The Journey of a Post-Modern Missionary:

finding one’s niche in cross-cultural ministry.

by

Richard G. Lewis

Copyright © 2006 by Richard G. Lewis

The Journey of a Post-Modern Missionary

by Richard G. Lewis

ISBN 1-60034-011-3

All rights reserved solely by the author. The author guarantees all contents are original and do not infringe upon the legal rights of any other person or work.  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the author.

Unless otherwise indicated, Bible quotations are taken from the New International Version of the Bible.  Copyright © 1978 by The Zondervan Corporation.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1          Called or Drafted?

Chapter 2          Passion Without A Plan

Chapter 3          Grazing Toward Purpose

Chapter 4          A Small Light In the Dark Continent

Chapter 5          Choosing a People Group

Chapter 6          Professional Upgrade

Chapter 7          The Missionary Family

Chapter 8          Strategically Leaving The Field

Chapter 9          Equipping Others For The Task

Chapter 10         Coaching Globally

Chapter 11         Training National Missionaries

Chapter 12         The Journey Continues

Bibliography

Introduction

In a noisy café in downtown New Delhi, my friend Randall and I were discussing the challenges of ministry.  As a coach and trainer for missionaries, I recognize the difficulty of working in restricted access countries and the frustrations missionaries face as they try to be a witness for Christ while, at the same time, attempting to not rile a government that is predominantly Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist.   North American missionaries, called to do ministry but who need another reason for being in certain countries, often have difficulty legitimizing their presence.

In his unassuming manner, Randall, who has lived in India for over 15 years, said matter-of-factly,  “The most difficult task for those who work overseas is finding their niche.  If a person can find out where they fit on the field, they will be a long way down the road to success.”

While that is certainly true for missionaries, it is also true for everybody in life.  Finding one’s niche is not only crucial, it is the essence of life.  “Why am I here?” and “What is the meaning of life?” are the great questions of significance.   Finding one’s role in life is the greatest quest for all of God’s creation.

Some people find their niche early in life, while others seem never to find it.   Some may know their niche but somehow get stuck in a role, career, or job that pays the bills but doesn’t satisfy the soul.  Happy are the people who can truly say that they get paid for doing something they really love.  I suspect most people in this world work outside their dreams while looking for opportunities of fulfillment beyond the daily grind of life.  The working mother who would rather stay home relishes her weekends with the kids; the executive who dreams of having his own restaurant prepares gourmet food at home; the truck driver who wanted to play football now takes delight in coaching his son’s soccer team.  We all want to find our niche; we all want to journey through life with meaning.

Typical of most kids, when I was a young boy I really had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew taller.  I was just a plain vanilla-type guy with no direction and no outstanding gifts.  I was not a child prodigy and never won any awards in school. The only unique thing about me was that I had an identical twin brother; but this was an achievement of my parents, not mine.  Finding my niche wasn’t something I thought much about when I was growing up; and, since I didn’t have many people in my life pushing me to define my place in this world, I mostly just drifted.

Now, nearly six decades since my arrival on planet earth, I look back over the road I’ve traveled and see how, like a paint-by-numbers picture, God has been filling in the details of my role in life.  I didn’t seek a career in missions; it has been an evolutionary process.  I don’t believe that finding my path was an accident, nor do I believe it was predetermined.  Rather, I believe God has been directing my steps as I discovered what I could do coupled with the desire for what I wanted to do in my sojourn of life.

It has been an interesting journey.  I have gone from being a kid born in California and raised on a farm in Arkansas to being a pastor in Texas.  I eventually became a missionary working in the bush of Kenya, and now I travel to different parts of the world, guiding and coaching others on how to take the Good News of Christ cross-

culturally.  I could not have planned this journey if I tried.  No one but God has that kind of insight.

The interesting aspect of this journey is the people and experiences I have been fortunate to know along the way.  I think of the church that supported us for two dollars and fifty cents a month; of Marty Mosley and his dad, Maurice, who gave me my two minutes of fame with Priority One International (and the total stranger who came up to me at the L.A. airport who watched their TV program [a Priority One production] and said, “You’re Richard Lewis.  I saw you on PTL last night”); of the 80-year-old lady in Texas who has been praying for our family for over 25 years; and the church member who walked out of the Missions Conference because it was “long and boring.”

It has been the surprises of life that I cherish most—from Sandy’s and my honeymoon in Berryville, Arkansas, to our 30th anniversary in Vienna, to having two wonderful daughters and seeing them marry godly men, to our receiving the gift of four of the most remarkable grandkids God ever created.  Who knew that the greatest accomplishment of Sandy and me would be our family?  It’s been quite a ride.

In finding my niche, I have learned lessons that I wish to pass on to others—lessons like: what it means to be a pastor of a small church; how to become a missionary; the process of getting to the mission field; what are the challenges of living as an expatriate; what missions is today and what I believe it will look like in the future.

My journey, I hope, is as much informational as inspirational.  At the conclusion of each chapter are lessons I’ve learned I call niche notes.  I’m a realist as well as a skeptic, devoid, I trust, of the foolishness that I see prevalent in the church today.  I consider missions a serious business, and I have tried to steer clear of the spiritual prattle that people often associate with many Christian writings.  Being a missionary is a profession, not a two-week vacation with a purpose.  Understand this: if everything is missions, then nothing is missions.  This is not a Bible study, and undoubtedly some will view this book as more of a secular piece than Christian.  Though I will not try to support every point with a passage of scripture, my views are based on solid scriptural principles.

We can take issue on theological perspectives, but this is true of any Christian writing.  I expect and invite those who disagree with my theories to wrestle with my conclusions.

Though this book is autobiographical, it is more than that; it is a textbook on how God works in the lives of people.  I hope to show how, through the process of life, God not only conforms His children into His image but also allows us to play a role in His plan for mankind.  It is the work of the Omnipotent to connect the dots in the lives of His creation and have it come out with form.

What is remarkable about my journey is that it’s so unremarkable.  Though the headliners of life are those with incredible gifts, I suspect most people in this world are just common folks like you and me.  Yet it is with people exactly like us that God does most of His best work here on earth.

My goal in writing this book is to remind people that they are not alone in this process of life—that we find our meaning through discovery, not through some idealistic life that is always out of reach.

Whatever your reaction is to this book, I hope that it will ultimately cause you, the reader, to think about your journey in finding your own niche.  When time is no more, we’ll have eternity to compare notes.

Chapter 1

CALLED OR DRAFTED?

On a cold February night in Fayetteville, Arkansas, I had come, as they say, “to the end of myself.”  I viewed my young life of twenty years and came to the conclusion that I was going nowhere.  I was a drunk trying to work two menial jobs and living in an apartment alone.  My dingy one-bedroom flat was always a mess, strewn with beer bottles and dirty clothes.  I felt like a loser and was pretty much behaving like one.

I had been raised better.  I was ashamed of my life.  I was an embarrassment to my mom who loved me in spite of what I had become and to my dad who also loved me, though I suspected he always felt I would end of up this way.  I had no skills, had barely graduated from high school, and had just quit college after failing to make it through one semester.

When a person gets that low in life, he has three options.  He can just end it all, (which I thought about); go further into despair (although I didn’t think I could sink any lower), or try to seek help.  I was too chicken to go for option one; too disgusted with option two.  So I threw my newly purchased pack of Winston cigarettes out the car window and said, “I give up, Lord.  I don’t know what You could possibly do with this life, but whatever, I’m giving it to You.”

The next Sunday night I paid a visit to the little Baptist church that my folks attended.  They were not particularly surprised to see me there; I’d make an appearance every now and then just to keep them off my back and to keep me from hurting my mom.  However, I’m sure they were surprised to see me walk down the aisle at the close of the church service when the pastor gave the traditional invitation—or “alter call”, as they termed it in those days.  Dressed in my typical jeans with my shirttail hanging out, who could have ever guessed I was a repentant?

I knelt on the altar, a railing surrounding the platform, to surrender my life to Christ—and that’s exactly what I did in every sense of the word.  My pastor, Rev. Gilbert Presley, prayed with me.

“Folks,” old man Presley said at the conclusion of the service, “Brother Richard has come to give his life to go into fulltime ministry.”

“I have?” I thought to myself, stunned as anyone in the room at hearing that announcement.  Sure, I wanted God to take control of my life, and I told Him I would do whatever He wanted—but I don’t remember signing up to be a preacher!

You can imagine the joy in my mom’s heart.  The people gathered around me after the service telling me how proud they were of my decision and that they would be praying for me.  I couldn’t tell them at that point that there had been a mistake—that I was just trying to get back to square one with God, and I wasn’t really going into ministry.  It was an embarrassing situation, so I just went along.  From that point on, however, I had been marked as having received the call into fulltime Christian service, and there didn’t seem any way out.

The days following, pride from my mom and relief from my dad snowballed into a solid commitment into professional ministry.  I saw myself a bit like Gideon who was thrashing wheat when God called him and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”  His response was a bit like mine, “Are you talking to me?” (Judges 6:12,15)  Gideon’s heart was in the right place; he was yielded to Jehovah.  But Gideon didn’t exactly volunteer for service.  Maybe that was what God had for me?  Since that fateful (or what I thought might be fatal) night in 1967, I’ve seldom looked back; but I’ve always wondered what life would have been like if I hadn’t been drafted into fulltime ministry?

School Daze

If I was going to be a preacher, a term I’d always detested but one that is common in the south, I knew I needed to go to Bible school.  I became a Christian in an independent Baptist Church as a boy in Los Angeles, and Baptist Bible College (BBC) in Springfield, Missouri, was the only college I knew about.  So I immediately made steps to enroll in the school.  I worked hard that summer and entered the halls of Bible College in the fall.  From the first day on campus, I knew I was a misfit.  Most of the students were younger (though not by much), straight out of high school, and seemed very immature.

I had graduated from high school at age 17 and joined the Army Reserves in 1964.  Viet Nam, at that time, was not much more than a conflict.  I knew little about Nam when I joined the Reserves but learned much more during basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

The major thing the Army taught me to do was to drink.  Beer on the base was only fifteen cents a can and I made going to the beer garden a nightly ritual.  While stationed at Fort Dix, I celebrated my 18th birthday passed out in the parking lot of a McDonald’s restaurant in Trenton, New Jersey.

After six months of basic training and special training, I was out on my own.  I worked a few months in California before returning to Arkansas where I enrolled at the University of Arkansas.  While at the U of A, I renounced my faith and began drinking heavily.  I experienced life at a rapid pace, and little of it was very positive.

Now here I was at a Bible college with a bunch of kids straight out of Sunday School.  Like many Bible schools in the late ‘60’s, several of the guys at BBC were trying to escape the draft.  Studying for ministry gave them a 4-F deferment.  (It’s amazing how many people God calls into the ministry in time of war.)  Since most of the students came straight out of church, they were already mini-theologians, discussing deep issues of predestination and election, while I was still on withdrawal from alcohol and nicotine.  My first semester was a scholastic disaster, and I was put on academic probation.  I began to wonder if I was going to fail at this as I had at everything else I tried to do in life.  I thought about quitting but stayed on and finished my first year at BBC, though a long way from the Dean’s List of academic excellence.

