Could you be a pioneer missionary?

The wife and I just got back from a wonderful three days of family camp with all (yes all) of the IFB missionaries on our island of Hokkaido, a missionary wife from Australia, and a lovely missionary couple working in Mongolia! The total number of missionaries and MK's (missionary kids) was about 40, and a great time was had by all--with not one discouraging word or fuss.

The fellowship was great, but my time with the man working in Mongolia got me thinking about pioneer missions. I am not talking about guys like me who follow in the footsteps of others, but those missionaries who go where no one has gone before, breaking new ground, maybe even having to translate the first Bible into the language. Such missionaries, the first into an area, used to be called "apostles" before the "advanced missiology" of the 20th century. I have an book about John Paton entitled, The Apostle to the New Hebrides.

I have great admiration for such folk--"there were giants in the earth in those days." So I thought I'd make up a little test for us to see if we could be such a missionary. Good luck!

 

How to score yourself.

0-2 "Yes" answers: Nothing but meat and potato chips plus a TV remote for you. You could never be a pioneer missionary. If you pray for pioneer missionaries, make sure you don't learn too much about their work. You'd get scared and hide in your closet! :laugh:

3-4 "Yes" answers: You need to get out more! Try visiting the local zoo. You couldn't be a pioneer missionary, but you might be able to support one with prayer and money. raying:

5-6 "Yes" answers: Don't call the mission board--they'll call you. You could be a home missionary, but might not be able to cross cultures. :smilewinkgrin:

7-8 "Yes" answers: Admit it, you carry your own pair of chopsticks! Visit a foreign field and try the food. You have great possibilities!

9-10 "Yes" answers: Do not pass go, do not collect $200 in support, you could live off the land. Head out for a primitive field right now! :thumbs:

 

:laugh: :laugh:
I've eaten many UFO's (Unidentified Frying Objects) in my day, Mexdeaf!

Remember the missionary motto: Where He leads me I will follow, what He feeds me I will swallow.

 

I take it you're talking a few cultural steps beyond Taco Bell, Squire!:thumbs:

 

Thank you for the prayers and participation.

You have a wonderful vision for the Lord and His evangelization of the world. Make sure you send a lot of those missionaries out here to Asia. :thumbs:

 

Well put, Su Wei. Thanks for participating.

 

Thanks for participating, El_Guero.

I swore when we came to Japan that I would never eat raw egg. I figured I could handle the raw fish, octopus and similar delicacies, but forget that raw egg! However, I underestimated Japanese cuisine.

One day coming home from language school during that first year I thought I'd get a bowl of soba (buckwheat) noodles in a little shop in the eki (train station). I saw the Chinese characters for "egg soba," which I had just learned, and I thought it sounded good. So I ordered it. The noodle cook poured the soup in the bowl, added the noodles, got a boiled egg (or so I thought), and cracked it right into the bowl. So I had my first taste of raw egg, and it wasn't too bad after I mixed it in well! :tongue3:

 

Actually, it ends up a little bit cooked, but not really a soft boil unless you wait long enough--which you don't do 'cause you're hungry!

My wife and I don't do raw eggs anymore after getting food poisoning from sukiyaki. For those who don't know, in this dish you cook thinly sliced beef in a communal pot and then dip it in raw egg. Delicious, with or without the egg!

 

Thanks for your brutal honesty, Su Wei. You may be short changing yourself here! You don't sound like you would have culture shock with the food in most places! Maybe it would be hard to eat that "baloot" egg in the Phillipines that they bury in the ground for awhile, though. As for me, I don't touch natto, a sticky dish made from fermented beans.

As you point out, if God sends you, He gives you the ability to handle these things. The whole key is in the Great Commission in Matthew, where He promises, "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world."

Someone once asked David Livingstone, the great pioneer missionary to Africa, how he could go back to the field where he had been attacked by a lion, seen his health ravaged by malaria, and seen many other dangers in his travels for the Lord. He answered, "I have the word of a Perfect Gentlemen, who said, 'Lo, I am with you always.'"

Livingstone eventually died on his knees in a mud hut in Africa, ministering to the black Africans he loved so much. It is said that the Africans in turn loved Livingstone so much that his heart was buried in Africa, though his body was sent back to England.

 

His wife died after a brief illness with him in Africa in 1861. He died on April 29, 1873. He was survived by several children living back in Scotland.

I remember reading somewhere that his brother had refused God's call, instead wanting to become rich and famous. The brother stood in the shadows at a great celebration of David's life back in England after David's death. Livingstone became known not only as a missionary, but as a pioneer explorer who searched for the source of the Nile for the purpose of blazing a path for the Gospel.

It was in 1871 that journalist Henry Stanley caught up with Livingstone in that famous incident where he said, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" (Well, duh, who else are you going to find that is white in the heart of Africa in 1871! :laugh: ) I have read that after living in the same tent with Livingstone and seeing his godly life, Stanley became a Christian even though Livingstone never directly witnessed to him with words.

It is not uncommon for pioneer missionaries to lose family members. Adoniram Judson, the Apostle to Burma, outlasted two wives and buried several kids on the field. In his biography by his son, it tells how he sat by his wife's grave for days in total depression, imagining himself in a grave also, before the comfort of the Lord filled his soul.

Even today there is danger on pioneer fields. I noticed that one of the least desirable conditions in my poll was being 200 miles from a doctor. The wife of my friend from Mongolia had her first child the Mongolian way (she is a lovely Mongolian believer), with three midwives pushing on her tummy to force the baby out! It almost killed her! Her husband says he'll deliver the next one himself rather than have that--and by the way she is pregnant!