a missionary's heart

I caught the last half hour of a presentation tonight from a couple that recently returned from a stint in Asia.

When they came to the last slide - a picture of their friends, taken at the airport as this family was leaving to return to the U.S. - I heard it.

It was a catch in the voice of the young women describing the scene . . . her husband took over, she couldn't proceed. As he continued, I watched her wipe away the tears.

I remembered a similar incident over twenty years ago. I sat at a dinner a small church was holding for an elderly missionary couple. They had returned after a lifetime devoted in the field. I don't remember his name or where he had come from, I just remember how that old man's voice broke as he talked about the folks he had left behind.

He had been told he was too old, it was better for him to come on home and rest. He cried as he tried to describe how much he yearned to return.

What is it that can capture a person's heart so much as to make them give up willingly the comforts of a familiar culture, nearby family, and the convenience of home?

I think it is the heart of the missionary.
That's the compelling force that draws them away. Furthermore, I don't think that missionary heart will soon let go of its burden.

Paul was one of the first missionaries of the church. All it took was a dream of man calling to him to "Come over into Macedonia and help us!" and Paul and his team headed for Macedonia.
That heart kept drawing him away until he said "I must also preach the gospel at Rome" and he did. That's where that heart finally let him go.

I have never been on a missionary journey - unless you count that stint in Alabama - so I can't fully understand that pull. I guess I always thought of missionaries as living on a higher echelon than the rest of us. Their lives were adventurous for certain, but I could never rise to that level of saintliness.

Tonight as the Pastor rose to close the service, he mentioned how this couple - like many others - had shown us that ordinary folks - like us - could go.

Ordinary folks . . . hmmm imagine that.

A week or so back, a team of parents, teachers and students from the school our children attend, went on a short term missions trip to New York City. So missionaries don't always have to leave their homeland.

Sometimes a mission trip might take you just across the yard to a neighbor's house.

It might take you across a room as Bill Bright pointed out.

Or it could be just down the hall, to the room of your little child.

I thought about my children tonight and how glad I was that they were being exposed to the possibilities of missions.

I remembered that in my own experience: the "Missions" emphasis was usually relegated to one service per year and it was mostly about making a pledge.

I do remember one missionary who came to our church with a slide show; he had traveled to Africa and ate a rat. He didn't travel there for that express purpose - it just came up while he was there. But that piece of information has stayed with me these long years . . . and may have done a lot to frame my thinking.

But tonight my kids had a chance to hear from an ordinary family with kids close to their own age as they discussed their great heart for people that were different . . . .

. . . a great heart that was given to them by an extraordinary God.