It was during my second semester, on a weekend trip back to Arkansas, that I met my wife-to-be on what I call a half blind date.  I had no idea what Sandy looked like when I picked her up at her house, but she knew what I looked like.  My sister-in-law, Sandra, was married to my identical twin brother and worked with Sandy at Baldwin Piano.  My sister-in-law thought it was outrageous that I wasn’t married at the ripe old age of 21, and she was always trying to hook me up with someone.  One day she showed Sandy a picture of my brother and asked if it was okay for me to call her.  Sandy wasn’t put off by his/my looks, so she agreed to go out with me—even though she was hesitant about dating a preacher.

Six months later, August 23, 1968, we were married.  We moved into an efficiency apartment on the BBC campus and lived, like most college kids, barely making it.  I attended classes in the morning and worked all night loading trucks at the Pepsi plant.  Sandy and I were too young, too idealistic, and too much in love to realize how disadvantaged we were.  My studies were more interesting the second year of Bible College, and my grades were decent enough to stay off the academic probation list.  Our first daughter, Becky, was born one month before I graduated in 1970.

I was never interested in school.  I barely made it through high school, so graduating from college was a big deal.  I was the first of our “clan” to get a college degree, and more than a few people would have guessed that I would never graduate.  It was a proud day for us all.  When I walked across the platform to accept my diploma, I was relieved as much as gratified with the accomplishment.

Of course, the road to finding my niche in life began at birth followed by a great deal of history, good and bad, prior to my surrender to Christ as my Lord and not just my Savior.  And as an adult, my decisions led to consequences.  The years before me would be as unorthodox as the night I stepped forward to give my life to God.

Journey Niche Notes

Call of God

People seeking God’s will for their lives often ask, “How does one really know for sure if God is calling them into His service?”  The short answer is, “I don’t know?”  As I review those early years of my journey, it seems to be more of an accident than a well thought out plan.  However, I believe the principles regarding how God uses a person, whether they are in the ministry or not, are consistent.

The first principle is that you must surrender to God’s leading in your life and love Him with all your might (Mt. 22:37).  Though I fell into my career path by default and decree from my pastor, my heart was in the right place.  I gave my heart to Christ years ago as a kid at Vacation Bible School, and that salvation experience was real.  Though I had lived the life of a prodigal, I never doubted that I was child of God—not even when I openly denied Him.  In my deepest moments of despair and debauchery, I had a secret longing to return to the One who loved me and gave Himself for me.  My resignation to giving my life completely over to him that February night was genuine.  Had I become a football coach (which was actually my lifelong dream), a farmer, or a clerk in a store, my life would have been just as fulfilling because I was committed to Him.  I have never believed that being in ministry was a supreme calling—noble, yes, but no nobler than any other career where one is doing what God has gifted them to do.

There are some in the church who insist that there is a special call into ministry, and they use Bible personalities from Abraham to the Apostle Paul as their proof-texts.  I concede that God did, and probably still does in rare cases, call out people for special tasks.  I do not believe, however, that a special call is a pre-requisite for all who enter fulltime service.  One needs to be gifted for any task they pursue; but God’s special hand is not on every pastor, missionary, or evangelist.

The ministry has always been on a volunteer basis.  Most who volunteer are people with a deep desire to give their life to Christ to such an extent that they take on ministry as a career (1Tim. 3:1).  To seek a career in ministry, rather than being called to be a pastor, youth director, professor of Greek, or missionary, is not demeaning; in fact, it is pleasing to the Father that His children, through their own free will, desire to serve Him.

In many ways, the teaching of “a special call for ministry” has been harmful to the church.  Some have abused the call by assuming a position that is not to be challenged--all the while claiming they are chosen by God.  The church would be better served if we abandoned the notion of the call and just accept it for what it is: a profession born out of a desire to serve Him.

God’s Direction

Whether you accept the premise of a special call or not, I do believe we must recognize the importance of God directing the steps of His followers (Prov. 16:9).  Granted, my plans, especially in the early stages of my career, were not always well thought out; however, I have always moved forward in a direction that leads towards a goal.  In the process, I have at times stumbled and fallen; but I have always fallen face first.  Whether it was preparing for college, getting married, or taking my first pastorate, I have never suffered “paralysis through analysis.”  In spite of not always knowing exactly what the road looked like ahead, my decisions were not by whim nor were they irresponsible—especially as they related to our finances or taking care of my family.  I have never used God’s call as an excuse for bad decisions or for selfish motives — something I have seen too many ministers do.

If a family is suffering, it does not necessarily mean it’s God’s will for them to be in misery; more likely it’s due to just poor decision making and planning.  My dad, whom I credit for me being both a skeptic and a realist, raised me to take responsibility for everything that happens in my life.  And, whether it sounds spiritual or not, we do determine much of our own luck or destiny.

I am a living testimony of God’s direction in one’s life; however, my life is lived in partnership with Him.  And there is some truth in the saying, “God helps those who help themselves.”  I am not a victim of life nor has it been predestined that my life would unfold as it has; it’s a journey still in process.  When I hear people repeat the well-worn phrase, “God has a plan for your life,” I wonder what they mean?  If they are suggesting that all things have been programmed and that we are mere unsuspecting pawns in the hands of God to fulfill His purpose, I cannot agree.  If they mean, however, that the “plan” He has for those who embrace His Son is for them to be conformed into His image and walk close to Him, fulfilling His work on earth, then that is a thought I can embrace.

The success I have enjoyed in life is due to His directing my steps, helping me make the right decisions.  I’m convinced there have been times when God has been exasperated with my life, wishing I would get it together—which would make His job and my life easier.  But in spite of my failings, He has never failed to guide my steps.  And as I yield to Him, He always gets me back on the right path.

Passion and Interest

I believe there are three things that are essential for every pilgrim in life: a sense of passion, interest, and contentment with God’s leading in life.  My son-in-law, Casey Marietta, is a great example of a person whom God has so gifted and who is available to serve Christ wherever he can.

Casey graduated with an Elementary Education Degree from John Brown University and taught first grade in a local school for several years.  As much as he enjoyed the rewards of working with kids, Casey’s interest is carpentry.  Naturally gifted, he can just about build anything—and his interest helps improve his craft.  Master carpenters make a great deal more money than teachers, but that’s not why Casey left the classroom.  He works within the sphere of what he enjoys most.

Casey’s primary passion, however, is to love and serve Christ, and he serves Him through the natural gifts the Lord has given him.  Owning his own construction company, he knows a bit about finances and making good management decisions.  He has used both to serve God as an elder in his church.  Because he is a builder, he has volunteered for more work projects at the church than you can imagine.  A teacher who loves kids, he puts on his AWANA uniform every Sunday evening, sometimes when I know there are nights he’d like to skip it.

Casey never seeks praise or recognition, and I suppose, as in most churches, his contribution is taken for granted.  He’s not up-front where the fulltime boys and girls are; but each day he softly walks the path in which God directs him with the quiet confidence of one who knows who he is and understands the role God has given him as a good husband, father, and witness.

My personal entrance into ministry had more to do with sheer passion for serving Christ than it had to do with giftedness.  I’m just an average person with no special gifts or abilities.  I have always seen myself as the servant that had only one talent (Matt. 25:14-30), though I haven’t buried it in the ground.

In my early days of ministry, I was enamored with large churches and pastors who had huge followings.  I gauged my success by the accomplishments of others.  In spite of the occupational hazards of competition within the “business,” what has kept me from quitting is the passion I had for Him the day He killed the fatted calf and welcomed me back home as a son in 1967 (Lk 15:22-24).  The road has been a bit winding and things haven’t always turned out exactly as I thought they would.  But the principles of passion and interest have kept me on the path and have been the key to keeping the faith.  By nature, contentment does not come easy for me; but over the years, it’s becoming more of a reality.

Prayer

Never underestimate the power of a praying mother.  One can only appreciate after having children of their own what a parent goes through in raising kids.  Though my mom did not know the depths of my wretched life, she knew I wasn’t living for Christ.  I can only imagine the hours she prayed for me, asking God to bring me back to the faith she had taught me.  She clung to the verse, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Prov. 22:6).  Though I told my parents after a semester at the university that I no longer believed in God, my announcement was merely an excuse for me to live a life free from the constraints of responsibility.  My mom never gave in, though she never badgered me.

Through the years, I’ve met many parents who were worried about their children.  Not every wayward son or daughter will return to God, of course, but I tell them to be patient and keep praying.  This is not a platitude with me, for I think of my mom who never doubted that one day God would bring her son to his senses.  I don’t know if there was rejoicing in heaven on that winter night in 1967, but I know there was at least one person who breathed a prayer of thanksgiving for a prayer answered.

Chapter 2

Passion Without A Plan

It was with both a sense of relief and accomplishment that I received my diploma from Bible College—relief that I didn’t fail and gratitude that I actually graduated.   I received neither special achievement nor academic honors.  I was just a guy who, for three years, went to class and passed enough exams to fill my requirements.  Though my light did not shine brightly that May evening in 1970, it did glow.  Both my parents and my wife were proud of me.  My graduation was a modest accomplishment and one of which to be modestly proud.

Accomplishments in life are only markers of what you have achieved up to a certain point in time.   When you wake up the next morning, the challenge of life is still before you.  Graduation from college only gave me potential for being in fulltime ministry — it guaranteed me nothing.

The day after graduating, I had no clue about what I would to do next.  Many of my classmates had decided that they were either going to return for a fourth year of study and get an accredited degree or accept positions in churches as associates, youth directors, etc.  Neither of those options appealed to me.

I wanted to pastor a church.  I did not want to be someone’s lackey (which I perceived was the function of church staff).  And it had never been instilled in me to value education highly, so hanging around the halls of academia for another year seemed to be a waste of time.  Besides, I didn’t want to push my luck.  I had a diploma, and I decided it was better to cut and run while I was ahead.

During graduation week, I talked with a pastor from East Texas who was looking for someone to pastor a mission church in a town called Dangerfield.  (I should have viewed the name as an omen of things to come!)  I didn’t make any firm commitments, so one week after graduation, with no job or other prospects, my wife Sandy and I drove back to Arkansas to “wait on the Lord.”  After a couple of weeks of waiting, I drove to Texas to meet with a group of pastors to learn more about Dangerfield.

I was told that this group of men would support me if I would take the church, which had a nice small building and a few members.   There is an old saying about “buying a pig in a poke” (purchasing something without looking in the sack), and that’s exactly what I did.  The church building, though nice, had a mortgage I wasn’t told about (but was expected to pay off), and the congregation consisted of one family that was moving out of the area soon and an older couple in their eighties.

Well, when you’re young and idealistic, you think you can do anything -- with or without God’s help.  In the middle of June, we moved to Dangerfield on a promise of $140 a month support.  We lasted four months.  I knocked on every door of that little town of less than 1,000 people.  What I didn’t know was that in that tri-city area of Lone Star, Dangerfield, and Lindale, the combined population was only 5,000 with over 100 Baptist Churches!  No one was interested in our church, and, after beating the pavement like a Fuller Brush salesman for weeks with no results, I knew this project was a dead-end.

