Recently I sat with another missionary, stocking feet curled beneath us. We were reflecting on some of the more painful parts of missionary life.
I’m talking things that were hard to understand if you hadn’t been overseas, hadn’t had moments in a foreign land defined by sacrifice or loss. They were like scars, covered by clothing.
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Editor’s note: For this perennial topic, we’re pulling some tips from the archive for all you spouses wrestling through what do to when your spouse is all-in, sign-me-up, let’s-do-this -thing-for-Jesus! But you don’t feel as “called.”
Hey. Every situation is different, I know. But I’ve talked to a few of you.
I’ve seen the look on your face—not just the usual culture shock or pre-departure if-this-country-doesn’t-kill-me-packing-for-it-might expression. There’s a nearly imperceptible tightness in your smile.
Because you signed up for this. But at the same time, didn’t.
You signed up to follow Jesus, your name on the dotted line beneath the great Commission. And the ring on your finger keeps reminding you of unending constancy; faithfulness.
(But did that mean my spouse’s dreams? You wonder every now and then.)
Or maybe your brain has signed up, knowing God doesn’t just call one of you. (Right? you ask me.) Knowing he asks a whole family to go or to stay.
But your heart signing up? That part could take awhile. And unfortunately, with the lack of medical care for your kids and the size of the reptiles, it could take longer than you planned.
I’m obeying you, Lord. This is my choice. (Write this down—I made the right choice when it killed me, and took me away from my mom living right down the street to help with the kids.)
I don’t know if you’ve already made your decision, or are waffling a little as the gravity of this choice starts to show like the hem of a slip.
(Spoiler alert: At the end of this post, you will still not know exactly what to do.)
I can only tell you what I know.
This decision is hard enough when you feel completely called and feel zero hesitation.
But what’s not okay, even when you don’t feel as called? Choosing to be powerless.
When it was time for us to head back from Africa, that’s the time I felt the least “called” anywhere. It felt like a perfect storm of circumstances were grounding us from flying into Uganda—and what had become like home.
During that tumultuous home assignment, we were straddling two continents and homes. And that included, what? At least three evaporating sources of identity for me. (Missionary. Teacher of refugees. Educator of my kids.)
I remember words my husband spoke to me as we wound our way over a New Mexico highway. He cautioned me, encouraging me to dig into my confusion, my low-burning anger.
He said something like,
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Why? Because your life is about to change just as much.
And the demands and required teamwork of overseas living require more buy-in from a spouse than simply submitting to another’s passion.
I have seen this subtle, underground division work its way into the cracks of a marriage’s foundation like ivy, spreading slowly in a thick blanket. They’re so subtle, a person may hardly notice until it’s nearly too late.
There’s such wisdom in the words of 1 Peter: Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
That verse ratchets things to a whole new level, right? It’s not just unity of action. It’s my mind as one flesh with yours.
“Calling” gets tricky these days. It can be wielded as “a rubber stamp from God on doing what I really, really want.”
It can also be a mystical, vague buzzword that gets us hung up.
And the truth is, “calling” gets tricky in a marriage. Because few of us have had actual writing on the wall. For most of us calling is less “I’ve heard an audible Word from God–and more synthesizing passions with Scripture and the world’s need.
It’s a working out of what would be our own alabaster box, our own act of beautiful, sacrificial worship, to a God worthy of every loss.
But Jeremiah, Jonah, even Jesus? They had words with God about their calling.
What about when your spouse’s desires are different? When you just don’t feel as called?
Desires are not just something to steamroll over as an act of faith. Trying to rid yourself of desire is actually more…Buddhist. We see Jesus’ example in the Garden of Gethsemane of total honesty with his desire, yet total surrender.
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In case you missed it, allow me to say it openly: God accepts you fully whether you go overseas or not.
Whether or not this is an “obedience” issue for you isn’t something our blog can weigh in on. But do the hard work of exploring your call together, knowing your particular application of the Great Commission is your joyful choice.
Side note: Depending on your theology, you may feel that this is an area where you need to submit to your spouse. That may be the case.
But let us encourage you that–as demonstrated in Esther or Ruth or Proverbs 31–submission does not mean silence. (Jesus shows this in his submission to the Father in Gethsemane.)
Like I mentioned in the beginning–I promise you no easy answers.
This is your time as a couple to be transparent, to think deeply and broadly (and Scripturally) about what is right and good for your marriage, your family. It’s time to seek God’s face together, for what you can willingly, open-handedly give him.
