“You’ve
never been shipwrecked. You haven’t been bitten by snakes.” I listened to the
words of this North American pastor as he responded to a fellow missionary’s
plea for understanding about the difficult circumstances we sometimes deal with
on the mission field, although I understood he was talking about the life of
the Apostle Paul who shared in 2 Corinthians 11 many of the trials he had faced
for the gospel. None of us even thought to compare ourselves to this hero of
the faith, but here it was in front of us, a statement to humble us and show us
that we did not understand true hardship for the sake of the gospel. Spiritual
warfare is something that we talk about in church, but we seldom really say
what it looks like. It is a nebulous thing that we reserve for those that face truly
dire circumstances perhaps, or for describing what the disciples went through in
persecution after the resurrection of Jesus.
This last year for several of my close
missionary friends and our family was no doubt the hardest we had ever experienced.
Each of us had what felt like continual adverse circumstances challenging us
one by one. One couple faced the terrible loss of their unborn baby. Another family
was completely shunned by some of their closest family when they chose to obey
God rather than man and stay on the mission field. There were health issues for
others requiring surgeries and new diagnoses meaning lifetime treatment. Two of
the families had to give up the foster children they had been raising like
their own because the families decided to come back into the picture. There
were unfounded accusations made against the integrity of some missionaries, and
several of us faced the doubt of people in the US about the next steps where
the Lord was leading us. Hardest yet, there were many goodbyes for several of
us to the people we had invested multiple years discipling and loving. And for
each of these families there was the added financial strain placed upon all of
us in the midst of the other trials, with many questions from without and even
within about the “call”. None of us were sorry to say goodbye to 2018.
As soon as we arrived back in country to begin
work after the Christmas break, we thought perhaps there would be a reprieve
from this weighty feeling of having what felt like a “target” on our backs. Our
load seemed lighter as we looked at a new “field” and a new harvest. The
honeymoon lasted about 2 weeks. I knew the day my 12-year-old son came home and
told me a man dressed like a woman had tried to touch him and then yelled at Cade
when he pulled away that we were up against something very dark in this place.
That was again confirmed by a local pastor who told us that a local coven of
witches had been trying to “cast spells” on the work being done by our group of
missionaries. Shortly after this news, one of the missionaries had a terrible
accident, breaking her leg in the process. Accidents and incidents abounded
after that, affecting each of our families. One after another, the hits kept
coming and continue.
But none of this is
being shipwrecked, snake bitten, or flogged. When I look at the list of the
hardships that Paul endured, I wonder if I really even know what it is to
suffer for the gospel and count it all joy. I struggle with the weight of the
call to serve in another culture as I see the never-ending poverty and
hopelessness in the eyes of those I serve, and I feel like the little bit of
help we give is just a small drop in an ocean. I feel the burden of trying to
help these special needs kids receive an education knowing that there are not
enough hours in the day or days in the week for me to truly make a measurable
difference in the limited time I have with them.
As I consider how we measure success in our
lives in the States; making the big sale, having the patient wake up without
nausea or pain after their surgery, landing that big account, having a great
turn out at our event, these are what we use to quantify success. The
missionary life doesn’t have a measure like that. Some missionaries spend a
lifetime on the field to only have a couple of true disciples. My
great-grandfather was one of those people. As one of the first missionaries to
southern Africa, he served in Mozambique
and South Africa over 18 years as a missionary, losing his first wife to
illness, and then himself leaving his second wife a widow with 2 small children
after his third bout with dengue fever claimed his life. Although he had
started a small church and personally discipled a handful of men, he never was
able to start the seminary to train pastors of which he had dreamed.
Can I be real? This is
what burdens us more than anything, the desire to leave a legacy of Christ
above all but wondering if what we are doing in the grand scheme of things is
having any lasting influence. How do you measure those hours spent teaching
sign language to a young deaf girl and whether they will have a lasting
spiritual impact? How do you measure explaining to a group of 10th
graders the difference in what the Bible says about grace versus what many
cults have to say about “earning” your salvation and if they will ever apply
that knowledge in their lives? In the daily grind of opening up each cupboard
to see ants everywhere…in your cereal, in the dog food, in your toothpaste,
will you focus on the work or on the trial? In weighing the two, will the daily
cultural barriers you face seem worth it when you send the next one off to
college, knowing you will not see them for at least a year or more because of
your commitment to stay on the field? How do we measure these outcomes in the
face of the daily trials and sheer exhaustion that comes from fighting the
battle?
The words of this same
Apostle who faced so many obvious spiritual and physical battles come to my
mind, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the
knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to
Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:5) I am blessed to know the end of the story for my
great-grandfather, the man I never met, but whose life inspired my calling to
obedience on the mission field. Although G. Harry Agnew never saw his dream
come to fruition, his wife, Lillie continued to labor on the field, taking over
a station with a small school in what was termed
"The greatest revival on any station in Africa was given in connection
with Mrs. Agnew's labors at Fair View." (History of the Free Methodist Church in North America by Wilson
Thomas Hogue) In Beira, Mozambique today stands a seminary that trains pastors
as a result of that labor laid so long ago in obedience, despite the hardships
and continual spiritual warfare waged against both husband and wife. And so,
like my great-grandmother before me, we too pray to in the face of spiritual
warfare to “take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” Will you
pray this as well for all of us who toil on the foreign field? Spiritual
warfare is real, and its effects can take an exhaustive toll, but we are
grateful for those of you who are in the battle with us through your prayers
and your encouragement in the darkest moments.
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| Missionary G. Harry and Lillie Agnew and their children in Africa. |
