, pastors, and volunteers, and robust children’s programs. And my heart ached, realizing that a big part of me wants this for our boys. I want them to grow up seeing many children going to church and worshiping, surrounded by moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, neighbors and friends. I want it to be normal and not weird.
Then this thought came to mind and I jotted it down with a sigh: I’m willing to be uncomfortable for you.
When I was younger, I thought missions was about going on an adventure with God. I imagined reporting back to churches about miracles, revivals, and various ways I had been “a shining light to the nations.” I was so naive and so sincere and so self-focused.
I’ve shared this before, but when my idealistic bubble popped shortly after beginning my first term, I had a prayer time hissy fit — a full-on tantrum —- when I became aware of both my own weaknesses and the feebleness of missions. I remember praying, “This is your plan? A bunch of well-intentioned yet sincerely screwed up missionaries? Just . . . people?! If you really loved the world, you could have and should have come up with a better plan.” (And then I cried and said I was sorry.)
The years have added up, and the terms (measured in three-, four-, and five-year blocks) have too. So much beauty, so much heartbreak, so many stories (who knew being a person meant holding so many stories?), so many disappointments, and also so many blessings. Over these past twenty years, I can say that God sustains, reveals, hides, whispers — and is so, so patient and so, so merciful.
But going does not get easier.
At the beginning of this home assignment, I read on Liturgies for a Life Abroad:
The first time I came overseas, I didn’t fully know what I was saying “yes” to, which was hard.
The second, third, fourth time I came overseas, I knew exactly what I was saying “yes” to, which was even harder.
It’s brave to go, but perhaps it’s even braver to keep going.
The longer I live in Japan, the more it feels like my home. That said, it is and will always be uncomfortable in many ways — as a gaijin (foreigner) but especially as a Christian. And I like comfort. So going back for yet another term (fourth in Japan and fifth overall), my current missionary motivation might very well be, “I am willing to be uncomfortable for you.” Because I love you. Because Jesus loves you.
Perhaps that’s enough motivation.
Yet the preposition “for” feels a little off somehow — incomplete. Over the years, I have seen missionaries come to Japan eager to do missions to Japanese people and for Japanese people and fewer people interested in doing missions with Japanese people. They may use “with” language, but their postures and behaviors show otherwise.
I have shifted over time, too, but now strongly believe that “with” is our primary role and privilege as missionaries.1 So maybe I need to change my wording to “I am willing to be uncomfortable for you and with you.” I still need for, which recognizes that I am coming from the outside, that I am living out of my comfort zone and out of my culture. Including with means I know that the Christian life is inherently lonelier2 in Japan than in other parts of the world, and we can link arms with other Christians there as we hobble forward together.
Yet I cannot escape the fact that going back to Japan involves discomfort and going to a lonelier place for all six of us. It involves a lot of beauty, too (free range kids! forests and beaches and mountains! kind neighbors and church friends! fresh tuna! people and places and things we love!). But it also means a lot of concrete, a lot of overworked parents, fewer dads (by a wide margin), life in an aging city in an aging country, and living in the reality of less than one percent of people knowing Jesus.
This willingness to be uncomfortable for and with those across cultures is what we signed up for as missionaries. It is a holy burden we bear — both a privilege and a grief. And in some small way, it gives us a glimpse into what our incarnational God did. He crossed cultures to live among us and experienced extreme discomfort because of His love for us — and He invites us to follow His example.
1. Really smart people address this “with is greater than to and for” thing much more eloquently and intelligently than I can. Yet it needs to be said in short: “to” and “for” people can be part of the neocolonial model of missions, which is not best practice.
2. A lot of us who try to follow Jesus are called to go to lonely places and to lonely people. The way of Jesus is noticing, going to, and loving the shut-ins and those in jail or foster homes or lonely homes. It is noticing, going to, and loving those without families and the prickly and unlovely and even our enemies. Many do this across the street or across town; others do this across oceans or cultures.