Janel Breitenstein is an author, freelance writer, speaker, and senior editor for Go. Serve. Love. After five and a half years in East Africa, her family of six has returned to Colorado, where they continue to work on behalf of the poor with Engineering Ministries International.
Her book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids’ Hearts (Harvest House) releases October 2021. You can find her—“The Awkward Mom”—having uncomfortable, important conversations at JanelBreitenstein.com, and on Instagram @janelbreit.
Different Strokes? Marital Differences as You Look Overseas, Part I and Part II
Help Your Marriage Thrive Overseas! Part I, Part II, & Part III
8 Ways to Help your Family Flourish Overseas!
Reading Time: 3 minutes
I cram more things into the suitcase, carefully wrapping breakable items in shirts and sweaters. Piles of our life slowly disappear into the large box that will zip closed and be wheeled through the airport. The items of our life pushed and squeezed into 10 pieces of luggage: We are leaving tomorrow.
I have trouble carrying the weight of this.
We’ve known the date for 12 weeks and yet it still seemed to surprise us in the end. The rush to buy the last-minute items, to see if we had all that we needed. Did you buy a gift for that person? Do you think we need an extra one of these? The careful planning and eleventh-hour buys all jumble together, pushed and prodded to make space.
Then the backpacks for the plane ride. A change of clothes in each one, in case motion sickness gets the better of us and we end up wearing our lunch. A book to read, a stuffed animal to snuggle, a small snack. Find all the containers of liquid (hand-sanitizer, lotion…) and put them in a ziplock baggie. Yes, you can pack your journal and yes, please pack your headphones.
We are leaving tomorrow and I am ready and I am not. The time has been so sweet, the visit so right.
Yet my life, our life, is somewhere else right now and we long to return there. This would all be much easier if we didn’t have to say goodbye.
A fitful sleep, an incessant alarm, and now we leave today. Find all the small details, the hair bands and playing cards. Make sure to clean up and straighten and organize. Eat a good meal, probably should be vegetables. Pack the toothbrushes in a carry-on. Did you pack the charger?
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We’re leaving today. And as long as I only think about leaving, I will be sad. When I think about the going-to, what we are returning to in the place where our life really exists, then I have something to look forward to.
One last photo all together. Then a quick photo of the suitcases, just in case. We ride to the airport and we say again what a great time this was.
Next the suitcases, with all our things and our best-laid plans, are checked away. We are left with our backpacks, literally the packs on our backs, and our toothbrushes, and the hope that it will all turn out alright.
We say a last goodbye. It’s okay to cry, liquid emotion as evidence that this is hard.
The leaving doesn’t get easier. We always miss those we love.
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We are going now and now it’s only forward. We wind through the maze and chaos of the security check and empty our pockets, everything x-rayed. Then we find our gate and wait to board, remembering to stretch and use a normal bathroom one last time before the next 10 hours.
When we are in our seats, seatbelts buckled and safety instructions playing, we really know we are leaving.
We’re going home.
Sarah serves in Egypt with her husband and four children. You can catch her blog here–and don’t miss her post on Go. Serve. Love about what she wishes she would have known.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Photo: IMB.org
One morning in Guatemala, I walked into our office and found sitting around the table the regional leadership of a group of churches we were working with. They were visiting politely with Melvin, a national pastor we worked with.
I greeted them and visited a moment and then excused myself and made my way to my office.
Of course I was curious what was happening. Still, I said nothing until they had left.
Why were they there? Why were they meeting with Melvin? What were they discussing? (That was only my beginning list.)
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Allow me to pause and ask: What keeps you going when nothing else is making sense?
When you live and work in a country and a culture you didn’t grow up in, but have adopted? When everything is hard to understand? When you aren’t sure you are communicating? When the cost/benefit ratio of missions feels fuzzy or downright disappointing?
Missionaries wrestle with that question somewhat regularly. I wrestle with that regularly.
I found out more of the story after the regional leaders left. But you need the background to the story to understand his answer–and understand what keeps me going.
Our small team had been working with these rural pastors and lay leaders for a couple of years, attempting to bring them resources and training that would help them serve their people and teach their congregations to walk as Jesus would want them to walk.
Periodically in this ministry, we welcomed groups of youth and adults who came down from supporting churches in the U.S. to spend a week. It took a lot of thinking and planning to create a situation which we felt would be a blessing to the churches we worked with and to the group coming down.