Even in 1970, $35 a week was not a living wage.  Most of that support went to renting a small apartment, and what little was left over was used to buy food.  My folks lived on a farm and if it hadn’t been for the meat and vegetables they gave us when they came to visit, we would have starved.  Our furniture was hand-me-downs from relatives, including a refrigerator that leaked water that I had to mop up each morning.  We were the epitome of a young couple who lived on our love and commitment to one another since we had nothing else to live on.

First Encounter With Missions

There was a missions conference in nearby Center, Texas, that September, and the guest speaker was Bob Hughes who was serving in the Philippines.  Bob was the best known missionary in our denomination, having one of the largest churches in the world in Cebu City, and since God wasn’t giving audible direction in Dangerfield, I decided that maybe I could find some guidance at this conference.  I had no idea what impact that night would have on me.

After the evening service, there was a time of fellowship in the church basement with sandwiches and punch.  Bob had plenty of people around him, and though I was never one to push myself on someone else, I got up enough courage to say to him, “Rev. Hughes, when you get time, I’d like to talk to you.”  After most of the people had left, Bob picked up a ham sandwich and motioned for me to sit by him.  I told him my story, and he listened intently as he munched on his sandwich.

“How many people are in your town?” he asked.

“Five thousand in the area” I replied.

“And how many Baptist Churches are there?”

“Over one hundred, and, of course, there are other denominations there as well.”

Bob took a sip of punch, looked at me with a smile and said, “Lewis, I wouldn’t even have to pray about it.  I’d be gone tomorrow.”

I’m sure Bob must have told me that night about the mission field and the great need in the Philippines.  The only thing I remember, however, was the freedom I felt when he gave me the green light to do what I really wanted to do…just leave Dangerfield.

Bob died a few years later of stomach cancer.  Before he died, I visited him in his hospital room and reminded him of that meeting in Center, Texas.  He laughed and denied he ever said that “he wouldn’t even have to pray about it,” but I could tell that he still thought it was pretty good advice.

With a sense of permission to move on, I began making plans to leave Dangerfield.  I had learned a lesson through my move to that small town from college: it’s okay to run, but it’s best to have something to run to.

Mississippi or Idaho?

I heard about a church in Meridian, Mississippi, that needed a pastor, so I called and asked to candidate.  It was a nice little church with about a 100 people— 95 more than were in the church in Dangerfield!

The people of this church were pleasant, and the deacons told us they would contact us.  Sandy and I drove back to Texas excited and with great expectations.   After a very long week of praying and waiting, we finally received a letter from Meridian telling us that the church was not extending a call for me to be their pastor.  I was devastated.  That day we got in our car and drove back to Arkansas; it was probably the lowest point in my ministry.

While in Arkansas, however, I made some calls and heard there was a church in Idaho that was looking for a pastor.  They told me they didn’t have enough money to pay my expenses to come up and candidate, however, they did have a church member who was a truck driver and who was coming through East Texas.  They suggested that I hitch a ride with him.  Desperate people do desperate things; so I agreed and made plans to ride in a semi to the potato state.

Run To The Border

It was at that point that God, graciously intervened.  A few days before my rendezvous with the truck driver from Idaho, I attended a local pastors meeting in Texas to announce that I was leaving Dangerfield.  I was criticized, of course, for leaving so soon and not paying down the church mortgage.  I felt badly for not meeting their expectations, but I also knew that I could not resurrect the dead.  I was resolved to move on.

After a business meeting was held, a pastor named R.D. Wade from Austin, Texas, came up to me.  In the early 1970’s, R.D. Wade was one of the most successful pastors in central Texas (at least it appeared so to me).  He always drove a Lincoln Continental, wore shiny suits, and had an entourage of at least three staff members with him wherever he went.  He was certainly not low profile.

Pastor Wade told me about a church in Del Rio that needed a pastor, and he wanted to know if I would be interested.

“If it’s not in Texas, yes,” I said sarcastically.

In spite of my rude and ungrateful answer, Brother Wade (as I addressed him—his friends called him R.D., and far as I know, no one ever called him by his first name) befriended Sandy and me.  To this day, I am fairly certain (as far as my theology will allow me) that meeting with R.D. Wade was a Divine appointment.

Instead of me catching a ride to Idaho on a semi, Brother Wade paid for Sandy and me to travel to Del Rio to meet the church members there (and, yes, Del Rio is in Texas).  A bit wiser by now, I asked more questions than I had of the previous church, and then accepted their invitation to become pastor of the Bethel Baptist Church.  In October, we loaded a 6x12 U-Haul trailer and moved to Del Rio, the little dusty border town 150 miles west of San Antonio.

Del Rio's original name was San Felipe del Rio (Saint Phillip of the River).  Some early Spanish missionaries arrived there on St. Phillip’s Day in 1635 and named the area, but the name was shortened to “Del Rio” in 1883.  There are actually three major population centers of about 150,000 people in that area: San Felipe, where most of the Mexican population lives; Del Rio, across the San Felipe River where the Anglos reside; and Ciudad Acuna, the city across the Rio Grande River in Mexico.  More importantly for me, Laughlin Air Force Base was just ten miles outside of Del Rio.  Consequently, two-thirds of our congregation was either military or worked on the base.

Anybody who knows anything about Del Rio will remember its border blasting AM radio station XERF.  Due to the station’s one million watts of power, on a clear night you could hear XERF from California to Maine.  It was the birthplace of mass evangelism, and one could get an autographed picture of Jesus for a contribution of only ten dollars!  (Interestingly, XERF was also where rock ‘n’ roll disc jockey Wolfman Jack got his start.)

Sandy and I thought we had hit the big time.  The congregation of Bethel Baptist Church was meeting in a renovated garage, had a steady attendance of 30 people, and was willing to pay us $75 a week (parsonage and expenses not included).  The church was excited about their new pastor and family, and we were excited to be in a place where there was potential for ministry.

In December, I was ordained into the ministry and became an official “Reverend.”  The two and one half years in Del Rio turned out to be my “boot camp” for ministry.  I did everything from driving the bus to cutting the grass to leading the singing to counseling.  I had a daily radio program (not on XERF) and spoke nearly every Sunday afternoon at the Val Verde County Jail.

In Del Rio, I learned the disappointments of ministry along with the blessings.  The hours one must put in just to keep a small church moving forward can be exhausting, and I often felt I was hired to do the work of the church—that my profession was necessary but not always appreciated by the members.  Yet the hard work was tempered by some eternal accomplishments.

Because I worked in a military town, I recognized that our little church was a vital link for many military families who were away from their loved ones and their home churches.  Though I often felt I could never measure up to their pastors back home, the congregation was, for the most part, kind to Sandy and me.

Journey Niche Notes

Learn From Others

As I review those first three years of ministry, I realize that I learned some valuable lessons.  The first is that it would have been better for me to have accepted a staff position and learn from someone else before launching out on my own.  Mentors are hard to find, and in the ministry, staff people are often just hired help.  However, over the years I have met many senior pastors who really do know how to guide their staff in ministry and to help them deal with people and issues.

In hindsight, even if I had been just “hired help,” I would have learned the ropes with a structure around me for support rather than learning in the school of hard knocks.  If I had submitted myself to the leadership of a senior pastor, I am sure I would have gained some valuable lessons that would have kept me from making so many mistakes as a young pastor.  Knowing now the importance of mentoring, I try to guide every person who works with me.  Being an independent sort myself, I have never been heavy-handed with my staff and have tried to treat them with respect and a sense of autonomy.  Since I have never wanted to be the boss over anyone, I try instead to coach people in their ministries. I believe we need more pastor/mentors in churches today.

Pray or Act?

There is an old story that J. Vernon McGee used to tell about a pastor who one day said to his wife, “The church in the next town has called me to be their pastor.  It’s a bigger church with a better salary.  I’m going upstairs to pray about it.”

“I’ll go up and pray with you,” said his wife.

“Oh no,” the pastor replied. “You stay down here and pack up.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but the prophetic (and I use that term loosely) words of Bob Hughes turned out to be a guiding force throughout my ministry.  There are some things in life we are to pray about, and then there are other things, which are so obvious that they just require action.  I wrestled with leaving a bad situation in Dangerfield when what I needed to do was recognize the obvious and move on.  I do not advocate running from problems that we are responsible for; in fact, I believe that if life is a mess due to our poor decisions, we have a moral obligation to make it right.  However, there are circumstances in which God says, “Get up, Peter, and leave the jail.” (Acts 12:6-8). Peter had prayed about his imprisonment and the Lord sent him an angel of deliverance.  When the angel appeared, Peter didn’t need to pray about it being God’s will to escape, he needed just needed to put on his coat and walk out of his cell.

I certainly made mistakes in Dangerfield, the biggest one going there in desperation.  Another mistake was not asking more questions before making a commitment.  This is a common problem for young people who are just starting out in life.  I didn’t feel that I had enough legitimacy to ask questions of the pastors who wanted me to work in Dangerfield.  I should have asked: “What are your expectations of me?” “What is the history of the church?”  “What other help will you or the church be able to provide beyond monthly support?”  Asking questions is a sign of prudence, not a lack of faith in God.

When it was clear that I was in a no-win situation, I didn’t need to pray about whether to stay or not.  I just needed to pray about where God wanted me to go next while Sandy packed up.  I am grateful for Bob Hughes and his advice that gave me the freedom to leave a bad situation.

Being A Friend

In the fall of 1970, I learned the value of being a friend to young pastors who are just starting in their ministries.  I will forever be indebted to R.D. Wade.  He not only guided us to Del Rio, but he personally saw to it that my wife and I were taken care of.  Brother Wade bought me my first suit (a shiny one!) and made sure that I had money for Sandy and Becky, our daughter, to have clothes.  He would often raise funds from the fellowship of pastors in Central Texas for the needs of our church, and he did it without ever making me feel as though I was charity case.  God used R.D. Wade in my life, and I have often wondered where I would be if he hadn’t taken an interest in a young preacher who was moving in no particular direction.  Maybe I would be in Idaho.  Maybe I would have left the ministry.

On The Job Training

Del Rio was the beginning of me finding my niche in ministry.  No one can really discover their gifts until they do something.  Was I a pastor, a preacher, an evangelist, or a teacher?  I did it all while on the backside of God’s West Texas desert.  I discovered that I did some things well, while other things were clearly not what I was cut out to do.  Though I still contend that I would have been better off taking an associate position, both Dangerfield and Del Rio accelerated my ministerial growth.  Since I had no one to guide me, everything I did was on-the-job training.  I am sure my little flock suffered as I was finding my place in life, but they were tolerant and walked the path with me.  In reality, though, the “ready, fire, aim” method is not the best approach for ministry.

If I Knew Then…

In retrospect, if I had known then what I know now, I would have had a much better ministry in Del Rio.  I had never had a course in missions and, therefore, had no appreciation of being in an area where the opportunities of ministry were so great.  I was focused on building one church in Del Rio: an Anglo church.  Looking back, I now see that I could have had a ministry not only in Del Rio, but in San Felipe and Acuna as well.

If I could turn back the clock, I would learn Spanish and work alongside the Mexican Christian population in San Felipe and Acuna.  I could have helped establish churches among the Hispanic population and perhaps even created a training program.  I limited my ministry because I was not trained to think cross-culturally or to have a Kingdom perspective.

