Hidden Cost of Missionary Work

I am re-posting this very popular piece.  Not because I'm planning to go overseas anytime soon, but because it is now a sample of what you will find when the Moscow book is finally in print.  I am hopeful that will be soon. 

Also it's a reminder to those who go and those who stay that there are hidden costs and blatant blessings waiting for you. 

God is good.  

Are you planning to go somewhere this year?  Tell me about it!  Let me join your prayer team.

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There is a hidden cost of missions work that is overlooked.

Yes, it’s expensive to buy plane tickets, food and daily supplies, lodging, transportation.  Those are all budget items that are fairly easy to plan for.  We take our savings or retirement or offerings and sparingly apply them to stretch across the months, or years, we are abroad.  Those are expected expenses and we do our best to be wise.

There is the obvious emotional expense of unfilled heart time.  You know, the deposits made into our lives by those we love while we do everyday life with them.  When you’re abroad, you are not holding your grandchildren when they scrape their knee.  You’re not kissing away the sad days when a dog is lost or a friend moves away.  You’re not listening to the saxophone rehearsal, the reading practice, the math drills.  They can video you in, but it isn’t the same.  Your arms are empty and your heart is drained.  You are glad they are happy and healthy and living well without you, but your arms ache for them. 

Your peers, friends and family, don’t always quite understand why you’re gone, and that’s an emotional drain.  Some of them resent that you aren’t there to help with the life chores.  Someone else has to take mom to the doctor and call you with results.  You can’t be available to babysit or rideshare or decorate.

You pray they have found a new mother figure, a new best friend, a new co-problem solver so they are not facing the problems of life alone. 

You call to catch up and realize you have no idea who is married to whom and when the baby shower will be or what the garden looks like this year.  You realize that moments are slipping away in your time clock which can’t be re-stocked.

It’s hard to communicate what you are seeing and hearing every day.  The market buzz, the language difficulties, the smells of every day life.  You talk about baking banana bread and hoping that you have figured out what the notches on your oven mean.  They smile but can’t understand. 

If you’re really blessed you find a community that becomes a family to you on the field.  You commiserate with them in the morning after the long walk to work.  You hold their babies and plan their birthday parties.  You laugh with them about the awkward language exchanges in a grocery store or metro.  You find familiarity in struggles.  They may be from completely different parts of the world.  Their language base will not be yours, their history will be unknown to you. Yet, you find yourself walking beside them as if you are intrinsically connected.

They are living the same sensations and challenges.  They “get it” without explanation.

All of that is difficult, but not the hardest thing.  The hardest thing is after you’re home.  You return!  Yay!  Everyone rejoices!  There are greeting hugs and special dinners and welcomes of all kinds.  Then day turns to week to month to year.  You realize that your heart is in two places. 

You wonder how your friends over there are managing life. Are they still continuing the things you tried to teach them?  Did they pray today?  Are they reading their Bible?  Is anyone confusing them with a different message of God’s love?  Are they studying?  Are they working together to be better?

The handprints of the expat family members are deep within your memory.  You are glad to be with your family and friends, again, but you miss the others constantly.  You wonder how they are re-settling in their new life.  You pray they have found a new mother figure, a new best friend, a new co-problem solver so they are not facing the strangeness alone. 

You feel guilty for wanting to be back on the field after having missed so many moments with everyone.  You try to swoop back into the common paths, pick up where you left off. 

But you’re different.  You say weird things like, “pass the smetana” and then realize that no one at the table knows what that is.  You stand in a grocery aisle ten times the size of the one you had become comfortable with and feel overwhelmed.  You tear up when someone says the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag while everyone else repeats with boredom.  You watch the news with new insight and have new opinions that no one cares about. 

You try to share it.  That’s not always wise.  “In Russia we….,”  “When I was there …,” You see the glazed eyes of the listener and then the kids tell you it sounds like you’re bragging.  You realize they were busy living a different life which filled your spot in their path.  Meanwhile, your experiences pushed them out and they resent it. 

There is the real cost.  The shaping and pruning which happened while you were being stretched into a useful vessel for the work of God has made you different.  Your family and friends don’t want a new you – they liked the old one well enough. 

Why would someone pay all of those expenses?  Why would someone give up life-moments to go somewhere far away and face untold challenges?  Why would someone cash out retirement and savings to live like a pauper during – and after – a missions trip?  Is it worth it?

Each individual has their own answer to those questions.  For me, I see my life as a gift from God.  I know the failures I have amassed, the foolishness that I walked into full of purpose only to find my life at risk, my money gone, my need for a grace-full Savior to get me out of a mess.  My every day is a present.  I don’t deserve it.  I look at the full, good life of my family.  They live surrounded by goodness and hardly notice.  They are healthy, strong, creative Christians.  I know those are gifts from God and I owe God in return.  Not only my family, but also my abilities.  If I am able to teach and love, it’s only because God has shown me how.  Statistically, that’s not how I should have turned out. 

But God… in His goodness has made me who I am.

When He opened the opportunity, I was compelled to go.  I could not say no.  Not to Moscow, not to Milwaukee, not to wherever He sends me next. 

Is it worth it?  It is.  When I look back at all of the details of my life, when I consider the experiences and the sharing and the praying and the blessings … in spite of the cost … I would do it again.  I am richer for it.  I have learned to hold my memories in boxes.  There is an American box full of fireworks and coffee sipping.  There is a Russian box full of walking and laughter.   There are boxes full of brilliant, rich friendships. 

Life is full of complications wherever you are.  You may as well go where God sends you.  Live fully.  Don’t be afraid to do what is at the end of your hands to do.  Don’t be disappointed when a door closes.  Trust the Author and Finisher of your faith to know what is best. 

In the end, you will find a blessed life with full pages.