The groups completed work projects for four hours each morning, then showed the JESUS film each evening in a meadow in a location where our churches were trying to plant a Bible study or home church.
The churches were moderately interested: Maybe it would be worth doing. The JESUS film project offered the use of one of their staffers, along with a projector and screen. We took care of him and covered his costs; he showed the JESUS film in the crowds’ Mayan language and preached a short message and gave an invitation in that same local language. And it multiplied the churches’ reach at no cost to them!
Our group of American gringos, frankly, were the bait to draw a crowd.
Each night we had a good turnout. Some people walked three miles to attend. They seemed interested and somewhat responsive. The church elders stood around watching the crowd and conversing with those who came.
We completed the same routine for four nights in different locations. Then, the group headed home.
The idea: Church leaders would try to follow up with the people they saw at the film-showing over the next 10 days, visiting them in their fields or homes.
Two weeks later we repeated the process with a second national church group and four more locations, showing the JESUS film in a language none of us knew.
And then we all went home and I asked “Was it worth it?”
I wanted it to be worth the month we had spent with those two groups helping them see what we did there in the mountains. I wanted it to be worth it for both the wide-eyed group from Texas and the collection of churches we had tried to serve.
And then about a month later I walked into the office and some of those same church leaders were there.
I’d had no idea they were coming. But they seemed to have a good meeting.
It turns out they had indeed followed up with the people who they had seen at the showings of the Jesus film. And at each location they’d added 3 or 4 families to the Bible studies or home churches they were trying to start!
They had come to visit with my national teammate, Melvin, to find out how they could arrange to do the same thing all year long on their own.
Yes, that made my day. That’s what keeps me going; it’s why I came. So what if they hadn’t talked to me about it?
Their question verified that the new untried evangelism event we had put together actually helped them. It apparently had turned out to be more productive than any “outreach program” they had tried.
We’d ensured all costs of the group would be covered–and the churches had experienced a new tool for growing their churches. And now they wanted to make it their own!
God had obviously showed up. Now, decades later, it’s an event I hang my hat on after all the mysteries of missions: Is what I’m doing working? Are there results to show from all I’m giving up?
(Wondering about what measuring stick to use for success–and what should be the kind of thing that keeps you going? A Life Overseas’ blog offers three criteria.)
When you get to see results that clearly, it keeps you going for a good long while. It did for me!
And even today when I think back over that and other events, unique though each one was, it is a constant encouragement. God calls us to serve him and others, and he is the one who creatively weaves the threads of ministry to produce what he calls success.
It’s well worth remembering those times when you got to see his fingers weaving success into what he’s called you to do.
Global veteran David Armstrong has set foot in 15 countries, and confesses that Crepes and Waffles in Bogota, Colombia is one of his favorite restaurants. Catch his classic post here on 8 Ways to Help your Family Flourish Overseas.
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It’s the first step, and one of the hardest to discern: How can you tell if you’re experiencing the call from God to be a missionary? How does God speak, and guide people overseas?
At Go. Serve. Love, we’ve explored this idea a lot, with both warning and affirmation. How would one even define the call?
One of our partners, the Center for Missionary Mobilization and Retention–using podcasts, training, and other resources–aims to increase and retain the number of long-term missionaries sent around the world.
They’ve developed this free webinar to help you sort out the call…and whether you have it.
By way of introduction, they ask,
How does God extend the call to missionaries? What influences does He often use to speak to those He’s calling to the mission field?
Mobilizers, missionaries, pastors, youth leaders, and teachers are invited to join Dave Jacob, founder and director of the Center for Missionary Mobilization and Retention, as he discusses the important factors that influence the missionary call.
As always, we love it when you join the dialogue, creating community with others in the Body of Christ around the world exploring some of the same life-altering, Kingdom-powered questions.
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Raising financial support can mess with your head.
Yes, it can feel a little…naked. Yes, it can be awkward and revealing and exhausting.
But would you believe us if we said it’s actually a tremendous gift–and not just to you?
When I was trained in raising financial support–which we’ve been on for sixteen years, in which time we’ve added four kids to our posse–there was a passage that stuck with me. Someone pointed out the story of a widow in 1 Kings 17.
You’ve probably heard it, about this woman in famine who’s going to go home and use her last flour, her last oil, to make some bread for her and her son. Then they’re going to go home, she says, and die.