This myopic perspective of doing ministry is a problem with many pastors and churches throughout the world.  Most churches remain focused on their congregation and not what God wants for the entire community.  As a result, they miss opportunities to accomplish things that are beyond anything they could hope or dream about.

Several years ago, I visited a pastor in El Paso who was the head of a thriving, upper-middle class church.  He took me to a hill overlooking the city and as he was pointing out the location of their church property, he said, “We are strategically located in the city.  It is my goal that one day our Sunday attendance will be ten thousand.”

“What is the population of El Paso?” I asked.

“Half a million in El Paso—and another million and a half people live across the border in Juarez, Mexico.”

So out of two million people, this pastor’s vision was ten thousand.  He was a very gifted pastor and had a greater vision than most men I know in ministry.  Yet it struck me how we pastors have not been trained to think, “How can I win my city for Christ,” but rather, “How big can I grow my church?”

Because churches are divided by Bible theory (theology), they are unable to think about how they can bring the most people into the Kingdom.  Too many churches are still trying to figure out how many people they can get through their denominational doors.  Just about every city in the U.S.— El Paso and Del Rio, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Charlotte, North Carolina; et al—has the same thing in common: diversity.   Diversity in ethnicity, class, and education means that people are not going to enter any one door to hear the Gospel.  I wish I had known this truth 35 years ago.  I wish more pastors understood it today.

Best Advice

The day I was ordained in Del Rio, Dr. Loys Vess, who was my pastor in California when I was a kid, gave me some advice I have never forgotten:

“Richard, in ministry you can go to seed (become over- balanced) on just about any doctrine in the church and ruin your ministry.  The only doctrine you can’t talk about too much is the cross.  Keep everything in balance; keep the cross central in your ministry, and you’ll be okay.”

Over the years, I have found Dr. Vess’ advice to be wise.  I’ve seen pastors go off on tangents over the doctrines of election, tongues, baptism, prophecy, and family values.  I have heard them defend the King James Bible and fight abortion and pornography.  However, though these may be important issues (some are really not), they are not the central themes of the Church.

While we may debate issues such as whether it is right for the church to be active in politics, there has never been a serious disagreement on the importance of Calvary.  The cross is the heart of the message of Christ, and Dr. Vess’ advice is as solid today as it was when he gave it thirty-five years ago.

Chapter 3

Grazing Toward Purpose

In spite of the good ministry that was established, we left Del Rio to take another church in 1973.  The main reason we left was frustration.  I never felt like we could get ahead.  It seemed that every time we began to make headway in growing a congregation, the Air Force would transfer some of our best members.  I would often fuss with God and ask Him, “Why don’t you transfer some of the dead wood out of this church—those who just complain and never give or do anything?”  It seemed that those who did the least and complained the most were never transferred, while those who served as teachers and gave liberally were with us for less than a year. After nearly three years of taking two steps forward and one step back, I was ready to relocate to a place where there was more stability.

Sign of the Times

In order to understand why I was dissatisfied in Del Rio it is important to understand the context of the American church in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s.  During those times, our nation was fractured by the Viet Nam war, and there was an assault on all institutions: government, business, and the church.  The culture war began during that period, and things that were once taboo—drugs, sex, and indecency in both language and dress—were being challenged.  The Soviet Union was still a threat, and the Cold War was at its peak.  The division of ideology in the U.S, that which we now refer to as “red states,” vs. “blue states,” also began during that era.

On the religious scene, mainline churches were losing their congregations by the droves, and conservative churches were reaping the benefits.  Christianity Today published annual reports on the fastest growing congregations in America and reported that between 1968 and 1975, half of those mega-churches were from my denomination.  It was the period of church busses, gimmicks, and campaigns.  Each time I attended a pastors conference, I was reminded how fierce the competition was.  The first question asked by many pastors was always, “How many people did you have Sunday?” followed by, “How many were saved?”

In Del Rio, as the old saying goes, the faster I ran, the further behind I fell.  Just about the time our fledging congregation reached 100 in attendance, Uncle Sam would cut orders on our military families, and we’d slide back down.  My view of success was skewed, as the body count in Sunday attendance never rose high or fast enough for us to be considered more than “that little church on the Mexican border.”  I began to look for greener pastures away from the parched earth of Del Rio.

The deacons of Bethel Baptist met together on the day I submitted my resignation.  They decided if they were to ever attract someone to take my place, they would have to offer the new pastor more than they were paying me.  They voted to double the salary for the next pastor. Their action was a bit of a personal slap in the face.  We had faithfully served that little congregation and accepted the fact that our salary was the best they could provide.  In retrospect, one of my failings as a leader was not teaching the church their responsibility of taking care of their pastor.  I was too young in the journey to know how to hold them accountable for the needs of my family, but obviously they recognized that doing ministry on the cheap wouldn’t attract another pastor.

On The Red River

Central Baptist Church in Gainesville, Texas, a city of about 12,000 people near the Red River, which was the border between Texas and Oklahoma, was searching for a pastor.  It was a nice town, had a beautiful parsonage (at least it looked beautiful compared to what we lived in at Del Rio), and there would be an increase in salary.  Like everyone else in this world, I was concerned with finances.  I was trying to dig myself out of the hole of poverty that Sandy and I had been in for five years.  Gainesville’s biggest draw for me was the prospect of a stable church in a larger city.  Perhaps I could build a large church and join the church-growth trend in America.  I wasn’t trying to climb the ladder to a larger church in moving from Del Rio; I was just attempting to find my niche.

Central Baptist was formed in the early 1950’s and so was well established in the community.  The church was stable financially, and there were no major issues dividing the people.  The preceding pastor, Wilbur Simmons, had been at Central for twelve years and, by everyone’s account, had been a wonderful pastor.  Though not a dynamic speaker, Pastor Simmons was dearly loved by the congregation, especially the older members.  Someone said that Wilbur should have been the chaplain of a nursing home, as he loved visiting the elderly even if they were not members of the church.  I liked Wilbur and, quite honestly, wished I had more of the pastoral gift that he possessed.

Though the congregation appreciated Pastor Wilbur, they also recognized that the church was at a stalemate.  They were looking for someone young and energetic to build the congregation for the future.  I fit the profile, so it seemed like a good match.

Our two years at Central Baptist weren’t bad, though we experienced some rough spots.  Like most church situations where a new pastor is brought in, there were some minor conflicts.  Being a new pastor is a lot like marriage: after the “I do’s”, the honeymoon, and the euphoria diminish, reality sets in.

By altering the structure of the services and the music and by adding a youth director to the staff, we enhanced our outreach programs in the spirit of the times.  I tried every gimmick imaginable to boost the attendance, including contests, revival meetings, and bus evangelism.  That’s when the trouble began.

Sometimes what people say they want doesn’t translate into what they will actually accept when change is introduced.  The old folks at Central liked me, but I wasn’t Pastor Simmons.  The middle-aged crowd thought I was brash and green, and, of course, they were right.

The problem with a church that has history is…it has history.  In Del Rio, people were transient, but at least we all had the same goal of trying to build up the flock.  In Gainesville, my goals were not always in line with the goals of the congregation.  I quickly recognized that there was no hope of transferring those goals to the congregation.   It didn’t take long to realize that Gainesville was not as good a fit as we all had hoped.

The biggest cause of tension for me while at Central was my failure to realize that stability is oftentimes mere stagnation.  Like most cities in Texas, Gainesville was a town with many churches competing for the few people that were unchurched.  In a city of 12,000, there were at least eight Baptist Churches and another twenty congregations of other denominations.  Our church was not experiencing conversion growth through baptisms, but transfer growth from other churches.  Since we were a small church without the resources to compete with larger churches, our growth was minimal.  I didn’t know how to fix the problem and, as a result, became frustrated and restless.

Missions Conference

In Central’s 25-year history, they had never had a mission’s conference, though they had a mission’s program and supported missionaries.  As a young minister whose only focus had been on being a pastor, I viewed missions as just a program that was a component of the Great Commission.  My perception of missionaries was that they were a bit odd because the few I had known seemed out of touch with the rest of the world.  Missionaries of that day seemed to always wear clothes that were out-of-date and told stories that, though interesting, didn’t have much relevance to the daily lives of normal people.  However, since I did believe that it was important to give to missions and since I felt that our missions program needed attention, I scheduled Central’s first missions conference.

The main speaker at the conference was F.C. Lasater from Korea.  There were also presentations from the Philippines, Sweden, and Kenya.  Each night a missionary would show slides of his field and ministry, then F.C. would preach a message challenging the congregation to become involved in missions through prayer, financial giving, or even surrendering their lives to full-time missionary work.

One night F.C. made the comment that would change my life.  “Korea is a harvest field,” he said.  “I can take a train from Seoul to Pusan, and at each stop I could preach and someone would accept the gospel.  If it were physically possible, I could start a church every week.”

Korea was at the height of the church growth movement, and the fruit, figuratively speaking, was falling on the ground just waiting for someone to gather it in.  I was dumbfounded by what I was hearing.  “Is it possible,” I asked myself, “that there is really life outside of Texas?”  Why was I killing myself trying to move a church that was really quite satisfied when I could have a significant ministry where God was moving?  In the back of my mind I could hear Bob Hughes saying, “How many people in Gainesville?  How many churches?”

Don’t Send Me To Africa!

Sandy knew I was struggling internally before the conference, and throughout the week, my interest in what the missionaries had to say became a serious concern for her.  At the conclusion of each night’s service, Sandy and I would talk:

“Wow, the pictures of Sweden were beautiful, weren’t they?” she asked.

“In the Philippines, we wouldn’t even have to learn a language since so many of the people speak English,” she declared.

When I told her I was drawn to Kenya, East Africa, she had no comment.  In fact, she didn’t say much to me for three days after the conference.  Finally, I broached the subject about us going to Africa.

“Listen,” I said.  “I am assuming we are going to remain married to each other, and if that assumption is true, we will need to talk to each other some time.  So how do you feel about moving to Kenya?”

My wife had grown up in Springdale, Arkansas, a city without a Black population.  Up to that point in her life, she had never even talked to a Black person.  It wasn’t that Sandy was prejudiced, nor was it that she was opposed to being a missionary.  She was simply afraid of Africa, afraid of the unknown.  I did the best I could to calm her fears.

“I promise that I will try to provide the best that’s available for us in Kenya.  We may just have a mud hut, but I swear we’ll have the best mud hut in town.”

I certainly had my own reservations about taking my family ten thousand miles to the “Dark Continent” since I also knew very little about it.  Sandy was pregnant with our second child and, except for a trip to Mexico, we had never been outside of the country.  It would be a leap of faith for both of us to go to Africa.  After much more discussion and prayer, however, we both finally felt peace about the decision and began the process of becoming missionaries.

I called F.C. Lasater and made an appointment to meet him for lunch in Ft. Worth in order to discuss how Sandy and I might make the transition to becoming missionaries.  When we met, his first words were, “Well, let’s talk about you going to Korea.”  He was understandably disappointed that we were interested in Kenya.  In spite of our focus on Africa, he was supportive and gave us a great deal of encouragement.

In our denomination, the qualification for approval as missionaries was that both husband and wife must have graduated from Baptist Bible College with a degree in missions.  I had graduated with a theology degree, but Sandy had not attended college at all.  Fortunately, the rules stated that if a couple had been in ministry for at least five years, the denomination would waive that requirement.  This allowed Sandy and me to go up for approval.

