August 20, 2001
Texas students chow down on challenges
___By John Hall
___Staff Writer
___Restrictions. Food. People.
___These are the three primary concerns Texas student summer missionaries serving outside the United States reported.
___More than 200 students served in international assignments through the Baptist General Convention of Texas student missions program this summer.
___The missionaries, most of whom served 10-week terms, faced a variety of difficult situations. Some lived in areas of Asia that do not allow open missionary work. This made it difficult for them to talk about God with the people around them, and it forced them to disguise their communications with mission directors.
Two student volunteers rode bicycles for transportation in Southeast Asia.
___"Do you let them know you are a child of dad initially in a conversation, are you scared?" Riley Mac Byers, a Tarleton State University student, asked himself in a carefully worded report. "No, we have to be very careful as to what we say to whom. You never know who is a spy waiting to kick you out of the county. We just have to use discernment and ask dad to give us good friends whom we can trust to share with. If someone asks us about our beliefs, though, we are free to share. I am not scared for me and my life, but there is a greater, long-term project going on that I do not want to mess up by being careless."
___Though the government restricted his work, Byers believed he was able to spread the gospel as God gave him opportunity.
___"Sometimes it is frustrating not being able to share openly with them," Byers wrote. "But my pr'er is that all of the bottled-up frustration that I have not being able to share would boil over as outward love for the people.
___"I ask dad to give me his love for them. Even though I might not be able to share witheveryone, everyone might know that an American loves them, respects them and wants to serve them. I ask that dad's light would reflect off me and onto them. Actions speak louder than words, and when dad opens the door to share, I will do it with love and I will plant a seed on soil that has been prepared by love."
SUMMER LATTA of the University of Texas at Arlington joins adult coordinator Jen Mescia for a rickshaw ride in Southeast Asia.
___While other foreign missionaries did not experience such governmental restrictions, many wrote of problems adjusting to the conditions in other countries, especially the food.
___"They brought a huge, gutted pig to this bazaar thing at the school," said Stephanie Barnes, a Hill College student who worked in Taiwan. "So this limp, dead pig was up on a grill the size of a coffee table and then cooked until black. They handed me a piece, but after seeing that poor pig's eyes I just couldn't do it."
___Despite Barnes' experience, one of her partners in Taiwan said she found the food appetizing--she just had to be selective.
___"The food is very bearable," wrote Marcy Kent, a Hardin-Simmons University student."I don't care what I eat, just give me food. Stay away from stuff that is not solid. Always eat the purple bread. It is what dreams are made of. Can't go wrong with Jousuz. And of course my favorite food (fried rice anything) is still the most unhealthy thing you can eat."
VANESA CROWLEY of Midwestern State University and Beth Downing of Baylor University learn to eat new kinds of food in Southeast Asia.
___Despite the environmental difficulties and cultural differences encountered by some of the students, they agreed they learned to appreciate the people and the lands in which they worked.
___While finding a new appreciation for the places they lived, the student missionaries also were able to find joy and peace in unexpected places.
___"I cannot believe one person can actually go through every human emotion every day," Kent wrote. "I am happy, tired, frustrated, sad, excited, etc. everyday. God is blowing me away with how every question I have this summer, he is answering. How I can still see the big picture when my surroundings are so not big. How every day I do not know what I am supposed to be doing, or what I am supposed to say.
___"I have no answers to all the questions I ask every day. But I know more and more that there is no other place I am supposed to be this summer. When everything is questionable, I know I am dead center of where God wants me, and that is what gets me through the day."
___Through all their experiences, the missionaries said they tried to keep their actions focused toward one goal--sharing the love of Christ with everyone they met.
___"While in Linko, I met 'the one'--the one student I know I am here for this summer," Kent said. "Her name is Ivonne, and she is a freshman. We have really clicked, and I am excited to see what God has in store."
___Byers said he recognized his primary mission to share God with others but was open to the possibility of a dual mission during his time in Asia.
___As an example, he cited his experience with a young man named Pang.
CAREY SIMPSON of Stephen F. Austin University stands out in a crowd of Asian children, visible by his cowboy hat.
___"He said he has always hated America until he met me," Byers said. "That is what it is all about. I am here to tell people about dad. But he might have another job for me to do as well. This place is a field. Every person is also a field. Some fields are not ready to have seeds planted in them. Sometimes, the field has to be prepared for a seed to be planted. I am content to do the job that dad has brought me here for. Sometimes, it might be planting seeds; sometimes it might be just getting the soil ready."
___In the end, the missionaries said they affirmed the uniqueness of their overseas experience and came to a new understanding of the world around them, with its intertwining influences and common battle.
___"We have been invited to sing for the Communist Party of this area," Byers wrote in one letter. "There will be a stage and everything. I know that a lot of people back home see the communist people as our enemy. I do not think this is so. Satan is my enemy, and these are only people. Satan has a stronghold on this area, and it is only by the gr'ce of dad that we have been given this opportunity."?
___
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