Sometimes I wonder about Elijah’s manners–but he actually asks the widow, a stranger, to first make a cake for him, then make one for her and her son. He makes her an odd promise that ends up coming true: Keep making cakes for both of us. The bread and the oil won’t run out until the famine’s over.
Get this: God uses the widow’s support of Elijah to keep her alive in famine.
To be clear, do not use Elijah’s technique word-for-word in raising financial support (if you know people dying of hunger, perhaps take some Chik-fil-A or a Hungry Man dinner rather than your support-raising binder?).
I don’t know that “bake me bread and you’ll never run out of flour as long as I’m overseas” is the exact takeaway. But don’t miss this: Your fundraising ain’t just about you.
Over and over in the Bible, we see this theme of givers being blessed. God wants to do something in both sides of things in the journey that takes you overseas. Weird questions and fears will bubble to the surface as this process stirs them up.
Because the goal of raising financial support? It’s far from just money.
Maybe you’re just dipping your big toe in this frigid support-raising water to see if the goosebumps involved in raising support could, as you suspect, drive you away, arms pinwheeling.
Or maybe your knuckles are grazing the ground after duking it out for this dream of going overseas–which you were pretty durn sure was from God, but now is feeling kind of hazy and hard.
Imagine yourself before a bed of river rock. Beneath it, someone’s placed red swipes of paint totaling the monthly amounts you’ll need to finally go overseas; to do this vital work so many people need (remember Paul’s vision [Acts 16:9] of the Macedonian crying out to come help them?).
All you have to do is to turn over the rocks to find the right paint strokes you need. Some of the big rocks you’ve counted on yield nothing. Other small rocks feature much larger marks than you could have ever anticipated. Some are clustered together. Some are spaced out, and you’re turning over 23 blank rocks in between those that spread a smile on your face.
Getting the drift? God knows exactly where your funding will come from. Um, assuming you’re not being socially awkward, your rejections aren’t really about you as much as they’re God getting the right people on your team.
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These articles may not make this path easy. But they may make it easier–and eliminate some of the pitfalls.
First, don’t miss Go. Serve. Love’s own posts on raising financial support:
And we love this one from OMF: An Introvert’s Guide to Support Raising. (We know you’re out there.)
Fundraising coach Jenn Fortner provides this amazing infographic with 22 Expert Tips on Fundraising Straight From Missionary Geniuses. But check out her entire site (on “fundraising made relational”). It’s stuffed with practical tips like
SupportRaisingSolutions.org also offers a wealth of encouragement and wisdom, whether you feel really new…or really worn out. They’ve got posts like
You knew this part would be coming too, right? How might you be self-sabotaging (and without a clue you’re doing it)?
But hey: Do not let fear get the last word.
Like the Israelites going into the Promised Land, if God’s got you going overseas, he also has the means.
He knows what financial “territory” he’s earmarked as yours, but you must go and take it.
You must be strong and courageous and not depart from God’s commands. And you’ve gotta trust he’ll do his part so you step off that 757 at just the right time.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Editor’s note: In a break from the norm, we’re featuring a piece of creative…well, mostly fiction, based on the life of people encountered by an anonymous reader as she served in a collection of Southeast Asian islands, battling a mutual enemy: Death.
Though it’s challenging to accurately imagine the perspective of anyone of another culture, there seem benefits, too, in trying.
(No known Christians currently reside in this village, but its name is concealed for security.)
I’m well-acquainted with death.
I’m a nurse in a village on an island. Medicine here is hard to come by and easy to get rid of. Especially since the earthquakes.
Ever since the last big quake destroyed the clinic here, my life has been consumed by the emergency clinic we’ve set up. The normal problems we always face, like dengue, malaria, typhoid, and infections were all multiplied when the quake took everything from this village.
Three days after the quake, we had a big open tent up and running as our emergency clinic. We had hundreds of patients, from women giving birth to old men dying, all beneath one big, open tent.
When the sun rose overhead during the day, our patients were set outside in the breeze to keep them from baking in the tent’s heat. With little clean water and no real shelter to house these people, countless died.
So yes. I’m well acquainted with death.
But the last couple of months have been different.
It all started when a big man who looks like one of us but talks like a white man came in with a few of his local friends. They came in with a big group of young people ready to help anyone in our village any way they could.
My husband ran to meet them and called them over to our house. They didn’t hesitate when they saw the rubble that used to hold my family.