In May 1975, five years to the month of my graduation, the Baptist Bible Fellowship approved Sandy and I as missionaries to Kenya.  Central Baptist Church was supportive, knowing that it was probably a good move for us.  Our leaving also meant that they could find a pastor who was more compatible with their congregation; therefore we concluded this move was a directive of God and a win-win for all.

Support Discovery

The mechanism for evangelical missionaries getting to the field is through what’s called faith missions. Once a person becomes approved for the field, he can immediately start raising monthly support.  The traditional way of raising support is to contact churches and schedule appointments to present the needs of your field.  The church gives you a “love offering” (a one-time financial gift) to help as you raise support and sometimes promises to contribute monthly support.

Having been a pastor in Texas was a great advantage for me in finding donors for support.  From the first day I knew I was going up for approval, I began calling churches and booking dates to speak. After our second daughter, Sara, was born, we moved to Sherman, Texas, thirty miles east of Gainesville.  The pastor of the church in Sherman, Don Elmore, and his wife, Lona, were friends of ours from college.  They watched over Sandy and our two little girls while I went on the road raising support.  This was, of course, a tremendous help to us.  Brother Wade, knowing the first few months would be lean, promised to back us $500 a month until we were bringing in enough monthly contributions to survive.  Had it not been for generous assistance from R. D. Wade and Don Elmore, the task of raising funds would have been much more difficult.

I hit the support-raising trail running.  I called every Independent Baptist church in our directory.  I scheduled a Sunday morning service in one church, Sunday evening in another, and then went on to another church for Wednesday night prayer meeting.  I also attended as many missions conferences as I could.  The day Sara was born, I was 500 miles away raising support somewhere between San Antonio and Killeen, Texas.  There were many times, especially in the beginning, when I was gone from my family for three weeks at a stretch.

When raising support, the off days between speaking engagements are the most difficult.  To save money on motel bills, many churches have built on-site apartments for missionaries who are traveling and seeking support.  The weary missionary travelers always appreciate these apartments.  Some churches fix the apartments up nicely, but there are also many that are ugly, dark, and depressing.  The furnishings are hand-me-downs that church members have donated—an old couch, some raggedy towels, and a few hideous lamps.  I’m not sure why some people believe it is better to give their junk to the church than to take it to the dump.  If Goodwill won’t take it, I doubt that God is impressed with the contribution.

I began to rate the missions apartments I slept in; seldom did I stay in one that was above three stars.  But even a one star mission apartment was better than having no place to sleep at all.  Several times, I slept in my car at roadside rest stops.  One night, in Rifle, Colorado, I slept in the nursery of the church—on the floor in a sleeping bag.  In Grand Junction, Colorado, the pastor put me in the cheapest motel in town.  It was so dirty, I actually hated to lie down.  The occupants next door were having an affair (I heard it all through the paper-thin wall that separated us), and with the passion, the yelling, and the cursing, it was a long, restless night.

The monthly $500 that Pastor Wade provided kept our family afloat, but gas for my car, rooms at motels, and the food I ate while traveling all came from the “love offerings” that I received from the churches.  The average offering was $50; in a larger church, I occasionally received $75.

Pastors usually give love offerings in a sealed envelope.  The reason, I suppose, is to conceal that it’s a cash transaction, though everyone knows that it is.  Tearing open the envelope was usually the first thing I did when I got in my car; however, after a short time on the road, I began opening the envelope the moment the pastor gave it to me.  I decided that whether the offering was good or bad, he and I would share the experience together.  Please understand: my anxiety in regards to the love offering was not created by greed.  Those gifts were a matter of my survival. (In the beginning, that’s all I was doing—just surviving from one church to the next).

One Wednesday night, a little country church outside of Abilene, Texas had scheduled a meeting with me.  Though I had no money and a gas tank less than half full, I was counting on a place to sleep and receiving enough love offering to get me to my next appointment in San Angelo.  The attendance that night was less than 30 people.  The pastor said at the conclusion of the meeting, “We’re going to take up a love offering for Brother Lewis, and whatever comes in is what he’s going to get.”  Sadly, he kept his word.  I knew I was in trouble when the treasurer walked up to me with an offering envelope stuffed with dollar bills, quarters, and pennies.  The congregation had given $12.38, and, true to the pastor’s commitment, that is what I received.  Even more shocking was that after he locked up the church, he said, “God bless you,” got into his car, and drove off.  He didn’t offer me a cup of coffee or a place to sleep for the night; he didn’t even ask which way I was headed.  I found a rest stop, crawled into the back seat, and drifted off to sleep.  God gave me what I needed: that $12.38 was just enough to get me to San Angelo.

The Apostle Paul must have been trying to raise support when he wrote, “I have learned how to abound, and I’ve learned how to be abased.  I have learned to be content whatever state [Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, etc. – paraphrase mine] I’m in” (Phil. 4:11, 12).

In spite of the early hardships, deputation was a bit of an adventure.  I met some wonderful people, and most churches and pastors were very good to me.  Overall I visited nearly 200 churches in eight states.  Our deputation was fifteen months long—by every standard, a break-neck speed in raising support.

Journey Niche Notes

Jumping the Fence

My teenage years on the farm taught me some very practical life lessons.  By observing our cows in the field, I learned first-hand the old adage, “The grass is always greener on the other side.”  It was not uncommon for me to see one thousand pounds of beef on their knees with their heads underneath the fence trying to scoop some fresh grass from a neighboring field.  Fence mending was a common chore for my brothers and me.  We always had one or two in the herd who would jump the fence in order to graze in the neighbor’s field where they figured the grass had to be greener.

I jumped the ministry fence from a startup venture in Del Rio to the pasture of stability in Gainesville only to find that none of the grass was all that green.  To be sure, the ministry situation in Del Rio was difficult, but my motivation for leaving was faulty.  I wanted to be in an environment where I could grow a large church; I had bought into the trend of the day that suggested that success in ministry is measured by how many people attend church on Sunday.  What I jumped into was not horrible, but it was not satisfying.

Over the years, I have gained much admiration for pastors who stay in one place for a long period of time.  Perhaps stability is not part of my makeup; however, I am learning to be more discerning before jumping the fence.

We live in a fast-paced world where change is a valued commodity.  Whether it is the desire for a new wardrobe, a new car, a new career, or a new spouse, the temptation to jump the fence for greener pastures is ever present.  I am a strong advocate of “pushing the envelope,” as they say—of always seeking a better way to do the job.  But there are times when the most strategic thing one can do is maintain the status quo.  As one English bishop said in frustration during a debate concerning a controversial doctrine in the church,  "In this matter, as in so much else in our great country, why cannot the status quo be the way forward?”  Indeed.

Not A Shepherd

A pastor is first and foremost a shepherd.  He is not called to be an evangelist, though he is admonished to do the work of leading people to salvation (2 Tim. 4:5).  Nor is his calling that of a corporate executive.  The work of a pastor is to care for the flock that God has given him.  What my experiences in Del Rio and Gainesville taught me was that I do not have the gifts required to be a pastor—that’s not my niche.  I truly loved the members of my congregations, but I did not want to hold their hands, push them to serve God, or listen to their problems.  I suppose that is a terrible admission, but it is the truth.  Counseling is not what I am good at and is exactly what a good pastor should do.  To the former members of Bethel Baptist Church and Central Baptist Church, I offer my sincere apologies for my shortcomings.  You deserved a pastor who would encourage you, who would walk the spiritual journey and life with you—one who would not berate you for what you did not do but would guide you in the way God can and wants to use you.  That is my prayer for every church and my plea for every person who takes on the title of Pastor.

Talk It Over

There is a line between being the head of the household and a dictator.  It was obvious to Sandy and me that we had not found our niche in Texas.  I went into ministry with a desire to make a difference in the lives of people, but it became obvious that it was not to be in the position of a pastor.

The mission’s conference that changed our lives revealed to both of us what my role might be; we just had a different opinion regarding geography.  The one thing we did right, however, was to discuss and pray about the next step in our journey.  We have repeated that process many times in our marriage.

Going to Kenya was not Sandy’s choice; it was mine.  She received peace about submitting to this change with a profound statement: “I trust God and the husband He has given me.  If Kenya is where God is leading, then I must have confidence in Him.”

I will be the first to acknowledge that not all of my decisions have been good ones, but I’ve never issued an ultimatum.  I knew the direction I wanted to go and knew that it would affect my family; but I have always trusted Sandy to keep me from jumping into the abyss of blind faith.

The underlying reason that many marriages break up is selfishness.  When two people are determined to have their own way or seek their own fulfillment, this often leads to a parting of the ways.  God did give the man the responsibility of leading the home and charged the wife to submit to that leading.  However, what more heads of households need to understand is how to lead while being sensitive to the wishes of the wife and children.  Wives need to learn how help their husbands and not dictate in the decision process.

There is a saying within the mission’s community: “It’s God who calls the husband to the field, it’s the wife that calls them home.”  Though that statement is far too sweeping and is certainly not true in all circumstances, I have seen my share of couples leave the ministry because the husband went into it with a determination that ignored the needs of his wife.  If you don’t talk about it now, you can be certain you will talk about it later.

Do The Next Thing

Oswald Chambers wrote, “Trust God and do the next thing.”  When it became obvious that being a pastor was not my niche and that there was an opportunity to serve Him overseas, I did what God has asked countless of people down through history to do: trust Him.  There is value in status quo, but there is also a place in this world for risk takers.

In his book, The Greatest Risk of All, Walter Anderson writes, “Courage is always and only one thing: It is acting WITH fear, not without it.  To be brave, we must be afraid.  Risk-taking is not easy—and the greatest risk of all is to try to know oneself and to act on that knowledge.”

Every missionary I have ever met were by nature risk-takers.  Leaving the comforts of home, family, and the familiar to take my wife and two little girls to a place I had never seen was not a decision I took lightly.  There were many days in which I wondered, “What the heck am I doing?”

I partly made the commitment to go to Africa out of frustration over not having a niche as a pastor.  But my decision was not merely frustration.  I had a clear goal of what I wanted to do with my life; I simply needed to find that place where my desire and gifts matched.

I am certain that I do not understand the meaning of “the call of God,” and I doubt that anyone else does either.  From the night in Arkansas when I gave my life to serve Him to the day I decided to go to Kenya, my overriding motivation has been to serve Him in whatever way He wanted.  My giftedness and/or the lack thereof have been my guide.  No doubt some would argue that I’ve been walking the line between faith and foolishness, and I would agree—but that line is present in every decision.  God did not speak to me audibly, and I saw no visions.  Those who say they have experienced such things make as many mistakes as those who haven’t.  What I have done is act on doing the next thing.  In the process, God has guided my steps.  Sometimes I fall down, but I always fall forward.

Chapter 4

A Small Light In The Dark Continent

On September 22, 1976, as we made our approach into the Nairobi airport, I remember looking out the window and saying, “Lord, what have I got us into?”

