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Missionaries
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___Missionaries are to the church what sports figures and movie stars are to the general public. We tend to look up to them as heroes of the faith, the boldest of the bold. Granted, we know we are all called to be missionaries, but the
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ALISON WINGFIELD
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se people take the gospel around the world through great personal sacrifice.
___ We hear and read about people ministering in Jesus’ name and the miracles that occur in other parts of the world and say, "Wow! They lead an exciting life."
___ Sometimes in our excitement about what these missionaries are doing, we forget that they are real people with real needs. I was reminded of this when a missionary couple visited our Sunday School class recently. They soon will be ministering to a large North African people group living in France.
___ As they spoke about what they will be facing and how we could pray for them, one request stuck in my mind. They have been missionaries for some time and have three children, ages 8, 10 and 13. Because of civil war in two countries where they served, they have had to relocate several times in the last few years. Now they have been in the United States since January, and the 13-year-old is not ready to move yet again. That brought this couple and their very real family into focus.
___ Career missionaries struggle with some of the same issues we do, day in and day out. Knowing that not only helps me pray for them more earnestly, it also convicts me that I need to do more where I am in my little corner of the world.
Mark Wingfield is managing editor of the Standard. Alison Wingfield is a freelance writer. The Wingfields moved to Texas from Louisville, Ky., where Mark had been editor of the Western Recorder, in which this column appeared weekly. |
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___We often are moved by the testimonies of missionaries about their work in the far-flung places of the world, but when we have opportunities to know those missionaries morepersonally and learn about their families, our
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MARK WINGFIELD
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level of concern somehow grows.
___If you've been around Baptist churches very long, you know this is one of the primary roles Woman's Missionary Union has played in our missions education process. Through their emphases, missions-minded women have kept us focused on the real-life needs of missionaries and their families.
___ As Alison noted, when we find a point of identification between a missionary family and our own family, we better understand the challenge to pray. This helps not only adults, but children as well.
___ At our church, I teach in the Wednesday night missions-education program for children. Last year, our class of second-graders got to meet a missionary family based in a European country but working with an unreached people group in another part of that region. Explaining the nature of their non-traditional missionary work is rather difficult. But one thing got through loud and clear.
___ This missionary family includes a second-grade girl. She came into our class with her mother and related to our kids on a personal basis what her life is like. Throughout the whole year, I never saw this group of almost all boys sit more still or listen more intently than they did that night--even though they were talking with a girl (yuck!).
___ Hearing our missionaries, both young and old, reminds us that we are indeed part of the larger family of God.
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