Of all the privileges God has given me, none has been greater than that of being a missionary.
I cannot remember a time when I did not hope that God would give me the opportunity to be a missionary.
A famous missionary said: 'The evangelisation of the heathen world is a desperate struggle with the prince of darkness; it is a serious task.' That might be enough to turn a young person off. When I was four years-old, a young woman who was on her way to China visited our home. Her name was Betty Scott. She was going to China to marry her fiance, John Stam. Four years later, my father told us the horrifying story of how John and Betty Stam had been captured by Chinese communists, stripped half-naked, marched with chains through the streets of the little Chinese village in which they had been ministering; how Betty was forced to watch while her husband had his head chopped off, and how she was then required to put her head on the chopping block and was likewise beheaded. You might imagine that an eight year-old child would be completely turned off from ever wanting to be a missionary. But that story had quite the opposite effect: it spurred me on.
Betty Stam's prayer
Later, I came across a prayer that Betty Scott-Stam wrote before she married John. It captivated my heart and I copied it into my Bible, memorised it and have used it thousands of times since. This was her prayer: 'Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to thee, to be thine forever. Fill me and seal me with thy Holy Spirit. Use me as thou wilt. Send me where thou wilt, and work out thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever.' Those three words, 'at any cost,' gathered tremendous significance in view of her death. Betty Stam's prayer became mine.
Jesus could never be accused of false advertising when he prepared his disciples for their ministry! 'He said to his disciples: 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field'.' I hope that some reading this will pray this and make it personal: 'Send me.' Jesus called the twelve disciples and gave them exciting and miraculous things to do. But then he says: 'Be on your guard against men. They will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. On my account, you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time, you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death . . . All men will hate you because of me. But he who stands firm to the end will be saved . . .' (Matthew 10.17-22).
The crucified life
Then Jesus brings us a sobering reminder: 'A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher and the servant like his master.' No one can tell you what God has in store for you if you obey him and go to the foreign field. But nothing that God allows to happen to you is going to be any worse than his Son suffered. He was loved by some, followed by some, hated by many and in the end he was captured, flogged, slapped, whipped, stripped and nailed to a cross. Missionaries who decide to pack up and go home cannot have had an encounter with the cross.
Amy Carmichael was an Irish missionary who had six very fruitful years as an itinerant evangelist in India before she began her work for children. She got many offers from prospective missionaries and she faced them with vital questions like: 'Does the thought of hardness draw you or repel you? Do you truly desire to live the crucified life? This may mean doing very humble things joyfully for his name's sake. How long is it since you gave yourself wholly to the Lord for his service? Have you had any experience in personal work for Christ? Have you ever had any opportunity to prove our Lord's promise to supply temporal as well as spiritual needs? Can you mention any experience you have passed through in your Christian life which brought you into a new discovery of your union with the crucified, risen and enthroned Lord? How old were you on your last birthday? Is your health good? Are you free from all entanglements? Do you think of your call as a vocation for life?'
For me, the missionary call was for life. When I arrived in Ecuador, I was thankful that I had long since made a commitment for life because I thought that the first place I came to was the worst place in the world. If I had not been absolutely sure that my commitment to Christ was final, I would have been on the next boat for New York!
First term failures
John L. Bird outlined the causes of first term failures in missionary work. Here they are: an inability or unwillingness graciously to submit to the discipline of the mission board; an inability or unwillingness to work harmoniously with fellow missionaries. (That must head the list!) But there is more: an inability to avoid an obvious feeling of superiority to national workers, and friction between husband and wife. It is disturbing that there are so many missionary failures. Is it that we are not prepared for sacrifice? This applies to big and small things; even things which we think of as not having anything to do with spirituality.
Broadcasting generates a lot of letters asking for counsel about various situations. Repeatedly, the question is about relationships - husbands and wives; people in the church; that awful woman on the committee and the people at work that we have to get along with. In nearly every missionary book, there is the story of difficulty between missionaries. It is part of the strategy of the evil one. He does not want us to be missionaries, and he certainly does not want us working happily together at home, in our neighbourhoods, in our families, in our churches-let alone on the field, where we become the objects of careful scrutiny.
The disciples' expectations were those we noted from Matthew. The wonderful privilege of giving out the good news, the compassion, the authority, the message of the Kingdom of Heaven and healing the sick. But then the warning: 'You will be like sheep among wolves. You must be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. You will be arrested, flogged, hated, but do not be afraid of those that kill the body.'
I have suffered little. I do not remember being hated by any of the people that I worked with. God gave me the wonderful privilege of working with three very different Indian tribes, different in their language - their language had absolutely no connection with each other nor with any other language that I knew. Their customs were totally different and their attitudes towards the white man were very different. But in every case, I found them to be very friendly, very easy, very peaceable to get along with, much more so than some of my fellow missionaries!
Total surrender
God is never going to allow any kind of suffering in our lives for which he will not provide the grace. He will either shield us from the thing that we dread most, or he will be there with the exact measure of grace that is necessary for us to bear it. God's Word tells us hundreds of times that we are not to be afraid. When he sends us forth, let us remember, it is enough for the servant that he be as his master. If God can get that through our thick heads, every one of us, missionary or not, prospective missionary or ex-missionary, I think it is going to make a difference in our neighbourhood, a difference in our churches and our families, and think what a difference it might make in all of England if we understood that completely.
When Mary was given the staggering news by the angel that she was to become the mother of the Son of God, her response was not: 'Wait a minute, I have plans of my own. What are the people in the town going to say? What will Joseph say? How will I explain this to my parents?' Her response was an immediate and unconditional: 'Yes Lord!' May God give us that spirit of trust and total surrender.
Ms Elisabeth Elliott
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