Sandy and I had said goodbye to our parents, brothers, and sisters and boarded a plane so we could move to a land 10,000 miles away that we knew nothing about.  Novices at traveling, after our initial nine-hour flight from Chicago, we spent another ten hours at London’s Heathrow Airport before traveling eight more hours to Kenya on the now defunct East African Airways.  We were originally scheduled to make a stopover at Entebbe, Uganda; but an Israeli rescue of hostages from Idi Amin’s soldiers a couple weeks prior had stopped all flights into Entebbe.  In 1976, there were no non-smoking flights, and across the aisle from us were two Arab guys who laughed and smoked all the way from England to Africa.

It was early morning when we made our descent into Kenya, and I could see people, mud huts, and cattle on the flat plains below.  I looked over at six-year-old Becky and one-and-a-half-year-old Sara, sitting in her mother’s lap, and wondered if I had made a mistake.

We had corresponded with missionaries in Kenya many times, asking the normal questions about what to bring and what to expect.  Tommy Moore had been at the mission’s conference in Gainesville, so we knew at least one person in Kenya.  All three families from our denomination met us at the airport with a big sign that read, “Welcome Lewisess To Kenya.”  After quick introductions, they took us to get a bite to eat so we could get to know one another, after which they took us to a guesthouse where we could get some rest.  I will forever be grateful for those who welcomed us that day.  It’s tough being in a strange country and meeting new people, but the transition was made a lot smoother because there were people waiting to catch us—folks who seemed to be truly glad we were there.

Learning Language

Two weeks after our arrival in Kenya, we began language study at the Brakenhurst Centre in Limuru, an hour northwest of Nairobi.  For the next six months, a three-room house was home.  Sitting at seven thousand feet above sea level on the equator, Limuru was always cold and rainy. My greatest challenge, along with learning language, was keeping a fire going in our little fireplace with wet, green wood that was provided for us.

Sandy and I attended classes in the morning and worked with a conversant in the afternoon.  We hired an iya (nanny) to look after the girls while were in class.  Apart from the weather, we truly enjoyed our time in Limuru as we became acclimated to living in a foreign country.  Of course, we were around other North Americans in language school, so we had the added advantage of adjusting to a new country with others like us.

I turned thirty years old in Limuru.  It seems like a lifetime ago.  Both Sandy and I picked up Swahili quickly, though my miserable academic life in high school caught up with me, and I struggled with the grammar.  I hadn’t understood the grammar of my mother tongue; so learning good Swahili was out of my reach.

Like most women with a musical ear, Sandy could hear the language better than me though I picked up the vocabulary quicker.  When we practiced our Swahili at the market, I could rattle off sentences; but if they answered, I would have to turn to Sandy and ask, “What did they say?”  We made a good team, with me as the mouth and Sandy as the ears.  (This, in many ways, sums up our life together.)  Swahili is a relatively easy language to learn (all languages are difficult to learn if you don’t put in the time needed to learn, which many missionaries don’t do), so within a few months we were able to communicate, though not proficiently.

Moving Up Country

There were two missionary families living in Eldoret (in Western Kenya, 300 miles from Nairobi) who encouraged us to move there and work with them.  One weekend near the end of our language studies, we traveled up to Eldoret and found a house to rent.  It was a beautiful house owned by the famous Kenyan distance runner, Kipchoge (Kip) Kenio.  Not only did this house have five bedrooms, two baths, a large living room/dining room, and kitchen, it was fully furnished and had several fruit trees on the property.  Though the rent was only $350 a month, we wondered if it was right to live in such a nice place.   It was hardly the mud hut we had envisioned while still living in Gainesville.

Eldoret is the fourth largest city in Kenya.  When we moved there in 1977, it was by no means “modern” though it did have some nice amenities.  The Gujarat’s from India owned our grocery store, and they catered to Westerners.  There was always fresh fruit and vegetables, and beef was plentiful.  We could buy filet mignon for about the same price as mince (hamburger).  Because the British always built golf courses and country clubs in the countries they colonized, we even learned to play golf and squash.  The missionaries continued to help us in our adjustment, and our girls had other American kids to play with.

The one thing I regret doing the first week we were in the country was buying a car.  I had raised money in the States for a vehicle because the missionaries had insisted that I would need one.  When you are a new missionary, you are dependent on the advice of others, so I dutifully followed their advice.  I bought a brand new Ford station wagon.  It was the first new car Sandy and I owned.  Though it was never the car we needed, it was dependable and we drove it for over seven years, which is remarkable longevity on Kenyan roads.

The other advice the missionaries gave us was to ship a ringer washing machine.  We were a little surprised to see that the missionaries who had recommended a ringer all had automatic washing machines themselves.   Our Maytag lasted longer than the Ford, but it irritated Sandy every time she had to fill up the tub with a bucket or run a hose from a faucet when she wanted to wash clothes.

Beginning the Work

Soon after we settled into Eldoret, I felt pressured by the two missionaries living there to become a part of their team.  I liked them both, thought they had a significant ministry, and felt honored that they wanted me to be a part of what they were doing.  However, western Kenya had many churches and a large population of Christians.  Since my mission’s conference experience in Gainesville, I had wanted to serve in unreached areas.  Eldoret hardly met that profile.

Not really knowing where I did want to serve, I began praying for God’s leading.  One day I was looking at the map of Kenya and decided to drive out and explore an area to the north.  I told Sandy, “Let’s just follow this road and see how far it will take us.”  One hour after leaving Eldoret, the tarmac ended.  My Ford was not built for bush work, but fortunately it was the dry season; so we continued on the dusty road for another hour until we reached a town called Makutano.

Makutano is in the West Pokot District of Kenya.  It was an underdeveloped little village made up of Somali traders and merchants from other Kenyan tribes.  The Pokot who ventured into town were semi-nomadic people who, from our perspective, were very primitive.  It was on that trip that we first saw half-clothed men carrying spears and wearing colorful headgear and women wearing goatskin dresses.  I was hooked.  This is where I wanted to begin my work!  I returned to Eldoret full of excitement.  My colleagues did not share my enthusiasm.

Over the next several weeks, I traveled often to Makutano to survey the church-planting potential.  On my first solo trip, I worked up enough courage to get out of the car and walk into a trading store.  With a deep breath, I said to the guy behind the wooden counter, “Nataka Coke, tafadali”   (I would like a Coke, please).  “I don’t have Coke,” he replied in good English, “but I do have Pepsi.” Well, at least I was communicating—that was a good start.  Between my broken Swahili and the towns-peoples’ broken English, I learned that there was a small Anglican church as well as a Pentecostal church in the village.  It was not quite the virgin territory for the gospel that I had hoped for, but it was still mostly unreached.

Continuing to make inquiries among the locals, I was told there was a mud building on the outskirts of town that was a school.  I located the headmaster and asked if I could use it for church services, and he readily agreed.  I began making plans to hold our first church service in Makutano.

Not confident with my Swahili, I asked my neighbor’s yard worker to go with me one day and be my “ears.”  I printed some flyers that announced what day we would have services, then I walked throughout the village handing them out to everyone.  I was somewhat dismayed when many of the people just stared at it, some even holding the paper upside-down.  I had spent a lot of time printing up flyers and distributing them to people who were illiterate!

While on deputation, one of the missionaries in Kenya had written to inform me that if I had any musical talent, such as playing a guitar or trumpet, it would be a big help, as Kenyans love music.  I have no musical ability, but a pastor in Colorado told me, “I can teach you to play the mandolin in five minutes.”  He taught me how play in G chord, and I learned that almost anything can be sung in that key.  Using the only key I knew, I learned one Swahili chorus called “Moto,” which means fire.  Since passing out flyers didn’t work, I decided one day to drive to Makutano, sit on the steps of a trader’s store, and sing “Moto”: Moto umweakaa leo, moto ni kazi ya Yesu.  Tuimebea halleluiah, moto umwekaa.  Roughly translated the song says, “You (God) light the fire today, the work of Jesus.  Let us sing hallelujah, the fire You will light.”

As I hoped, people stopped to see this strange sight, an mzungu (white person) playing a little guitar and singing (badly, I might add).  When a crowd had gathered, I told them I was starting a church in the social hall, and the first service was going to be the following Sunday.  Of course, people laughed and, as I think back on that day, I can hardly believe I had the courage to be so foolish.

My Swahili wasn’t good enough to preach extemporaneously, so I wrote my sermon and found a Kenyan Christian in the Eldoret church to proofread it.  That first Sunday, the family and I piled into our Ford station wagon and drove two hours to have our first service in Makutano.  I sang a couple of other Swahili songs I had learned in the key of G and read my sermon.  There were about twenty people who attended.  After the service, a man came up to me and said in English, “You need an interpreter.  Your Swahili is so bad no one is going to come to this church.”

“Whether they come or not,” I replied, “I am not going to use an interpreter.” And I never did.

After three months in Makutano, our little church plant began to grow and we had our first baptismal service.  Though my Swahili was indeed ghastly, the Holy Spirit was able to use me enough to touch the hearts of a few.  In a cold creek outside of town, I baptized five young men:  Paulo Gichuki, Dedocas Ochieng, Freddy Mugoya, David Gagula, and another young man whose name I’ve forgotten.  Four of those first five converts are still serving in the church today.  Three of them have been in ministry now for over 25 years.  The fifth one left the area soon after his baptism, and I lost touch with him.

Growing the Church

One reason these men have remained in the church all these years is due to the countless hundreds of hours I spent in discipling them.  Several times a week, I would make that two-hour drive from Eldoret to Makutano and systematically teach them the fundamental doctrines of the Bible.  Many times, rather than making the trip back home, I would spend the night in the village, continuing our discussions of the Bible under the glow of the kerosene lantern late into the night.  Eating out of a common bowl of ugali (cornmeal mush), sleeping in a mud hut, and waking up to the sound of roosters before dawn was common my first four years in Kenya.

My discipling was a half-teaching and half-coaching method of showing these men how to do ministry.  Shortly after their conversions, those early believers took responsibility for leading the singing (which was a good thing for all), giving testimonies, and preaching.  Many of the new converts preached and led various aspects of the church, but Paul Gichuki emerged as the leader.

Nine months after that first meeting in the social hall, Paul took the reigns of leadership for the congregation of Makutano Baptist Church where he has been pastor ever since.  Though Paul is Kikuyu by tribe, he is a natural leader.  No one ever elected Paul as pastor, nor did I appoint him.  In the Kenyan culture, decisions are made by consensus, and Paul emerged as the consensus leader.

They Call Me Moto

Soon after we started the church in Makutano, I heard about a village fifty miles down the escarpment deeper into West Pokot called Kacheliba, so I made plans to establish a preaching center there.  As we traveled to Kacheliba, we came upon another smaller village called Mtembur.  For a time, Sandy, the girls, and I would leave our house in Eldoret for Makutano at 7:00 a.m., speak at Mtember by noon, and arrive at Kacheliba around 4 p.m. where we would have our third service, again under a tree where I would sing and preach.  We tried to make it home by 7 p.m., as the roads were treacherous after dark.

It was in Kacheliba that people first began calling me “Moto” because it was the song I sang every Sunday under the tree in the center of the village.  One day, a Pokot who I did not know hailed me from a distance: “Jambo, Moto.”  I acknowledged the greeting, but wondered why he called me moto.  One of the members of the church who was with me, laughed and said, “Most of the people in this area don’t know your real name.  When people see your truck come into the village, they say, ‘Moto has come.”  To this day, when I go to Kacheliba, they call me “Moto.”