They spent as long as it took to clean up everything, then they sat and talked with my family.
It wasn’t long before they began to talk about how they do the things they do because of the love they have from the prophet Isa.
After these men cleaned up the rubble from our house, one of the local women in the group kept coming back to visit me. She encourages me, always praying for me in the name of Isa.
Today, that same woman came back with two of her friends. The two young white girls sat and smiled and laughed with me and my daughter. They shooed the chickens, sat in our pagoda, and listened as I told them about our lives here.
When we talked about the clinic and everything I had to do as head nurse, one of the girls began to tell a story. She talked about how she had worked in a place that held people who were just trying to die comfortably. She said working there was very hard, but it always reminded her of someone she knew that could raise people from the dead.
I shuddered as goosebumps rose on my arms. Raise people from the dead?
She laughed at my reaction and explained that the man she spoke of could bring people back to life as if they had never died! She told me a story about Isa–this same man they all kept talking about–and how he brought a man back to life who had been dead for three days!
He called out his name, and he walked out of the tomb alive.
She ended the story by saying this same Isa had not brought her back to life like this, but he had given her a new spiritual life. I listened and smiled and was happy to change the subject back to my family and work.
As we walked through the clinic later and talked about all of the people who had suffered so much and died after the earthquakes, I kept thinking about what the girl had said.
Could Isa really bring dead people back to life? How did he have that power?
I waved goodbye to them and steered my motorbike home. and I thought of more questions. What did she mean when she said that Isa had given her new life?
She said herself that she had not actually died. But she talked about having this peace, about knowing for sure that she would be with Allah when she died.
How did she know that? How could she say she knew? And what does it mean to have a new spiritual life?
I’m well acquainted with death. Even now, the men in my village are gathered in a house praying for a person who died last week. They hope that by their prayers Allah will forgive this dead person and let him into heaven.
Is that what the girl meant by a new spiritual life?
But she’s not dead. I’m so confused.
I park my motorbike and walk back into my house–just hoping tonight I might figure out some answers to all of these strange questions.
Reading Time: 6 minutes
“They are going to put Bo in jail.”
The phone call comes from my wife Leah around 6:45. “Bo pulled onto Entebbe Road after we thought the presidential convoy had finished going through, but it hadn’t. He was pulled over and now they want to impound the car. Can you come and get us?”
Bo (our son) and Leah had taken one of our staff girls to the doctor and were on their way back. They just so happened to be on the same road at the same time that Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were traveling from the airport into town.
Typically, if a traffic cop in Uganda pulls you over, they either take your license or impound your car, or both, to ensure you will pay your traffic fine.
Once the fine is paid you can get your license and/or car back. I imagine this is what my wife means. I hop in our other car and head up the road to go and get them.
About 15 minutes later, I receive another call from Leah. Through tears, she says, “They are going to put Bo in jail.”
“What?”
She repeats, “They are going to put Bo in jail.”
I tell her I will be there soon, and start accelerating through the traffic.
I pull up to the police station, enter and see my wife seated in a chair in front of a desk, crying. Bo is surrounded by 4 or 5 police officers.
I start asking questions:
“What did my son do wrong?”
“Why do you need to detain him?”
“Isn’t this just a traffic violation?”
“Who is in charge?”
All of these questions go unanswered. I then look to a man who is writing a report and ask him if we could work something out.
He gives me the phone number of the head of traffic in Kampala and says this is the man I must deal with. I immediately call him. He answers the phone right away.
“My name is Brent Phillips and you are holding my son Bo Phillips…”
He cuts me off, “His actions were a breach of national security and I cannot allow it to stand. He interrupted a convoy of his Excellency, the President of Uganda and your secretary.” Click.
This can’t be happening.
Does he think Bo is a “breach of security?” Is he looking at my 18-year-old son and my crying wife, thinking they have planned an attack that he has now foiled and Bo will have to pay the price?
I start pleading with the officers in the station.
“Can I stay in jail in his place?”
A response: “No, you are not the offender.”
“Can I stay in there with him?”
“No, you did not commit a crime.”
They go on to explain to me that he will go to court tomorrow and he will be prosecuted then. Prosecuted?!?
The men start pushing Bo toward the cell. Leah’s cries get louder. Bo looks at me with fear in his eyes.
I am pleading with God asking what I should do. I tell the men, “I need to see the cell before you put my boy in there.”
“Fine.”
