"So, Where's Home for You?"

It's a question I dread whenever I'm in a new place, meeting new people.  I know that sooner or later someone will ask, "Where's home for you?"  It seems like it should be so simple, just a straightforward one- or two-word answer, like "Chicago" or "New York", but I often find myself hesitating, because for me the answer is not so simple.

Mind you, I'm not offended when people ask me.  I appreciate this sort of getting-to-know-you small talk that always happens when you first meet someone, and I'm happy to engage in it.  It isn't their fault that I'm not sure how to answer.

The difficulty is not so much that I don't have a home.  I have too many of them.  It really ought to be a multiple choice question:

(A) Australia
(B) USA (with three or four several possible options within the US...)
(C) Chad
(D) All of the above
(E) None of the above

I'd like to answer (D), except that doesn't really answer the question "where are you from?" very well.  It's just so hard to choose between my different options...

(A) Australia

As most of you know, I'm an MK: my parents were missionaries in Australia for 36 years.  If you know much about MKs, you know that we are usually pretty confused about where we are from, and I'm no exception.  Growing up in Australia, I loved the country deeply, and I still do.  It is a beautiful and fascinating land, with lovely people living in a fun-loving, laid-back culture.  It's been fifteen years since I left Australia to go to Bible college in America, but I still feel so comfortable in Australia, and I look forward to those rare occasions when I can visit it again (ah, if only Australia wasn't so far away from everything!).  Yes, even after all these years, Australia is still home.

(B) USA

Although I've spent less than a third of my life in America, I haven't forgotten that I have an American heritage.  Actually, my first ancestors came to the US nearly 400 years ago.  I myself lived in America for about ten years.  I have enjoyed being able to experience the incredible variety of America, from the rugged shores of Maine to the quiet farming communities of Iowa.  America is a pretty neat place, and in spite of all my traveling, America is home to me too - though I'm still not sure which state to claim as my own!  Iowa, Indiana, Maine, and Michigan are the main contenders.  Oh well, they are all still within the USA!

(C) Chad

I've been in Chad for nearly four years: not that long compared to all the years I spent in America and Australia, but I have grown to love Chad.  It took me more than two years before I really felt like it was my home, but now that I am on the verge of going back to it, I do feel like I'm going home.

If you look at the statistics, Chad is on the worst end of nearly all of them: harsh climate, extreme poverty, poor education system and infrastructure, lots of tropical diseases, and surrounded by some of the most politically volatile countries on the continent.  It sounds like a terrible place to live.  But what the statistics cannot tell you is the warmth and hospitality of the Chadian people, all their cheerful smiles and resilience in spite of physical hardship.  Nor can the statistics explain how when God calls you to a place, He can give you a love for both the place and the people who are there.  So yes, Chad is indeed home for me.

(D) All of the Above

So, to go back to the original question, just which of these places really is home for me?  When I'm asked, usually the easiest response is to first ask the person what they mean by "home": Are they referring to where I grew up?  Where my parents live?  Where I'm based while on furlough in the USA?  Or where I spend most of my time?... When we have established that, then I can go on to offer a reasonably intelligent (and relatively short) answer.

But if you want to know which place I personally consider to be home, I'd say that home is wherever God puts me, whether that be Australia, America, Africa, or anywhere else that He may choose to place me.  For now, that is Chad (and I hope it will be so for a good while yet; there is still a lot of work to be done there!).  But if He should see fit to move me somewhere else someday, I trust that He will give me the grace to call that place "home" as well.

(E) None of the Above

Let us not forget that we who know the Lord are all strangers and pilgrims on the earth.  No earthly home lasts forever.  Only when He takes us to the home He has prepared for us will we truly be "home".

And in the meantime, maybe it's not so bad that my answer to the question "where is home for you?" is rather complicated.  At least it makes for a good conversation starter!

A Day on the Phone

Yesterday I spent a busy day on the phone, calling churches. I thought I'd try to give you a little taste of what that is like for this missionary appointee. The method I use for calling churches is a three-step process:

1. First I call the church once to ask them if I can send them some information. I used to skip this step and go straight to #2, but after some frustrating experiences with spending postage money to send my information only to find that the church had moved or changed their phone number, I took a suggestion from another missionary and started calling them first. It saves a little postage money, but also it means that the church will be watching for my information when it comes.
2. I prepare and send an information packet, including a brochure introducing me and my ministry, two recommendation letters from pastors, and a cover letter.
3. Then comes the really hard work. After the church has had time to receive the packet and look at it, I call them to follow up on it. Occasionally I get a meeting scheduled after only a few calls, but more commonly it takes many calls, and even then I may find out that the church is not able to have me come. But, as my dad always says, "patience is a virtue"!
   

I've been getting ready to send out a bunch of new information packets, so yesterday I was mostly working on Step #1 - calling the churches once first. But I did call one church where I'd been trying to find a date that worked for both the church and me, and finally we found a convenient date (just after New Year's Day) and got the meeting scheduled.

Here's a breakdown of the other 45 churches I called yesterday:

• For 25 churches, the answering machine or voice mail picked up. That's okay, at least I know I have the right number! I'll send them some information and then try again to contact them by phone.
• In 13 cases, I got a real person, and they told me to go ahead and send in my information. This is good, because hopefully now those 13 churches will be watching for it.
  
• For one church, I already know the pastor quite well from my seminary days, so I skipped the first two steps and went straight to step #3. As he doesn't keep regular office hours at the church, I called his home number. He wasn't home at the time, but I left a message with his wife.
• 2 other churches told me not to send them information, because they are currently unable to take on any new missionaries. Good, that saves a bit of trouble!
  