As we baptized more people and saw more of them entering the discipling program, we also started more churches.  Apart from the churches in Makutano and Kacheliba, I did not initiate the establishment of any of the other churches.  Men in our discipleship program would ask if I would start a church in a nearby village, and I would decline.  I told them if they wanted to start a church in those towns, I would help them, but they would have to start the churches themselves.  Unlike many pastors from other denominations in Kenya, I did not believe in underwriting a pastor, evangelist, or church planter by paying them a salary.  Though at times I did help financially, the Kenyan converts understood that, apart from me coming to speak for them occasionally, I felt no obligation to help them begin a church.

Journey Niche Notes

Transition

The key to finishing well is starting well.  Whether it is running a 5K race, starting a business, or moving to a new country, if one starts off well, he will have a better-than-even chance of succeeding.  Our success in Kenya was due largely to a great beginning.

First, the people who welcomed us into the country alleviated much of our fears and anxieties.  Having just said goodbye to everyone and everything familiar in our lives, our gratitude for the support of those who received us cannot be overstated.  Blessed are those veteran missionaries who receive new people on the field, for their act of kindness and concern is beyond measure.

Second, we established ourselves in a living environment where we did not have to think about or do anything other than learn the language and culture while slowly becoming acculturated in our new country.  Too many times, new missionaries go into situations where the first things they must do are find a place to live, buy furniture, and put their kids in school.  They discover six months later that they haven’t started on their language studies, they have become frustrated with the people, and they’re ready to go home.

Brakenhurst was the best thing that could have happened to us as a family.  I am so task oriented that without that six months in Limuru, I might have very easily bypassed studying the language, found an interpreter, and “got on” with God’s business.  While not every country has a Brakenhurst, I strongly advise new missionaries to first set up in a city where they will not do ministry.  Perhaps the team on such fields could rent a small house and furnish it to relieve the family from that stress and enroll them in a language school prior to their arrival.  Whatever the situation, make it a requirement that the only thing to be done for the first six months—even the first year—is concentrate on learning the language and culture.

As a side note, new people should try to arrive on the field when the weather is best in that country.  If you go to Russia in January, Chile in July, or India in May, you will be setting yourself up for a difficult transition.  Extreme heat or cold just compounds the problems for those arriving on the field for the first time; so they should schedule their arrival for the best time of the year.

Lifestyles

Many years ago, linguists’ Thomas and Elizabeth Brewster, wrote on the incarnational principle.  Their thesis was that missionaries do not assimilate into culture because they spend too much time around other Westerners rather than the people of the host country.  Their argument has validity, but too many people have interpreted that to mean that they should live as the national people live.  My view is that whatever it takes to survive in a new country should be done, and that will mean something different for every family.

Some people can live in mud huts, carry their water from the river, and sit on the floor to eat.  Many cannot.  Throughout our time in Kenya, our family tried to strike a balance between living like the poorest Pokot and living like the richest Kikuyu.  We did without many things we would have liked, yet we maintained a lifestyle that was comfortable.

Critics may say we lived too far above the people while others will say we sacrificed our family for the ministry—especially when our children went to boarding school.  Could we have lived in the bush?  Perhaps—but not without building a house so ostentatious that it would have been the talk of the district.  In reality there is no way any Westerner is going to live like a nomadic herdsmen in Pokot.  Our compromise was that we would live upcountry where it was more comfortable, and I would spend more time away from the family.  This meant being gone days at a time periodically, living and working among the people.  However, the needs of our family were as important as the needs of the people we were serving.

I must issue a word of caution at this point: living comfortably does not mean that missionaries should try to live like they did in Dallas just so they can survive in a foreign country.  When a family feels they should not have to ever sacrifice comfort or be inconvenienced, they have crossed the line of balance.  On the other hand, if a missionary feels he needs to become a martyr for Jesus and, thus, causes his family to suffer for the sake of ministry, he also has a misguided view of service.

Giving Advice

Opinions are merely expressions of preference.  I believe strongly in asking for advice, but I also believe that the advice should be coupled with research for verification.  The well-intended advice I was given about immediately buying a car turned out not to suit our needs.  I didn’t do my homework/research and ended up purchasing something I could use but didn’t really need.

What I advise new missionaries is to take as little as possible to the field and not purchase anything but the necessities of life until they know what they need.  Too many missionaries purchase enough stuff to fill a container before they ever step foot on the field.  They will ship over everything from generators to cases of corn chips, the latest tools to their favorite recliner.  Goods shipped overseas without knowing the need or the availability of goods is oftentimes just a waste of money.

When I politely declined the offer by the Eldoret team to join them in their work, I so offended one of the team members that he had little to do with me the rest of the 13 years we were on the field.  He thought it was foolish for me to work among the nomadic people and suggested that somehow I had betrayed the Eldoret team into thinking I was going to work with them.  I did listen to their counsel, but at the end of the day, I made a decision based on what I felt was the reason I went to Kenya in the first place—to work among the unreached.  Had I made a commitment to work with them prior to moving to Kenya, I would have honored that commitment; but since I had not, nor ever indicated that’s what I wanted to do, I felt no obligation to alter my goals.  In the final analysis, new missionaries should listen to opinions but not commit to something that conflict with their hearts’ desire.

To those who are veterans on the field: I ask you to give counsel but guide, don’t dictate.  A missionary to Romania, a former student of mine, said while I was visiting him, “We have been on the field for four years and know the ropes.  Any person that comes to this field needs to know we are the gatekeepers and follow our directions.”  I was stunned.

In my class a few years earlier, this missionary was anxious about the old veterans on the field who looked down on the new people arriving.  Now that he was the “old veteran,” he had become the gatekeeper!  Please give your best advice, and then allow the new people to make the decisions that are best for them, their families, and their views on what God is leading them to do.  One of the reasons I am not too keen on team leaders on the field is they tend to dictate rather than guide people in ministry.

Boldness

Sometimes there is a hair’s difference from being bold and being foolish.  When I think of those early days in Makutano, I blush at the things I did to start that first church. Though I would certainly do things differently today, I am grateful that I did not let my fears keep me from trying.  Too many times, I meet missionaries who have been on the field for years without having accomplished anything because of fear.  Making mistakes is inevitable, and sometimes people will laugh and criticize.  Do your research well and take your time; but at some point, like the apostle Peter, get out of the boat and test the waters.  You may sink a little, but you won’t drown.

Discipleship/Discernment

When I was in Kenya establishing churches and discipling leaders, I would often visit other missionaries in Nairobi.  Sometimes they would ask me, “Do you have anyone in your training program that might want to work with us?  We are having a terrible time finding good leadership in our own congregation, and I know you have some really good pastors in your area.  How do you do it?”

There is no magic formula for developing leadership in the church except concentrated discipleship.  I am not sure when I read The Training of the Twelve by A.B. Bruce; but I was profoundly influenced by this book as Bruce described the model of Jesus in discipling those who followed Him.  Jesus did more than educate; He trained, mentored, and coached.

I can trace the success we had in church planting during those early years in Kenya to the fact that I invested most of my time in discipling the few who were part of our first church.  Not all the Twelve of Jesus were highly successful, and one in particular turned out to be a bad choice.  Others like Peter, James, and John were either favorites of Jesus, or they were more committed to Him than the others.  Whatever the reason, the Lord seemed to have spent the most time with a select few, and the results were very visible in their lives.

I believe discernment is more of a gift (or an art) than a science.  I would like to think that a person could learn discernment over a period of time; but I have seen missionaries make the same poor judgment in character repeatedly.  Consequently, I believe there must be some inherent feel for evaluating people.  Due partly to experience, I have developed a good sense for those who are serious about serving the Lord and those who are in it with other motives.  I have certainly been fooled by a few, but I have discovered that, for the most part, when you walk alongside people on a daily basis, you learn about their character.  When you know their character, you can help those who are serious to be molded into the image of Christ.

I think the greatest sense of accomplishment we had during our time in Kenya was with our training and discipleship ministry.  After we left the field, the churches continued to grow and other churches were planted.  One cannot hire people for leadership.  Follow the model of Jesus.  Just as He trained the Twelve, so we must train those whom will one day take on the task of personal ministry.

Chapter 5

Choosing A People Group

One day a man by the name of Markio (Mark) Lomuria came to our gate in Eldoret.  It was not unusual for people to come to our house to look for a job or ask for a handout, so I wasn’t particularly surprised that someone had showed up, waiting outside for someone in the house to see him.  What was unusual was that this man had been sent by another missionary to visit me.

“I am from the Turkana tribe,” he began, “and I was told you are working in Pokot and interested in working in the jangwani (bush).”  When I told him that was true, Mark began telling me his story.

He had moved from the Turkana District to Eldoret five years before to find work.  He had been employed at a lumber mill and was now a tractor driver for the company.  For an uneducated and unskilled person, he was making a good salary.  Soon after his arrival, he attended a church, heard the Gospel, and accepted Christ as his Savior.  For the past year, he had been praying about going back to his village and taking the Good News he had received to his family in Turkana.  He approached the missionary of the church he attended about working among his people, but the missionary said he had no plans to work in that region.  However, he knew that I was interested.  That’s why Mark showed up at my gate.

After we visited, I assured Mark I would be interested in helping him, but I would have to pray and talk with him some more about it before I would make such a commitment.  I contacted the missionary who sent Mark, and he recommended him highly as a person of good character and as a faithful member of the church.

Turkana

The Turkana District was 300 kilometers from where I lived.  It was on the north side of Pokot District, an area that stretches all the way to the Sudan.  The elevation in Turkana ranges from 1,000 to 3,000 feet above sea level.  Because Kenya is on the equator, the lower sea level means a harsher environment.   The average temperature in Turkana is 98 degrees, and in the dry season, it is often over 120 degrees.  The district is one of the largest in Kenya; the northern area of Turkana is mostly sand and lava rock.  (It was around Lake Turkana that Richard Leaky did much of his study and concluded that this area was the cradle of civilization).

In those days, the road to Turkana was the most dangerous in Kenya.  Winding through the Marich Pass in Pokot, the dirt track was wide enough for only one vehicle.  Invariably on our trips we would meet a lorry on the side of the mountain, meaning we would have to gingerly back up to a wider spot on the road for it to pass.  There were no side railings on the road, and the drop-off down to the river below was up to a half a mile.  The trip always made my heart pound and reduced Sandy to tears.

On a good day, it took seven hours to travel from our home in Eldoret to Lopur, Mark’s village.  Of course, there were no gas stations between Eldoret and Lopur, so I fitted our recently purchased used, short-wheel-based Toyota Land Cruiser to carry twenty-five gallons of petrol, ten gallons of water, and two spare tires.  At that time, there were few outsiders working in Turkana, so I seldom saw another vehicle on the road.  Because there was little traffic, I frequently saw cheetah, baboons, giraffes, warthogs, and guinea fowl (which I tried to run over with my truck as they were good to eat).

One early morning, as I rounded a bend in the road, I came face-to-face with a herd of Cape buffalo—the most dangerous animals in Africa.  I came to a screeching halt about 50 yards from them.  As they raised their heads my way, I put the truck in reverse and slowly backed down the road.  I knew if they charged, they would destroy both my truck and me.  It was the closest encounter I had with African wildlife; I’m grateful I was able to drive away.