It is a dark empty room with no one in it. There is a light bulb hanging from a wire coming out of the ceiling, but it doesn’t work. There is a window with bars on it and a locked steel door that leads to the outside. The steel door has a rusty hole in the bottom.
The officers ask Bo to take off his shoes, his belt and empty his pockets. They put him in the room and shut the door.
I will never forget the look on my son’s face as the door closed.
I immediately run around the building call out Bo’s name, kneeling down to the rusty hole in the door. He is already kneeling there.
Up to this point Bo had been so full of courage and strength, even comforting Leah in the lobby. But now, I am looking into the eyes of my son and he isn’t 18 anymore. He looks like he is 10.
We start praying through that rusty hole, asking God for strength, courage and freedom.
After Amen, Bo looks deep into my soul and says, “Dad, don’t leave me.”
“Bo, I am not leaving this place. I will be sleeping in front of this door or the other door until you are out of here.”
I find Leah. “Babe, can you get some food at that little market right there?”
She heads off to the market and I step back into the police station. By now all of the officers have left except for one, named Nelson.
“Nelson, can I stay here all night, sleeping in front of this door?”
“Yes, you can. And when your madam returns I can let your son out into the lobby here and you can all eat together.”
“Thank you so much.”
Through the door, I tell Bo the plan up to this point and let him know I am going to make some phone calls. I start calling everyone I can think of that might have some sort of wisdom, experience, or pull in this situation.
Then someone mentions the U.S. Consulate. Great idea! I just so happened to have the US embassy’s emergency phone number in my phone. I’d seen it on a piece of paper at the embassy a few weeks ago when notarizing a document.
“You have reached the US embassy in Kampala, Uganda. We are currently closed. If you are an American citizen and you are having a serious emergency, please press one.”
Of course, I press one.
I wait anxiously for someone to pick up the phone. A very nice gentleman picks up the phone and asks me what my emergency is. I explain the situation and he promptly channels me to another gentleman.
“Special Ops. Agent ________. How can I help you?”
I explain the situation again. He reassures me this is not right and ends the conversation with, “I will call you right back… and we will get your son out tonight.”
As I hang up the phone, I start to worry. Why hasn’t Leah shown up yet?
Leah later told me she was crying in the store while gathering food. As she went to pay, a customer in line straight up asked her if she could pray for her.
Leah told her briefly what was happening and the clerk shared that the same thing happened to her father: wrongly accused, thrown in jail. After a month her dad was released and everything was fine now.
A month? Leah thought. I could barely handle a night. Oh God, please release my son.
The customer shared how God had used this situation to bring others in jail to a saving knowledge of Jesus. Then she encouraged Leah that it would be okay. They prayed together outside the store.
My wife was so thankful for this angel who encouraged her in a dark hour.
Even if you don’t know my wife, you know the Italian momma stereotype, making sure the people around her have plenty of food. She shows up with fruit, water, chicken, Pringles, bread, and eggs.
The officer then lets Bo out of the cell. We start eating and talking with the officer, who reveals, “I don’t think he should be here. I don’t understand why we are holding him.”
The phone rings and it is the same agent I had spoken to before: “Bo will be released, as will his license and the car. There will be no court tomorrow and this will be finished. The call from Nelson’s superior should come anytime now.” I hang up and share the news with all in the lobby.
Relief.
Yet time continues to tick on with no call. 10 minutes…20 minutes…30 minutes…
I call him back. “We still haven’t received a call,” I said.
He seems a bit more frustrated now, but assures me what he said will happen, will happen! “In fact I will have Nelson’s superior call you, his name is Major _______. He will explain to you how this will all be finished.” He then asked me where in the states we were from.
“We were in California for about 35 years. I spent the last 8 years in Austin, Texas.”
“Are you a Longhorn?” he asks.
“Yes, in fact I am wearing a burnt orange Texas Longhorn shirt right now.”
“Consider all of this an act of grace”, he says, “I am a graduate of Texas A & M.”
More time passes and hope is rising. There is more laughter than crying and we feel great appreciation for every person involved who desired to help us.
Around 10:00 pm, my son is released from jail.
We head home.
On the way home, we talk of the fear, the worry, and the unknown of the situation as well as the grace, the mercy and the power of God in all of it.
Bo said, “I am not sure all the things we are supposed to learn from this, other than make sure the convoy is all the way finished. But, as soon as the door closed and I was alone in that cell, Paul flashed into my brain. I just thought, if God sustained Paul in much worse conditions than this, He can take care of me too.”
