Beyond Urbana (1976)
by Edward Beach
Earlier this year I was taking a shower. It was one of those invigorating, blood-chilling, only-happens-at-camp type of showers. That's partly why I'll never forget the conversation that I overheard on the other side of the dormitory wall. One Christian said to another, "I could never be a missionary! I have no idea at all what God has in mind for me after college - but for sure it's not missionary work."
Six years ago tonight I had reached a similar conclusion. As a student who had just arrived for Urbana 70, I sat in this Assembly Hall thinking, "I could never be a missionary! For one thing, missionaries speak all kinds of exotic languages that are impossible to learn. I failed high school French, so I know that God can't possibly want me to be a missionary. I'm going to be an architect. That's what I'm studying and that's what excites me, so that's what I'll be."
Well, my life has turned out quite unexpectedly, and I want to tell you about it. I want to share with you how God has changed my plans and blessed me in ways that I had never conceived of. My future seemed to be in architecture and I was eagerly looking forward to it. So I went to Urbana full of the confidence that everything was set. It was fun to go to a mission conference "knowing" that I was not one of the elect bound for Bungabungaland. But God wanted to change that attitude, and Urbana 70 was the place where he did it. It was there that he planted a seed of desire in me to do whatever he wanted, wherever he wanted me to do it.
At the end of the conference, I said, "God, I want you to exercise your sovereign lordship over my life. I want you to make my future to suit your desires, whatever they are, rather than mine. I do not know whether you want me in overseas work or right here at home. But I will pray and follow wherever you lead.
But my willingness did not indicate my readiness. In contrast to my own immaturity and lack of vision, I saw the quality of life that characterized the speakers at Urbana 70 and a number of the people in our Inter-Varsity group. I wanted to see that same kind of quality in my life as a student.
Personally, I've never found it all that easy to be both a Christian and a student at the same time. There always seemed to be enough activities vying for my attention to fill a 48-hour day. So often I wished that I could give up being a student just long enough to do the 854 zillion items on my list of things to do. But I saw clearly that God wanted me to integrate my Christianity and my student role, not to divide them. He wanted me to bear witness to my fellow students not as a non-student but as one who shares in their joys and dreams, troubles and trials. And plainly the Lord regarded a 24-hour day as being plenty long enough. Gradually, out of the kaleidoscope of exams and Bible study, prayer meetings and sleepless nights in the design studio, evangelism projects and computer programs came a growing understanding of my priorities as a Christian student.
The fellowship and training of our IVCF group was always an invaluable help to me. The friendship of those brothers and sisters who so patiently loved me is still an encouragement and model to me. They showed me in living-walking-talking terms what it means to be a servant like the Lord Jesus. For instance, their desire to pray for people, both alone and together, was infectious. I'd never talked to God so much in all my life! Nor had I ever known that prayer was so refreshing! I remember sitting in the deserted shadows of this Assembly Hall on some bitter cold winter nights, sometimes praising God, sometimes pouring out my troubles to him. I found that the stress and strain of being a student gave me a lot to pray about.
It was through IVCF that I learned the in-depth Bible study methods that helped me to dig deeply into God's Word and to apply scriptural truths to my life as a student. I doubt that I would ever have established a daily time of prayer and Bible study if it had not been for the encouragement and instruction that I received. That "daily quiet time" with the Lord meant more for my growth as a Christian student than anything else. And it is still that way.
I'll never forget some of the struggles that I encountered trying to maintain that time alone with the Lord. I always found it hard to concentrate with the typical distractions of speakers rumbling away at peak power, water balloons and hallway arguments. One day I decided to see what calmness the local cemetery might add to my devotions. As I was praying there with thankfulness that God should provide such a place, I looked up and behold! Coming towards me was a fleet-footed pair of aspiring Olympic runners hurdling tombstones while a sketching class was busily capturing the frenzied serenity of my graveyard. When the gardener came by tractoring his gang-mower, I said, "Amen," and left.
Finally a whole year had passed since Urbana 70 and still I was unsure where the Lord wanted me to serve him. I began to spend hours writing out long prayers. I asked him again and again what I was supposed to do with my life. I talked with missionaries whenever I could, read missionary biographies and investigated different types of cross-cultural ministries. The more I prayed and investigated the more and more desirous I became of getting into some kind of overseas work. Out of my muddled confusion came a confidence that God was indeed leading me and that I needed to stay ready and be open to whatever direction he might point me in. But student life was the role and mission field that God had given me. So I continued to involve myself in the work at hand.
