What does it mean to be a missionary?
I recently had the occasion to ponder this question, and am still trying to work out the truest answer it has. Having been lucky enough to feel called to any sort of career this early in life, to have an end goal, and be able to plan my life out (although they say we plan and God laughs) has been a blessing. I see friends struggling with a lack of purpose in many ways, having no idea what they want to do. On the other hand, many people change their majors once or more in college, so perhaps my friends will be better off in the end, not clinging to a previously formulated plan.
However, feeling called to be a missionary has come about after several decision changes following the call I heard at 12 years old, which was to be a nurse in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). Since then, I have cycled through several options, all of which have stayed within the parameters of the medical field. I thought for a while that I wanted to be an Emergency Room physician. (Thank you, six seasons of ER watched consecutively.) I also considered family medicine, and becoming a full-fledged Neonatologist as opposed to a NICU nurse. And then, it came to me. Missionary medicine. A way to satisfy my wanderlust and travel the world, while quenching my desire to work with the human body, AND doing the Lord's work, which I have developed a passion for. It sounded, and still does, like the best idea ever.
So after this revelation that came as a result of prayer and thinking, along with talking to my mom, a lot (She was very patient about it, usually.), I was on top of the world. I knew what I wanted to do, I could look at what schools I would want to go to, and the kind of credentials I would need. Oooh, and what countries I wanted to mission in! Bangladesh and India? Yes. Saris, here I come!
Wait. Hold up, Cassie.
What does it mean to be a missionary? The thought occurred to me one day out of the blue, and while it did not burst my bubble or dim my enthusiasm for my new life plans, it did bring me down off my pedestal a bit. It made me stop and think.
I cannot go into such an endeavor because I want to wear a sari (although I totally do. The picture included here is of me trying one on with the help of author Kimberly Rae, aka one of the coolest people I have ever met.) I cannot set out to be a missionary, doing the work of the Lord in foreign countries, healing people and helping them, if I myself have no clue what a missionary is.
Recently, at the NC Synod Assembly I attended, there were two missionaries that spoke to us. One is living and missioning with his family in Senegal, and the other is doing the same with her family in Argentina. I have so much respect for these two people, who both have spouses and children, and who are making major headway in Africa and South America. As I listened to them speak, I could literally feel myself buzzing with excitement. As the first missionary told a story about their Muslim neighbors inviting them over for a slaughter (American speak: barbeque), I couldn't help but listen intently. The story ended with his recollection of the slaughter-feast-thing, and the fact that the Muslim neighbor had asked him, a Lutheran pastor and missionary, to pray before the meal, knowing full well that he was about to pray to our God. I definitely got chills. I saw pictures of his young son walking literally hand in hand with a young African Muslim boy, neither of them the least bit concerned about their differences or afraid of the other. Complete and total peace, captured photographically on the streets of Senegal.
And I have to admit, the idea of the whole thing sounded so appealing to me. The opportunity to see that peace manifesting itself in person, to be witness to something so much bigger than anything I've ever seen, is something that I can't even wrap my head around, while at the same time, want so desperately.
So I guess that still doesn't answer the question. I recently went to visit my grandparents in Tennessee, where I got to ride horses and see dogs that adore me and go kayaking and just generally live the life of the retired-which is amazing, by the way. But that's beside the point. My grandparents have this friend, whom I've met several times before, and who calls me a Communist, but that's the result of a conversation about my activist efforts...again, beside the point. The actual point is, this year, he and I had a conversation about the fact that I want to be a missionary. His exact words were, "You're not going to be one of those missionaries over there, are you?" Now, considering I'm a Communist, this shouldn't have been surprising to him.
I found myself on a strange side of things in this conversation. Up until that point, the idea of my being a foreign missionary had never been met with anything but, to be frank, somewhat gushing support. My church family is all very pleased by the thought, and I had already gotten used to people being excited by the prospect, as opposed to...well, somewhat disgusted. So here I was, sitting on the ground surrounded by gravel and dogs (not to mention dog hair and slobber stains on my shirt and my face), explaining to a man that I like and respect that yes, I was going to be one of those missionaries.
His argument was that maybe they didn't want my religion. And mine, which I stand firm on, was that they should have the option. In explaining my position on missionaries, I found that the answer to my initial question was within reach. To be a missionary?
I think maybe it's really about being willing. Not only to do what you have to do, to do the Lord's work, and to share the good news, possibly to people who had never heard it, ever. (A thought that seems, to me, a lifelong Christian who had Bible stories read to her from the time she was a baby and whose first public performance was Amazing Grace at barely three years old, REALLY foreign) Not only that, but also to humble yourself. To be willing to sacrifice what you have, and even what you could have, for the good of more than what you can see. I think a missionary is, in its most simplistic of definitions, a member of the body who is willing to do what she can to BE the body, to be the hands and feet of Jesus in a place where people need that. By such a definition, I was a missionary at eleven years old when I attended "Mission Project Lenoir" (Now LAMP) for the first time, and spent hours scraping old paint off of a lady's front porch railing. I was a missionary then, and every summer since, in my own hometown. I was a missionary with my team in Manchester, Kentucky last summer. And I can be a missionary in my day-to-day life. It's not necessarily about being in Bangladesh, or knowing statistics on human trafficking that would make your skin crawl. It's not about having an MD or the medication to treat malaria. It's not about praying over a slaughtered lamb in Senegal, or traveling Death Road in Bolivia because your god-daughter lives at the end. It's not about distributing Sunday School materials in Spanish to churches that didn't have them. Not that those things aren't good and worthy and wonderful, because they are. And they're so worth it, if you ask me.
But in the end, I believe that what it's truly about is being willing, being open, and being available. Doing what you can, when and where you can, to the best of your ability, to spread Truth and the Word to people who need to hear that, no matter what the reason is behind the need. So, I guess in the end, maybe my answer has been right in front of me the whole time, hasn't it? Maybe my answer lies in the people who surround me every day. Because maybe we are all truly missionaries, in our own ways.
