I heard the Amy Carmichael story too, but like those little girls in India it was only one of millions and did not have nearly the impact on me as others did. For example, Dr. Helen Roseveare or Don Richardson or the late missionary linguist, David Watters, to name only three missionaries I remember vividly from missions conferences, all had a far greater impact on me. Perhaps the most formative impressions came from rather mundane conversations around our dinner table over the years with my parents’ legion of missionary friends. Pictures of these people hung on our massive kitchen bulletin board. We prayed for them, and we received their prayer letters, (a literary genre employing some of the poorest and least inspiring writing known to man. The exceptions are rare and precious.) The irony was that while these missionary stories and messages gave me much to consider in terms of the church universal and how the gospel comes to people who don’t know it, all the while they failed to address the problem of my own lack of understanding of the gospel. If I was to catalogue sermons I’ve heard and sort them according to text, (and this would be a very large catalogue) the tally for Acts 1:8, Matthew 28: 19-20, and/or Isaiah 6 would win hands down. All this emphasis on mission actually probably did some harm when disconnected from the gospel and nurtured in the heady rule-based culture of the college campus.
I have a few very close personal friends who are missionaries. The thing I know for sure is they are no different than I am, and have the same crises of faith and the same struggles relating to evangelical culture as I do. We probably wouldn’t be close friends if that weren’t true. Because of their elevated position in evangelical narratives of furthering the kingdom of God through what is perceived as an ultimate sacrifice of giving up their native land, language, culture, close proximity to family, etc., their spiritual crises are filled with even greater angst because while they do not think of themselves as impervious to run-of-the-mill human struggles, they feel that expectation placed on them by some of their supporters. They are very aware of their own weaknesses, and being on display to their supporters while they are struggling to figure out whether they even believe in what they are doing only makes it more difficult. To admit such a struggle feels risky, inviting criticism regarding their spiritual qualifications to do the task, and so they struggle on alone, coerced to play the heroic role given to them by evangelicalism. One of my dearest friends is in this situation right now. I can pray. I can affirm the value of the struggle. God has to do the rest, just as he is doing for me.
mmm. well said. i've never really heard, until your post, what it must be like to occupy that strange space of missionary identity (on a pedestal, but still the object of judgment, etc). the closest personal interactions i've had with missionaries took two general forms: the retired missionaries who visited the campus of my bible college to recruit for the field, and the children of missionaries who returned to the states for school. the first bunch seemed like daffy, good-natured salespeople; the men wore bolo ties and made lots of puns. the women nodded and smiled but didn't talk much. the second group was socially difficult, either outright nerds or angry, goth-inspired militants. i never could figure out the subject of their militancy - it was just something in the air. i wish i'd had a more compassionate attitude toward them, and been able to cultivate friendship. it would have surely added much-needed dimension to my idea of missionary identity.
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