Whether in the design studio or snack bar, I tried my best to share with people in both verbal and non-verbal terms what the gospel meant. I never felt that I had any unusual evangelistic ability but the more I talked with people about Jesus, the more I sensed an overwhelming priority that the gospel needed to be heard and understood and acted on.
The last exam of my junior year was finally over. The broiling heat of an Urbana summer had begun to set in and I looked forward to trading it for the cool forests of Canada and a job at Ontario Pioneer Camp. One day a Wycliffe couple stopped in at the camp to show a film about the Aguacatec people of Guatemala they had been working with. That excited me because I was already very interested in Wycliffe. The film told how this couple had gone to live with the Aguacatecos and had translated the Scriptures for them. As a result, first one man became a Christian, then his family and then practically the whole village. As native evangelists brought the translated Scriptures to surrounding towns, many more people became Christians and a maturing indigenous church was raised up.
When I saw that, I knew beyond all doubt that that was what God wanted me to do. The need was clear: 2000 languages existed where God's Word was not available. Moreover, I had become a Christian through reading the Bible on my own. I knew personally the power and importance of God's Word. My months of prayers were answered as the Holy Spirit seemed to say within me, "I want you to translate my Word for those who do not have it." God has many ministries for his people, but finally I knew which one he had for me.
It was after this happened that God guided in other decisions. Most important was that Elenore and I became engaged just before our senior year. That was an exciting year, and part of the excitement was sharing with people the new plans that God had given us. I remember telling one of my design instructors. She thought that the whole thing was a ridiculous idea and that I should forget such nonsense and stick with architecture. Unfortunately for her side, her argument made me more determined than ever to get into translation work.
Elenore's anthropology professor couldn't find enough ways to encourage her in her studies - until the day she told him that she was going to do a Bible translation for a minority language group. Instantly he began to tell her how huge and horrid and lethal the mosquitoes were in the kinds of regions that we would be working in. We were thankful, to say the least, for the more positive encouragement of fellow Christians.
Soon we had graduated, were married and were working 40-hour weeks. It was during that first year of marriage that we applied to join Wycliffe and to take the first semester of training that they required for translators.
We were flying high when we arrived for the summer-long course in linguistics. We sensed that we were right in the center of God's will.
Then the bomb hit. The work was hard. I don't mean just hard. To me, it seemed impossible. "How can I do this for the rest of my life?" I thought. That's what I said the first week. Then the second week came. "What do you think I am, God? Can't you see that this is impossible? Yes, I know about Philippians 4:13, but did you ever study linguistics? There are a hundred things I can do better than this! And at least a thousand things that I would rather do! I'm simply no good at this, God. I can't do it!"
But I did do it. And somehow, the Lord kept me going through all nine weeks. I learned to analyze the grammar and phonology of languages that I had never even heard of before. Learning to say those "exotic, impossible-to-learn" sounds turned out to be quite possible and even fun.
I began to learn some other things that summer too. Like about how the Lord provides strength and ability when my strength is nil and my ability worthless. I realized that maybe the reason God wanted me there was not because I had all the qualifications of a great missionary - as I had hoped I had but rather because he wanted me to come to know more of himself and to be made just a little bit more like his Son.
We became more convinced than ever that we were where God wanted us. And when Wycliffe accepted us as members, it was a confirmation that they too knew where God wanted us. Our two home churches were both very excited about how the Lord was leading, so that was yet another confirmation of his will. We sensed that our next step should be to go to Wycliffe's Jungle Training Camp in southern Mexico.
The word jungle conjures up all sorts of nightmares in people's minds. They think of giant boa constrictors dropping out of trees or of being lost in a steaming tropical rain forest. But Jungle Camp is none of that. It is training in the skills of cross-cultural living and has been the most valuable experience that God has given me along that line.
What do I mean by a "valuable" cross-cultural experience? I mean things like learning successfully to handle the stress of a new system of relationships, learning genuinely to enjoy another culture and learning to be a gracious guest in a land that is not your own. Everybody and everything around you becomes your teacher.
Some of my teachers were pint-sized - like the little boy who came just to stare at me and wouldn't go away because I was the closest thing to a Martian that he had ever seen. Situations taught me a lot too - like battling with the "Aztec two-step" when the only out-house in the village was still under construction. You see, jungle Camp is training in real life problem-solving.
We had the opportunity to experience all kinds of stresses like coping with a change of roles. The greenhorn missionary leaves home as a leader, an innovator and supposedly a spiritual giant. But in Jungle Camp all that the Tzeltal Indians noticed was that I couldn't swing a machete without getting blisters, that I had an awful time speaking their language (they had no trouble at all with it) and that I owned enough pairs of shoes to shod all of the important men in town. The only way that I was a giant to them was by my physical stature.
