The Very Worst Missionary by Jamie Wright

Author:Jamie Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2018-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

Since I’ve done it, people always ask me how to become a missionary. I’m happy to share, but sometimes it’s hard to tell if they feel relieved or appalled by my answer, because I usually just shrug and say, “All you have to do is raise your hand.”

Sure, there are a few other details that need to be managed. You have to find a church or church organization to sponsor you, raise funds, buy Crocs—but the only real requirement for you to go anywhere you want, to do anything you want, and to have other people pay for it is that you have to volunteer.

Oh, and don’t forget to say it’s for Jesus, because, let’s be honest, if you say God is “calling you,” who’s gonna argue?

If you don’t already have a specific plan or goal for your mission, no worries. Every day a soulful hipster from a sceneless small town in Nebraska decides he needs to go and be present as a coffee-shop missionary in Portland, or a young Spanish major from Atlanta makes a case for the necessity of her very Christ-like presence for a summer in Madrid. But Steve and I didn’t really like that idea of being present. We were new to the missions game, but even we could see that it’s kind of stupid to pay someone to drink coffee and read novels and be friendly to random strangers in some destination-quality city like it’s their job.

No, seriously, we wanted our work to have purpose, and not just the made-up kind. We wanted to do something worthwhile, and while we did that special something, our plan was to “love on people” (yeesh), get involved in the community, and make organic connections with our neighbors. (Let’s not talk about how we were already doing this quite effectively where we lived. It bums me out too much.)

The world was at our fingertips, and with nothing to hold us back, we struggled to figure out where God wanted us to go and what He wanted us to do. So we turned to the professionals. We applied to the missionary-sending agency we’d become familiar with through our trips to Costa Rica, and we thought it made sense to ask them for help with our dilemma. Since we were so adventurous and spontaneous, we told them we were open to going to work anywhere, and we figured these people who sent batches of missionaries out three or four times every year would help us narrow down our choices.

We didn’t want to go for the sake of going, and we didn’t want to go wherever we felt like going. We wanted to go where God could use us, where the mission needed us, and where the people would want us. Steve and I spent months talking about it, praying over it, and seeking the right place for our family. He’d always been a handy guy, and he dreamed of leading building projects and working side by side with other guys.

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