Should I Stay or Should I Go?
17 Oct 2016
About a month before leaving Australia to serve overseas in missions, my husband and I met with our home church pastor. Having been a missionary himself for 14 years, we knew that his advice would be pure gold. This is what he told us: one of your main goals is just to stay there.
The pressures and heart aches of life overseas can lead to an overwhelming longing for home. And yet there are many long-term missionaries who are walking the road of perseverance and reaping the rewards.
We asked some of our missionaries who have been serving for more than 10 years if there was a point where they had seriously considered returning home to Australia?
East Asia: Megacity
At the very beginning of our time overseas, we thought of coming home every couple of months! All joking aside, we thought about coming home around the 8-year mark. By this stage, we had narrowed our ministry focus, started a church and saw that it was growing. Our kids were getting older and we began to see their needs in a new light. We imagined what our life would look like back in Australia, the type of house we would live in, the types of jobs we would have, what school we would enrol our kids in, what church we would go to for ministry but also be ministered to and what life would be like to have extended family close by, as well as the ease of communicating in English.
Middle East: Oasis
Yes. Three different times, for different reasons. When there was an extended period with a lack of Christian fellowship. When the infrastructure necessary for basic living deteriorated dramatically due to revolution and civil war. And when we had visa difficulties.
South East Asia: Tropical
Yes, there were points during our first 10 years where we did consider coming home, particularly as our children got older and their ‘community’ needs changed. No longer were my husband and I enough, our children longed for more friends to connect with on a deep heart level and they were not receiving that where we lived. They had many friends, in fact we had 15 plus children in our yard each afternoon playing, however particularly our introvert needed a friend that if he talked with about Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars they would immediately understand him.
Central Asia: Desert
I don’t think there was a point where I REALLY considered it, but it was in the back of my mind a number of times before I would get to Australia for Home Leave. I would get to the end of a term of service and ask myself questions like “what am I doing with my life?” “what have I accomplished this term?” or “what’s the point in being where I am?”
So many good reasons for these people to return home, and yet each found the grace and determination to stay. Here’s why…
East Asia: Megacity
Of course, we bring everything to God in prayer and He graciously pointed us back to Him, back to His eternal plan. He brought us back into a place of obedience, contentment and running the race that He has set for us. This is a daily battle we face. The fight to be content here and now, in this part of the world. The fight to not compare ourselves with our peers back home. The fight to depend on Jesus as our all in all.
Middle East: Oasis
What kept us going was prayer support, a steady flow of visitors and the hope of building a team. We had a number of people interested in joining us in the future, and while most didn’t make it in the end, the potential kept us going. We also did quarterly trips out of our location to have fellowship with other believers. We believed that we were where the Lord wanted us at that point, and He wasn’t clearly leading us somewhere else. Others spoke into our lives reaffirming this to us. When civil war came, the response of the local people to our presence kept us committed. We were an encouragement to them by choosing to share in their hardship when we could have easily left, and there were increased opportunities to share hope with them, when all around them was hopeless.
South East Asia: Tropical
We continued in our ministry but we moved, and that was largely due to supportive older missionaries and leadership around us. They gave us encouragement and grace to say that we hadn’t ‘failed’ because we couldn’t live in that particular place anymore.
Central Asia: Desert
Even though each time after Home Leave I headed back to the field, I think it was good to ask myself those questions to make sure I was where I was for the right reasons, not just because it’s now the only thing I know, the only place I know how to live, but because I was re-focussed and reminded that I am where I am because of God’s call on my life. That despite the fact that I may have frustrations, or not be seeing the fruit in relationships that I would like, being obedient to and trusting in God is what is most important – no matter where in the world I live.
Would you pray for our Long-gamers: to continue to serve with joy and hope, in the Lord’s strength, with the generous provision of all that they need, and the grace to endure the hardships? For them to bear fruit both in their own relationship with the Lord, and in seeing many come to follow Jesus in the culture where they are serving.