{"id":3572,"date":"2016-10-20T06:55:49","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T13:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=3572"},"modified":"2023-02-19T11:02:44","modified_gmt":"2023-02-19T19:02:44","slug":"how-to-improve-the-needy-american-missionary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2016\/how-to-improve-the-needy-american-missionary\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Improve the Needy American Missionary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mark<\/a>Before I graduated from high school, I knew I wanted to return to Mexico as a missionary. Yes, return<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My parents had entered missionary service in Mexico when I was less than two months old. Our family left the field when I was almost seventeen years old. A little over five years later, my wife and I joined a pioneering missionary team (led by Dad) going to another area of northwest Mexico. Over the next ten years, Ruby and I had two stints of service totaling some five years on the field. We last left in 1991, expecting to return to service soon. (We didn’t.) The last twenty years I’ve served on our congregation’s Mexico mission board.<\/p>\n

I tell you all that to help you understand why a title such as this would grab me by the nose: “What’s Wrong with Western Missionaries?”<\/strong> The author reports on a lesson learned when he put this question to a bunch of believers in some Muslim countries: “What makes a good missionary?”<\/p>\n

Finally, with great hesitation, one of the believers looked at me and said, “I don’t know what makes a good missionary, but I can tell you…”<\/div>\n

No, I won’t reveal the answer here. \ud83d\ude2f \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

I was quite enthusiastic about the article well before I was done reading it. It motivated me to write my own piece addressing the self-imposed distortion suffered by the self-sufficient missionary<\/strong>. I snatched some snippets from it and put them here as a preview: <\/p>\n

If I ever serve Mexico again, I want to live out such an awareness of need. I want to esteem my fellow believers there as essential to my own spiritual well-being and development.<\/p>\n

I want to live in the reality of being part of a local body of believers called together by God for their mutual benefit. I don’t want to be a warped member, disconnected from the local body as though I had no need of it.<\/p>\n

I wonder how much more mature I would be now had I not seen myself as mostly a “have” with a lot to give. How much did I miss of what God would have done in my life through them…?<\/p>\n

The treasure of Light and Truth abides in any earthen vessel yielded to the Lordship of Jesus. This is true regardless of the nationality or ethnicity of the clay He used to build the vessel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Any missionary in foreign service needs to see the treasure of light in Christ’s local earthen vessels.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Suggested books to read<\/strong><\/p>\n