I see people going to college
learning to be doctors and lawyers
and I see people getting up in the morning
to sell flair pens
but the most amazing thing to me is
I get paid for doing this!I Get Paid For Doing This by Steve Martin
Image: Henry and David relax outside Howard College, Kwazulu-Natal University
Yesterday I got to visit the Center for Culture, Communication and Media Studies and learn about their MA program there. It was the first day of classes and the head of department was slightly distracted but I got to talk to a very nice person in the department who answered all my questions and promised to correspond with me via email.
After hearing about their program I thought, “I want to start today!” Especially their emphasis on understanding how development and culture interact made me realize how much I have to learn. So, maybe next year or the year after. I’m scheduled to begin a study sabbatical in 2010 but the trip to the US was a setback for my projects in Mozambique so I might need a full two years to get things running before I bug out.
Married missionaries are not the most efficient workers in the harvest field. There’s a wife and kids to drag around and that requires a lot of luggage. And families are less willing to drop everything and move to a new country than a single guy might be. Our mission is stuffed with single gals serving the Lord and they are invariably more effective than the married couples. And they’re cheaper. We just visited a colleague who lives off rice and beans when she is in Mozambique. I would last for about two days on that diet.
William Carey’s wife went nutso. David Livingstone’s wife became an alcoholic. My wife has this strange need for stability. She just wants to get back home and teach her kids for more than a week uninterrupted.
I think I belong to the last generation of traditional missionaries. The age of “mission” and “mission field” is drawing to a close. A new era is dawning when “us” and “them” becomes irrelevant and “we the people” becomes the body of Christ. Sending expensive missionaries overseas will someday be a quaint relic from the past and the church will begin to work in harmony across geopolitical boundaries to spread love and justice in a way that the UN has failed to do. The great need of the West is for the developing South to send “missionaries” to them because they have a lot to teach us.
But for now, I have to admit that I love my job. I love getting to pass awkwardly between cultures and see the world through American/African eyes. If I can hold hands with the West and the South perhaps my ministry won’t be in vain.
After hearing about their program I thought, “I want to start today!” Especially their emphasis on understanding how development and culture interact made me realize how much I have to learn. So, maybe next year or the year after.
What?!?! I thought you were going to come hang out in Canada at Trinity & CANIL!
“There’s a wife and kids to drag around and that requires a lot of luggage … My wife has this strange need for stability.”
I feel very sorry for your wife!!
Hmmm – thanks for being so bold as to lean out of the window quite far … did Hilary pre-approve this post?!?
On another note: “missionaries” from the “South” *are* active in the “West” (e.g. thousands of Brazilians in Europe; I also know of a couple of Ugandans in Germany). We need this cross-cultural interaction to overcome geopolitical boundaries. 100% agree on that one! As long as that doesn’t include to force people to become nomads …
Would you consider moving to Africa *permanently*???
Thanks for the picture of what was probably my father’s first university, then (1920s) the University of Natal, but I think he was at the Pietermaritzburg campus.
Thanks also for putting into writing what I have long felt but barely dared to say. Sending western families to the field is so expensive. Send singles to the field and they come back crazy – I include myself! Yes, there is a place for cross-cultural missionaries but I’m not sure it is a big one. My own place, I am almost sure now, is here at home, where there is a bigger task to do for God than in almost every foreign country.
Canada’s too cold and the people are too nice. Durban is a multicultural metrop with great surfing beaches.
Oliver, I never have my wife check my posts. She sometimes points out my grammatical errors after the fact.
Peter, it is a topic worth considering in more detail. Especially by crazies like us.
Do you think traditional pastors will go the way of traditional missionaries? If the church would do a better job of mentoring, discipling, we wouldn’t need the amount of fulltime clergy that we have today. If pastors were able to spend time working in the world like the rest of us they may be better able to minister.
We have a lead pastor, youth pastor, music pastor, childrens pastor, counsiling pastor, and each has an assistant to help them do whatever it is that they do all week. Close to half of our budget goes to support staff and facilities to house them. If each of them had a real job to support themselves and did their pastoring on a volunteer basis, think of how much more we would be able to help the widows, orphans, and the poor, and Media Specialists.
Amen to that bit about Media Specialists!!
But seriously, there’s no substitute for well-trained people. And the economics of scale often mean that bigger missions and churches are more efficient.
Maybe to state it positively, big organizations are going to transition from hierarchies to networks. Our mission is certainly trying to reposition its members as specialists working in subject areas rather than a missionary working among a single tribe.
Perhaps missionaries in the traditional sense is fading, but the heart is drawn towards those whom it loves. Hence, the believers heart is drawn towards our Savior. The evangelists heart is drawn towards those not bathed in the Blood of Christ. The preachers heart is drawn towards the foolishness of preaching. The missionaries heart is drawn towards the unreached peoples groups, all as God directs. I think there’s plenty of room in the world for more men with the heart of Adoniram Judson – how many wives and children did he bury in Burma? Psalm 2:1-8 Would though that God, in His favor, would deliver his church from professional believers, eh?
Oh – that’s even *more* daring than I thought: You write about your wife and post it to the whole world without giving her the right (or even “only” the opportunity) to veto what you wrote (in case she disapproves everybody knowing)?!?
On a different note: How many homes can an individual have?
Our kids say the Land Rover is home. It’s the only truly stable location in their lives over the last ten years.
Poor kids. I hope they forgive you later on! I bet the landrover is a bit rocky over the pot holes.
When our oldest (now 12) was a toddler, after each car journey which took longer than an hour, she would breathe a deep sigh on arrival and say, “home at last!” That shocked us!
I’m glad to say that we now have a stable base in Africa; we only go to our country of origin for six weeks max every other year (no more “furloughs” = bliss!).
So, I repeat my question: Would you consider moving to Africa permanently?
Oliver, you are as combative as your namesake in Mozambique!
Would I consider moving to Africa permanently? Yes, I’ve considered it. South Africa is interesting. There are all the luxuries we enjoy without the Walmartian monotony of America. Linguistically and culturally it’s of course more diverse. Health care is cheaper and of good quality. Education for our kids would also be cheaper although not of such high quality as in America. And I can live in a mansion for the price of an American shack.
So yes we’ve considered it. But family ties are strong so the US will probably always be home.