A missionary on furlough from India visits a church. The believers ask, “How can we best help you in your work?” “Pray for me”, he or she responds. “What can we really do?”
“Pray.”
We know this is the right answer but it seems so predictable and intangible. But since mission is God’s work, the most effective help a partner can give is to implore the Lord of the harvest for blessing. God is and must be the biggest player in world mission
But how do you pray for mission workers? We often choose a name and pray for God’s blessing on their work, family and health. Then we pick another name and pray the same things over again. Our mission prayer meetings become predictable and, at times, dull.
Perhaps the following thoughts, taken from a three-part outline from Mr Torn Wells and filled in with my own observations, will be of help to you and your church.
Pray for Mission Workers as People
Mission workers are not superhuman. They have the same needs as other people: food, clothing and shelter. So pray for them in the same way you would pray for anyone else.
Food
Food shopping is different. Rather than shopping in the supermarket or local store, a family may have to grow what they need or shop for it at an expansive open market. Families often have to change their diet because they just can’t get what they could back home.
Housing
In the majority world your mission worker may have to become a plumber, carpenter or electrician just to move in to a reasonable home. And don’t be fooled – minimally suitable housing in a majority world city can be very expensive.
Health
Living in a new climate can be detrimental to a person’s health. Mozambique has been called the white man’s graveyard. Often hospitals are poorly equipped and medicines are hard to find.
Crime
This is a real issue in poorer nations Many people (mission workers and nationals. may have to live behind security bars This can become demoralizing. I recall visiting the USA and sensing the relief that I no longer had to look behind my back to see who was ready to steal something from me. On my first day in Mozambique I was robbed by a group of thugs.
Children
In spite of the numerous, benefits of being raised overseas, children of mission workers often feel they don’t fit into the local culture or to their home culture when they return for a break. At times, the sense of isolation from extended family is intense.
Marriage
Mission work and living in another culture puts huge strains on a marriage: Many missionary marriages have suffered damage. Some workers have had to return from the field because of a deteriorating family life. Other marriages improve! Pray that your missionary would learn how to balance work and family responsibilities. Your missionaries are but dust (Ps. 103:14). Pray for them as such.
Pray for Mission Workers As Christians
Next, pray for your mission worker as you would pray for any other follower of Christ. Intercede for their walk with the Lord. Mission workers can become bitter or hardened due to their poor response to the difficulties of living in another culture. Some hide from God on the mission field, assuming that just because they are doing God’s work, all is okay when it’s not. Many workers give and give and give but have little spiritual input for themselves. Living outside your home culture, you face new temptations and some may struggle with new sins. At 75 years of age, a missionary to Brazil confessed difficulty living in a country with beautiful, scantily-clad Brazilian women around. A mission worker enters a new context and discovers how selfish, proud or racist he or she is. Just like you, mission workers are in a spiritual battle, so pray for them (Eph. 6:18).
Pray for Mission Workers as Christian Workers
In addition to being human and believers, your mission workers have been called to a unique task.
Language Study
Possibly requiring two or three years of a person’s time, language acquisition can be demoralizing and lead to discouragement or a sense of failure. Yet it is crucial to speak the language of the people (Acts 2:8).
Their Ministry
Pray for God’s blessing on the ministry, whether it is evangelizing, teaching, training, local church leadership, church planting, support administration, medical, or relief and development. Some see little fruit after years of hard work. Others serve in places where progress in ministry is much more evident.
Their Host Country
Pray for God’s blessing on the people and government of the nation in which mission workers serve (Jer. 29:7).
Harmony Between Workers and National Believers
This is one of the most challenging aspects on the mission field and most mission face it at some time or another. When finance or property is involved, the problems worker can be compounded (Rom. 15:5,6).
Harmony With Other Mission Workers
Mission workers are often ambitious people who have goals, projects, vision and drive. Putting focused people in the same team can have significant challenges (Acts 15:36-41).
The Perplexities of Cross-cultural Ministry
All mission workers make cultural blunders, some small, some serious. But we are all human. Some mission workers throw themselves into a new culture with delight; others can’t understand “why other people can’t be like me” There are cross-cultural expectations on a mission worker’s family, home and time. Mission workers wrestle with how to make the gospel come alive and be truly understood in the new culture. They often have to do things they have no prior experience of doing. Western mission workers are often frustrated by having to live in a new country and culture where everything proceeds inefficiently and at what appears to be a snail’s pace (1 Cor. 10:32,33).
Choosing the essential
Some gospel workers walk into or inherit messy situations, e.g, churches in trouble, Bible schools in disarray. My senior mission workers left me with invaluable advice: as a new mission worker, don’t try to resolve all the problems at once; work with patience. A wise mission worker will select the correct bathes to fight and problems to resolve. This requires sensitivity, wisdom and your prayers (Rom. 15:1).
Accountability
No matter how much a sending church tries, frankly it is impossible to fully supervise the work of their foreign mission workers. Assemblies need to commend well-proven servants of God, send them off and trust them to work well. But without some kind of supervision and accountability, some mission workers (very few in my experience) become lazy. On the other hand, too many Mission workers become workaholics without the accountability of someone to remind them not to neglect their family, health and spiritual well-being (Col. 4:7-9).
Maintaining vision
This is an acute problem. There is so much to do: conferences, seminars, itinerant preaching, youth and evangelistic work, relief and development. The work never ends. Going to a field where there are so many needs and so few workers, the mission worker faces the temptation to try to do everything. And this is dangerous. It’s easy to be overwhelmed with the huge needs and it’s a constant battle to stay focused. Pray that your mission worker will learn the art of saying “No”, to avoid being spread too thinly and risk ineffectiveness and burnout (Col. 4:2-4).
Prayer is not just the right thing – it’s the crucial thing because the work is God’s. At times I’ve been in perplexing situations and have been greatly comforted knowing that prayer partners at home are lifting me, my family and my work up to the Lord. Choose a mission worker or ministry and become a truly committed prayer partner, remembering Paul’s words to the Thessalonians, “brothers, pray for us.”
This article was first printed in CMML’s ‘Missions’ Magazine.
Second printing in Echoes January 2013