Karl Dahlfred posts about a common question asked of missionaries while on furlough/home assignment: ‘Are you (and your family) going back?’
Well, yes they are.
But the question keeps raising a largely unvoiced assumption:
Surely we will come back to “our home” eventually, won’t we? What about the children’s education? Have we thought about that? (We have). Don’t we miss the lifestyle and conveniences that America has to offer? Aren’t you planning to pastor a church in the U.S. at some point? Why would you willingly spend the majority of your life anywhere other than “the greatest country in the world”?
No matter what way you cut it, missionaries are misfits. Everyone in our home country thinks that we belong here in the U.S. So when we show our faces in the home country, some people wonder if we “are back” (in the permanent settling-down, getting-a-real-job, buying-a-house sense). And when we are in Thailand, local folks are always wondering when we are going back to our own country.
Read the rest of Karls’ post here.
Now that you’ve read that, and thought about it, watch this video of Francis Chan.
Takes little while to warm up, but by the end he’s really cooking.
Now, ask yourself: ‘As the Bible describes normal or abnormal lives, who are the misfits, and would my life rest in the New Testament narrative as an example of the way things should be, or as a cautionary warning?’
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