Well, I have now asked and heard back from many of our missionaries, and also had the opportunity to talk a few people who have been associated with missions work in the past.
And I have to report that every one of the missionaries that our church financially supports, and the others that I have spoken to, are singing the same tune: They hear very little from a very few people on a regular basis.
In fact most of them said that they have not one person who keeps in regular touch with them, and the only one who said otherwise, has one single pastor who has been keeping in touch on a fairly regular basis, but that has only been the last year or so - this missionary has been on that field for around 25 years.
And the biggest tragedy of that is that this includes even the sending church and the Pastor who is their authority.
One mentioned that he knew of another missionary who basically never heard from his sending church Pastor, and that Sending Pastor simply had no idea what the missionary was doing in the field, and how the support was being used nor even whether or not the missionary was actually serving the Lord.
I have not had the privilege of sending a missionary to the field - I hope to one day - but I would like to think that I would care for at least "our own" missionary enough to keep in touch and keep him encouraged. But that is probably a bit like the person who said that they knew all about being a parent until they had kids......
What this shows me is that there is even more need and even more importance to keeping in touch with our missionaries regularly. We simply don't know how many and how often people are keeping in touch with them, and one thing we should all realise is that out there on the forefront of the battle, away from family and friends, these soldiers need to know that they have people "back at home" who really do care for them - and care enough to give them a call on occasion, to send them emails, even to send letters the old fashioned way.
As I read response after response, my heart was breaking with pain for these hardworking servants who never murmur about all of this, and my heart was filling with shame at my own lack of care and my own selfishness.
But I need to acknowledge one thing - I am likely to slip in this at times. I actually wrote back and told the missionaries to give me a kick if I start to get slack. Or maybe that should be when I start to get slack - I know me. Please pray for me on this.
But also I need to ask anyone reading this to get in touch with your own missionaries.
I cannot believe that the missionaries that we support are the ONLY ones who are experiencing this. Sorry folks, just not possible.
So get in touch with your missionaries, and let them know what is going on in your church and your life, and ask them how you can pray for them, and say hi, and chat a while...........
And I think that we need to start calling them "My Missionary".
We know they are God's missionaries, but when I think of my kids I think differently to the way I think of other kids.
Maybe if we start to call them "My Missionary" we might start to think of them as "My missionary", and then we might just care for them more.
Am I rambling about this? I feel like I am, but this is my thoughts blog and if it wasn't already obvious, these last two posts and what they relate to in my life just prove that I have named it right - these are the thoughts of a dumb bloke.......
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