Send Me! Your Journal to the Nations
Getting Ready - Step 3
My Story: Wake Up, Let’s Grow!
Looking at the World Through Holy Spirit Glasses
Linda Olson
As Prema limped into the room where I was waiting to counsel teenage girls, her brown eyes, full of tears, caught mine. Earlier in the day, I had spoken to her South Indian school group about God’s unconditional love. Now our interpreter beckoned Prema to join us and began asking questions. Finally, the interpreter turned to me with the story.
Prema had become a Christian - much to the horror of her devout Hindu family. After beating her severely when they heard of her new faith, they forbade her to attend after-school Bible club meetings. Still, the 13-year-old studied the Scripture whenever possible.
“Should I obey my parents and continue to wear the vermilion dot on my forehead, symbolizing my allegiance to the god Shiva?” she asked me now. “Or should I be bold for Christ, refuse to wear it, and risk another beating?” Then she raised her sari and exposed a small leg, badly swollen from the beating.
Stunned, my heart was filled with sympathy, anger, and confusion. What could I tell her? It seemed nothing in my training had prepared me for this. None of the answers fit. I wanted the right thing for her. I wanted “living for Jesus” to mean goodness and wholeness and love and laughter. Oh, what some parents back home would give to have a daughter so committed to Christ. I fumbled through some answer emphasizing the Lord’s love for her and knowledge of her heart. Then I went back to my Indian host family and cried.
A New Shade
of Lenses
Until
this point, I had been on a short-term mission in India hoping to share the
Lord. Now I had to wrestle with the realities of being a Christian and an Indian.
I still wanted to share Jesus, but I now knew I would have to take off my own
culture-tinted glasses and put on an entirely different shade of lenses.
When God takes us on a journey like mine in India, there is tremendous opportunity for personal growth. Like me, many Christians have a naive view of servanthood. We want to serve where we know we are using our gifts, we know what is required, and we are sure we’ll make a difference.
A short-term venture - where the norms of culture and the ways of people are not our own - often shakes our minds and hearts loose from our own assumptions about being a servant for Christ. It can redefine and enrich our view of discipleship and of the Lord we serve. We find ourselves more attuned to God’s agenda for the world, less concerned about ourselves, and more open to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Whether we feel we have nothing to offer or feel we can change the world, a short-term experience puts our personal usefulness to God into a balanced perspective. Few short-termers come claiming to have changed the world in the two weeks or two years they’ve been gone. But most return with a humble sense that God has used them in His great kingdom gathering. When that humility is in place, the Holy Spirit can do great things through us.
The benefits of a short-term mission go beyond those experienced by the short-termer. When careful planning and training are part of the venture, the receiving community profits greatly. Many ministries around the world badly need the resources we sometimes hoard and even take for granted. They need buildings for shelter and worship. Wells to unite a village. Life-saving technology too long withheld for lack of profit. Evangelism with a creative new twist. Discipleship training from in-depth biblical resources.
This and much more can be offered in loving servanthood by those who come, do a job, and return home to pray. Christians outside our culture have a wealth of gifts for us as well - vision, wisdom, simplicity, commitment - often born of struggle. As we honor the church God is building outside our sociopolitical boundaries, short-term mission can provide a strong network of prayer and care across cultural lines.
A Ripple Effect
Home
churches enjoy a tremendous ripple effect from short-termers. The sending process
often involves people who might never have given mission a thought. As friends
invest personally in the lives of those going and returning in a short time,
their own vision for mission is challenged and renewed. In turn, those returning
bring a more realistic understanding of the needs of nationals and career missionaries.
They come home to lead others in prayer and support.
There is a powerful contagion spread by the Holy Spirit from those who return to the community of believers who sent them. Through the stories and lives of returning short-termers, God calls more and more to join His team of followers - people committed to seeing the Good News extend throughout the world.
After watching several peers make sacrifices for short-term ministry, a young man in my church accepted the Lord’s call. He gave up a fine job and entered seminary to prepare for long-term cross-cultural service. A student group that sent several members on a summer mission project began praying regularly and passionately for the community they had visited. Some retirees - after spending a month away investing their professional gifts - returned to recruit others for a program benefiting the homeless right in our own city.
God is using short-term mission to awaken the church worldwide. He is using the Premas of the world to change the hearts of His people and to give them a humble passion for making His name known.
Linda Olson directs training and debriefing for short-term mission teams for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
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Excerpt from Send Me! Your Journey to the Nations Copyright 1999, World Evangelical Alliance, all rights reserved, reprinted by permission. The entire Send Me! workbook may be purchased online at www.wearesources.org.
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