Village living is the most romantic part of jungle Camp. We were assigned by pairs to live in a Tzeltal village for six weeks. That means living in a one-room but with all the ancient conveniences of a dirt floor, mud walls, a thatch roof and running water, of course, down the path about 200 meters. Our forty days and forty nights there were both traumatic and a barrel of laughs.
To get water each day I had to walk through the cluster of other dwellings to the stream. Often I tried to slink past, hoping to spare myself another awkward conversation. But one day someone stepped out from the shadows and said, "Don Eduardo, bin yac apas?" I knew the question. I had to answer it a hundred times a day. He wanted to know what I was doing. But now I didn't know how to answer.
Finally I just gave up and said, "Ma' jna." ("I don't know what I'm doing.") Then my friend would look at me very puzzled, contemplate the water buckets I was carrying and my direction of travel and say, "Max ana, don Eduardo." ("You don't know what you're doing.") That really bothered me. Of course he was just trying to be friendly but why did he always call me "don"? Don Eduardo. I had no idea what "don" meant and I had never heard them address each other that way. To my ears, it sounded like "dumb." Don Eduardo, Dumb Edward.
"Dumb Ed, what are you doing?" "I don't know."
" Dumb Ed, you don't know."
Later, I humbly learned that "don" is a Spanish term of respect. I also finally realized that I was the only man in the village making those daily trips to the stream. That was an embarrassing way to be reminded that their culture is drawn on a different map than mine.
How would you communicate something of the gospel to people who only speak a language that you are just beginning to learn? Put yourself in our shoes as I translate an attempt that Elenore and I made after only a few weeks of Tzeltal study.
Gringo: "Do you know where you are going after you die?"
Tzeltali: "No. Do you know where you'll go after you die?"
Gringo: "Yes."
Tzeltali: "Where?"
Gringo: "To heaven. To be with Jesus."
Tzeltali: "Can I go too?"
Gringo: "Yes!"
Tzeltali: "Tell me how."
Silence. What a fantastic opportunity! But I don't know enough Tzeltal to answer! Here I am, supposedly a real live missionary standing right in the field white unto harvest and I can't do what 536 people back home are praying that I'll do.
When the silence seemed unbearable, my wife grabbed a Tzeltal translation of the New Testament and asked one of the more educated fellows to read John 3:16 to everybody present. So he read it. And then he read verse 17, and then 18 and then 19. Syllable by syllable he read them, all the way through to the end of the chapter. And after each syllable there was a thoughtful pause while the next one was studied out. The powerful sword of the Spirit glanced off the coat of illiteracy. We were reminded again that part of our disciple-making ministry would obligatorily include teaching people to read.
A friend of ours has said that the missionary's first months away from the homeland is the world's best kept secret. You can't send home thrilling accounts about conquering the powers of darkness or of thousands being saved. It's hard to tell people that you're still trying to figure out how to talk. It's tough to explain all of your Charlie Brown experiences, all of the blunders that make you feel like a dummy. Under the stress of cross-cultural living, my humanness sticks out all over the place. I've seen how some of the fruits of the Spirit were not as ripe in me as I'd thought. I've been forced to ask myself, "Who am I for this task? Why does God want me? Why did he change my plans?"
I believe that he has changed my plans because he wants me to know more of the glory, more of the infinite expanse of love, wisdom and power that is uniquely his. And he wants others to know it who do not. He wants me to worship him in a way that I would not have otherwise, as well as to bring other worshipers into his kingdom. He wants to make me and you and others more and more like Jesus.
Beyond Urbana. I wonder what's beyond Urbana 76 for us. In August, Elenore and I made our first visit to the area of Guatemala where we hope to work. It's a beautiful place. The rugged mountains soar up from valleys at three-thousand foot altitude to peaks of ten and eleven thousand feet. The people are beautiful too and we loved them at first sight. But there is a great darkness in that place because God's Word has never been available in their language. We are so anxious to bring them that message which will dispel their darkness. We long for the Lord to build part of his kingdom there. We want to see men and women who are truly disciples, growing strong in faith and in their knowledge of God and his Word. We desire for the glory of the Lord to be declared and praised in that place.
I've told you how God has led and blessed me since being a student at Urbana 70. I knew nothing then of what he had in store for me. But I asked him to lead me. Since then, he has directed me on a totally unexpected path and I've experienced his abundant goodness at every turn. I wonder what he has for you beyond Urbana. Although none of us knows for certain what lies ahead, I do know one thing for certain. I want nothing else but to follow him.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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