• 2 churches didn't seem to have an answering machine, as the phone just kept on ringing. Or maybe the church has moved or closed down. Or maybe the machine just wasn't turned on. I'll try calling them again some other time.
• At one church, I got a recorded voice saying the number was no longer in service. I guess I better double-check to make sure my number is correct. But maybe the church has moved or closed down.
• One church had changed its position and is no longer a Baptist church. So I won't pursue that one any further.

Well, I hope that gives you an idea of what missionary appointees experience on a daily basis. If I've counted right, I now have to prepare and send out nearly 40 new packets, so I guess I better go and get to it!

The Deputation Trail

"What does a missionary have to do to get to the field? I always thought you just hopped on a plane and went!" A church member asked me this recently, and I thought maybe others have wondered the same thing. It's actually quite a process! Even though I grew up in a missionary family, I had never been through the process of deputation, and I quickly found that it was a lot more complicated than I ever imagined! Well, the details do differ for each missionary, but let me take you through my own deputation experiences. For now, let's skip the parts about God's call and the necessary Bible training, and go straight to the place where I was ready to start deputation.

• Church approval. Usually the first step for a potential missionary (called a candidate) is to make sure that his sending church is supportive of his calling. It is the local church that sends the missionary, not the mission agency; the agency's job is to help the local church in their missionary endeavours, not replace it. So this step is very important. In my case, God called me to the mission field when I was just 8 years old, and my sending church has been supportive of my calling since the very beginning. So I actually got past this step a long time ago.
• Choosing an agency. A candidate also has to decide which mission agency he is going to serve with - if any. Some missionaries do choose to work independently, through their local church. Both of those options have pros and cons; it's too big a subject to discuss here. One factor that influenced my decision was the nature of my ministry. Bible translation is usually best done through a team of experts, which is hard to find apart from an organized agency. As to which agency to choose, my options were quite limited because there are so few agencies who are doing conservative Bible translation. So, for these and other reasons, God clearly led me to Bibles International, the Bible society of Baptist Mid-Missions.
• Application. After I had gotten past these initial steps, my next step as a missionary candidate was to apply to the mission agency. This was much more involved than just sending in a resume. First there was an initial application, which was pretty general and relatively short. After that it was one form after another! As I recall, there were at least 4 or 5 of them in all, including health forms, my doctrinal statement, and forms for my sending church to fill out, and probably one or two others that I can't remember now. Each of these forms had to be approved before I could go on to the next stage.
• Oral doctrinal examination. I think that most missionaries would agree that this was the scariest part of the whole process! I had to go in front of the mission board, which included members of the BMM administration as well as pastors of local churches from around the USA, and other missionaries and friends who sat in on the meeting. I think there were about 30 people or so there at my examination. I had had to fill out a doctrinal statement when I applied, and they had a printout of that in front of them; all I had was a Bible. They also provided me with a big jug of ice water and a box of tissues - they were prepared for emotional moments! Anyway, the board got to ask me any questions they wanted related to my statement, myself, or my ministry. I was petrified, but they were all very gracious, and I got through it without much difficulty. And I even lived to tell about it!!
• Candidate Seminar. After I had passed my oral exam, I got to join more than 30 other candidates for nearly 2 weeks of day-long classes on such topics as managing finances, various missionary ethics issues, working with technology (PowerPoint, prayer letters, prayer cards, etc), and many more. At the end of the seminar, we were officially accepted as BMM missionaries, and moved from being candidates to being appointees.
• Gathering materials. Well, then it was time to put it all into practice. I needed to get a lot of things together before I could actually start deputation - design my prayer letter, get prayer cards designed and printed, organize a display, and get the necessary equipment. All of those things have undergone several major revisions since I started, though!
• Setting up meetings. Once I had things more or less together, I started contacting pastors to set up meetings. Sometimes this can be quite a process in itself. I had to get my information to the pastor and then follow it up with a phone call ... or more typically, multiple phone calls. Sometimes it can take many calls before I actually get hold of the pastor (or whoever is in charge of scheduling missionaries at the church) and find out whether he is willing to invite me to give a presentation there. These days, I spend up to 4 or 5 hours a day, 4 days a week calling churches.
• Presenting my ministry. When I get some meetings line up, there are a lot of details to be worked out for each one, such as which services I will be speaking in, where I will be staying, and who will meet me at the church to unlock it and help me get my equipment set up. Then, of course, I get to actually present my ministry before the church! After the service is over and I leave the church, I try to keep in touch with them through my prayer letters, and sometimes they also keep in touch with me through their emails and letters. God leads some of the churches and individuals to support my ministry through their prayers, encouragement, and/or finances.
• Launch Seminar. When I have reached 60% of my support, I will be able to attend another series of classes with a group of appointees. While candidate seminar focused on the skills we needed to start deputation, launch seminar focuses on the skills we need for getting to the field for the first term of service. The launch seminar classes are shorter, though - less than a week long. BMM holds launch seminars several times a year - I'm praying that God will provide so that I can attend the one coming up in January 2010.
• Final steps to the field. I'll also need to go to language school to study French. For now, I'm learning what French I can on my own. Other steps that are involved before getting to the field are getting a visa, getting plane tickets, arranging to have my belongings shipped to the field, making housing arrangements there, and much more. For me, all these things are still in the future ... but I pray not too far in the future!!

I hope I've given you a bit of an idea of what appointees go through! Thanks for joining me on this quick journey through the experiences of one appointee!