Brent Phillips is CEO and pastor of Cherish Uganda, a faith-based nonprofit that restores life and creates hope for HIV positive children living in Uganda.
Click for real lists of U.S. and Canadian Embassy contacts around the world!
And thank God with us that in times of havoc overseas, he remains our truest Shield and Advocate.
A Yellow Christmas: Dotsie’s Story
Reading Time: 3 minutes
I picked it up because I was feeling dry.
The well-thumbed copy of Bruchko seemed to call my name from my bookshelves. I slid it from the shelf, must creeping to my nose with the satisfying feeling of an old, delicious story. (Wow, I realized–they left out a lot in the newer version of the book.)
I’ve found that a good missionary biography refreshes me, puts life back into my dry bones.
Life is like that, sucking you dry at times. Same thing each day. Good stuff, sure. But tiring.
(What breathes life into your dry days? Find out. Dry days do come.)
In my hands, the real-life tale of Bruchko came to life. It’s the story of a young Minnesotan, Bruce Olson, from a dry difficult home. Convinced God said “go”, Olson 
up and went”–not sure where or why.
And nothing went right.
Slowly, persistently, day after day he walked the trails Jesus drug him along in Caracas, Venezuela. Hungry, without friends, no money, living wherever he could, he kept going.
Olson was–is still, at 79–one of those tenaciously independent missionaries who didn’t plan ahead.
Interesting how God showed up.
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Eventually, Olson started on the real jungle trails of the Yuko Indians. Men shooting arrows at him. Olson was ignored, struggling to find anything to do in a village he doesn’t understand, where he can’t communicate with anyone. He began learning their language.
Remember the “leadership training program” God put David through in the Old Testament? It started off great – a nobody watching sheep, who became the national hero.
But yikes–the boss lobbing spears at you is rarely a good thing. Then, of course, there’s running for his life! Not dry days, per se, but perhaps “terror-filled.” (Sign me up!)
Olson seemed to be traversing a similar path of his own dry days. All of that was just practice–training–for the real thing.
Now to the Motilone Indians, the ones he really came to work with, the ones who really kill you, the ones not even the Yukos went near. (Spoiler: “Bruchko” is the Motilone version of Olson’s name.)
After all the pain, nasty diseases, and repeated feelings of failure–finally sweet days began to appear.
Slowly he was accepted, allowed to join the hunts. He learned their language and stumbled upon odd pieces of their culture that opened doors to understanding and even connecting.
God had hidden in the tribe’s collective memory stories that pointed to himself! Those stories left a haunting question, a missing piece that God would one day provide.
There in my comfortable chair, my thoughts lingered over Olson’s descriptions of the hammocks swung high in the large communal home, and his amazing friendship with Bobby (the first young Motilone to start walking the “Jesus trail”). Bobby introduced Jesus to the Motilone people in their weird-to-us way.
It all took so long. But the fruit of the Spirit was real as the tribe learned to walk the “Jesus trail”.
I read all over again things that stretch my understanding of the world and how life really works. Things that mess with my predictable, boring, Western-world, meaningless fluff life.
God-sort of things that make you pause. That strip the dull and lifeless from dry days, exposing what’s real.
Mmmm ….. I read halfway through the book this morning. And I already feel some living water seeping in.
Sun’s up, time to start the day. It was worth waking up early.
Your Missionary Biographies Weekend Watchlist: Amazon Prime
Top Missions Podcasts of 2020!
Global veteran David Armstrong has set foot in 15 countries, and confesses that Crepes and Waffles in Bogota, Colombia is one of his favorite restaurants. Catch his classic post here on 8 Ways to Help your Family Flourish Overseas.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
We get a distinct thrill over here in partnering with you in a small way as you look in an overseas direction. Here are the posts that seemed to resonate with you–and represent some of the best posts of 2020.
May God empower your every next move for his honor and renown.
The Go. Serve. Love Team
(This one’s a bit of a cheater–not published in 2020, but since it went viral this year, definitely makes the “best posts of 2020” list!)
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Wonder if your children are getting shortchanged by your choices? Rebecca Skinner explores ways her parents nurtured their missionary kids in one of our classic best posts of 2020.
1.8 billion Muslims haven’t heard of Jesus’ love and freedom. Yet more have turned to Christ in 15 years than the last 1400 combined. Pray with us!
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