Blessings of being a missionary – Part 1

I thought I’d start a short series of posts on some of the blessings I’ve experienced as a cross-cultural missionary in Colombia. When I talk to people about being a missionary, they often have a stereotyped view of what it’s like to be a missionary. Many times people think of missionaries as those who live in the jungle or in the bush. In our case we live in a house and even have high-speed internet. Other people say, “Oh, it must be sooo hard to do what you do.” I kindly explain to them that actually it’s a great blessing, and I see more blessings than difficulties. That said, let’s start with our first installment of something I’ve found to be a blessing on the mission field.

For me, speaking another language has been a great blessing and has taught me many things. I tend to be a critically thinking person, and that quality used to lead me to overly criticize ideas and even people. I remember the first time I came to Colombia, I thought the missionary was making a grammatical mistake because he said “digamos” instead of “decimos” (both forms of the verb decir, to say). Come to find out, he was using the word “digamos” because that’s the way you say, “Let’s say…” As I’ve learned more, I’ve realized that my understanding of the Spanish language has deepened but at the same time I’ve grown in humility to realize that I could be missing a more subtle nuance in the language.

I’ve also come to be less concerned with trifling details. For example, in English if someone says, “I’m doing good,” my temptation is to say, “You mean to say you’re doing well, right?” This propensity of mine has been tempered by learning Spanish. I’ve come to ask myself more, “Why might they say it like that?” than “Why don’t they say it right?”

I’ve also grown to try to understand people better. In Spanish, I often understand perfectly the words that are spoken but at times I don’t understand the message the person wants to communicate. I’m afraid this has contributed to untold problems in the history of missions, simply because we haven’t learned to think like a person from a different country. At this very minute I’m wondering what happened to the family that said they would be here at 4 p.m. (It’s 4:18). Did I miss a cultural clue? Did I say something that turned them off from studying the Bible? I don’t know, but as a missionary it’s a constant quest for understanding. Have I arrived? Nope. Have I grown? Yep.

I’ve studied more in depth the way people prayed in the Bible. Since studying Spanish in Costa Rica, I’ve prayed almost entirely in Spanish. Now, I remember the first few months of that. God and I spent a lot of time looking up words in my dictionary, and I spent a lot of time poring over the Psalms in Spanish (and other passages), looking for words fit for prayer. In English in the past I used to just pray whatever came to mind, without giving it much thought. In contrast with Spanish, in the beginning I could not do that, so I would constantly seek to pray different parts of the Bible back to God, which improved both my prayer life and my Spanish.

Should you consider learning another language? I would highly encourage you to consider the possibility. I’ve found it to be very helpful in my life.

(Graphic is courtesy of Wikipedia.)