The Turkana people were even more primitive than the Pokot and more nomadic. The Turkana did very little farming but were classic pastoralist, herding mostly goats, camels, and their prized possession, zebu cattle.  Unlike the Masai in the central plains of Kenya who are tall, lighter skinned, and who have colorful traditional clothing, the Turkana are not physically appealing; wear little clothing due to the extreme heat, and are so dark they are almost blue-black.

I found the character of the Turkana unsavory though they were friendly.  The people are so destitute that they are always begging for food or money and want quickly to become the friend of the mznugu.  They hoped to get as much as they could without feeling a need to put anything back into the relationship.  Anthropologists call this “negative reciprocity.”  This made it difficult to establish a church because, though they were quick to respond to the Gospel, it was more for what they could get out of the church than what they could put back into it.  Turkana has been a graveyard for Western missionaries, and those who go there seldom last more than a couple of years.

Several weeks after meeting with Mark and agreeing I would help him get established in Turkana, I arrived early one morning at his house to help him move.  We loaded not only his few possessions (blankets, cooking pots, clothes, etc.) but also two 100-pound sacks of posho (ground flour) and ten chickens.  It would have been culturally unacceptable for him to return to his home without bringing food for his relatives, but it certainly was a load for my truck.

The journey was long and slow.  Mark’s wife Mary and their two children, Ekuru and Anna, were not used to being in a car that long, and they all got travel sickness.  Between the chickens and vomit, I had to stick my head out the window quite often to get some fresh air.

We didn’t get through Marich Pass before dark, and I was anxious about being on the road at night.  After several more hours of night traveling, and seeing the eyes of wild animals in the bush, we left the main road and continued on a sandy path for an hour.  I was convinced we were lost as Mark hadn’t been to his village in several years; but he assured me we were on the right path and continued to give me directions.

At about 10 p.m., we reached the village where it looked like a thousand fires spread throughout the landscape.  With no real road to follow, I gingerly navigated the truck between huts and people sleeping on the ground next to their fires.  Mark had no idea where his mother’s hut was, but after several inquiries, we eventually found where she lived.  We caused no small stir in the village that night, and quite a few people gathered around the truck.

That night I slept out under the big African sky where you can see almost every star God ever created.  With the sound of mournful singing in the background, my emotions were a mixture of excitement, exhaustion, and concern.   This was exactly what I wanted to do, but was I up to the task?  Time would tell; I just knew that I was a long way from home.

Bush Church

Lopur is a unique village in Turkana—a settlement for an irrigation scheme established by a European NGO.  The nearby Turkwell River, which flows at least eight months out of the year, seemed to be a good place to teach the Turkana people agriculture.  The district was closed to the outside world until 1970 because the colonial British government refused to allow outsiders, even other Kenyan tribes, to work in Turkana.  It wasn’t until the great famine in 1970 that the Kenyan government reluctantly granted outsiders access into the district for humanitarian reasons.  When I arrived with Mark in Lopur late in 1977, there was only a Catholic Church and a German Pentecostal Church in the region.

Mark is a very personable guy and one that I took up with immediately.  In the short time we knew each other, he joined our Bible study in Makutano and quickly bonded with Pastor Paul and the other young pastors.  Over the next ten years, Mark became a very close friend, and I delighted in my times with him and his family.  Sandy and our girls also enjoyed being with Mark and his family, though they didn’t particularly like Turkana.

It was always hot in the desert, and when we were in Lopur as a family, we would sleep on our safari cots under the mosquito nets.  The Turkana children were, of course, fascinated with Becky and Sara and pestered them incessantly.  Wherever they went, including the outside toilet, there was always a train of little Turkana kids following them, trying to touch their white skin or soft long hair.  When we woke each morning, there would be little eyes peering in at us.  This would continue until we retired at night.

Pastor Markio

Mark was gifted in many ways.  With the savings from his job in Eldoret, he started a small business in Lopur.  At first it was a little hotel, which in Turkana was a place to serve chai (tea) and chaptis (flat bread).  As the business grew, he began to sell soap, sugar, and flour.  One of the ways I helped Mark was to carry goods from Eldoret to stock his store each time I visited him.  Some years later, sitting underneath the eve of his mud hut, I was marveling at the herd of goats he had accumulated as a result of his growing business and said,  “God’s been good to you, Mark.  How many goats do you have now?”

There was a pause before he replied, “Missionary, how much money do you have in the bank?”

When I told him that was a private matter and not an appropriate question to ask me, he said with a smile, “Then don’t ask me how many goats I have.”  His wealth was in his herds as ours is in hard cash.  It was one of many lessons Mark would teach me about the culture of the Turkana.

Mark was also a great pastor and spiritual leader.  His church grew quickly and, in a matter of few years, he had as many as 500 adults attending his church.  We started the services under a big U.S. Army mess tent that I brought over from the states.  Sometime later I helped the church build a block building.

The people would sit on the ground, most of the women in goatskin dresses with no blouses.  The men wore shorts with a blanket over their shoulders and carried portable stools that they used for sitting or as a pillow for sleeping.  Their singing has the most mournful sound of any I heard in Africa and was a major part of their church service.  They loved to laugh, and Mark loved to make them laugh.  He was their champion who faithfully told them about the love of Christ, baptized them, and discipled them.  Like our model in Makutano, out of Mark’s discipleship program came other men who started churches in nearby villages.

Planting churches in Turkana was more difficult as most of the people were illiterate and even minimally educated leadership was difficult to find.  In an area where there was such poverty, we were cautious in accepting men who wanted to start churches, making sure that they had the proper motives and were not just looking to better themselves financially.  We did start a church in a nearby village called Katilu and another across the river in a place called Kalemenyang.

The city of Lodwar is the district headquarters, a drive of three, long, hard hours north of Lopur.  I entertained the idea of building a house and moving our family there, thinking it would be a strategic base for ministry.  At that time, Lodwar was just a large village with no electricity or running water, though they did have small shops that carried basic food items.  There is a large Catholic hospital in Lodwar and an airstrip for government officials or medical emergency flights.

I surveyed the area and found a nice plot of ground by the Turkwell River on the outskirts of town with large trees.  I told Sandy I would build a nice big house with a screened porch, with mosquito netting and a good fence to keep uninvited guests and donkeys out of the compound.  She said she would be willing if that’s really what I wanted to do; “But I don’t know how long I will survive,” she added.  Looking into her eyes and hearing the tone of her voice, I did not need the wisdom of Solomon to discern how she was feeling.  Yielding to common sense, I abandoned the idea, and it turned out to be the right decision.

During the years I was in Kenya, I spent much of my time in Turkana, traveling as far north to Lokitang toward the Ethiopian border and to Lokichokio on the Sudan border.  I slept on the ground, fought flash floods during the rainy season, came down with a near-death bout of malaria, dodged the tribal conflicts between the Turkana and Pokot, and enjoyed the ministry as much as anything I have ever done.  Working among the nomadic people was my niche.

Crisis of Faith

Though Turkana may sound romantic to some, it was often hard work.  The heat of the desert saps your energy; the people were often irritating and confusing.  The Turkana people were very demanding, and no matter what you did for them, it was never enough.  It was in Turkana that I faced a crisis of faith.

Alone in the desert for several days, one night I heard an old Turkana woman praying.  I didn’t know the language, but I could detect through her cadence and a few words I recognized, that she was going through her Rosary.  She had been taught how to pray by the Catholic Church, and though it was against my biblical understanding of how to approach God, I thought to myself, “Who knows the heart of a man except God?  Would this dear woman be condemned because she was not taught how to pray the way of a Baptist?”  My struggle to understand God’s dealing with His creation began.

The next day, I asked Mark about his father who had died many years ago.  “Was your father a Christian?” I asked.

“No,” he replied,  “My father never heard the name of Christ.  My father was different from most Turkanan’s.  He was never very superstitious and didn’t spit toward the mountain like most people do who try to appease the spirits.  I remember when I was very young he said to me one night, ‘Up there in the sky there is a god, but I don’t know his name.’  But my father died before he could hear the Gospel.”

The great question that came home to me is the same question that has dogged theologians for years: “Are the heathen really lost?”  Can God see into the heart of a person who seeks Him and provide him with salvation though they have never heard of Christ?

Over the years I observed the Muslim traders in Pokot and Turkana and wondered about those who seek after God.  The devout Muslims pray five times a day, and I thought of Baptists back home who struggled to pray five minutes a day.  The Catholics and Protestants erect their large church structures, but most mosques are small and unassuming.  The Muslims are taught to believe in Allah from birth—just as I had been taught about Jesus.  How was I different?  Was it possible that I, too, had a faith determined largely by my cultural upbringing?

Some weeks later, still wrestling with the question of faith, I was in Nairobi and bought a book entitled Baffled To Fight Better by Oswald Chambers.  Chambers never finished the book; he died in 1917 of appendicitis while teaching the book of Job to the British troops in North Africa.  In his book, he writes eloquently about the ancient man who, through experience, came to the conclusion that his theology of God was erroneous.

Though Job’s friends and even his wife held on to their theology, Job was able to see beyond his.  While he maintained his core beliefs as to the reality of God, he refused to accept a theology that did not correspond with his conscience.  Job did not acquiesce to the dictates of his environment and was in confusion until God revealed Himself in the end.  He was willing to die not having the answer from God, but he was not willing to die in pretense—neither for himself or for God’s sake.

Chambers’ study was a turning point in my life.  While I came out of my crisis, it has left spiritual scars that have shaped my thinking over the past twenty-five years.  Since those days in the desert alone with my doubt, I no longer have easy or simple answers and can hardly tolerate those who do.  Life, culture, and especially God are too complex to be reduced to a simple formula or simplistic theology.

Polygamy

One day I received a message that Mark had taken a second wife.  Polygamy is common among the Turkana and Pokot.  Most men of age have at least two wives, and I knew of one who had ten.  It’s a sign of status, but it is also a labor/management issue.  Since the women do much of the work, the greater the demands on the household, the more difficult for the wife to keep pace.  “Having one wife,” a man in the bush once told me, “is like having one eye.  If the good eye is injured the whole body is blind.”  Translation: if a man has only one wife and she becomes ill, how will the work get done?

While I am not naïve enough to ignore the sexual appetites of the Turkana, polygamy is driven more by economic considerations than lustful desire.  It is not uncommon for a wife to ask her husband to take another wife to relieve her of the demands of increased labor.  One could argue that it is not immoral (though not ideal) and that in some situations, God could give allowances for polygamy.  But the church does not make such allowances, so when I received the news I traveled to Lopur with three other pastors to visit Mark.

Mark was not surprised to see us, though I am sure he wasn’t particularly pleased with our visit.  He could be testy at times, but Mark was honest, and if you treated him fair, he would reciprocate.  Though I was not unfair with Mark, I was intolerant of his position.  I had not yet worked through in my own mind all the dynamics of culture as it related to Scripture.  I was taught theology from the perspective of the West, and polygamy was, at that time, a black and white issue.

We spent three days in Lopur talking with Mark and the church about the situation.  Ultimately we made the decision that Mark could no longer be the pastor of the church.  As we held long sessions with the congregation, Mark was present, head down and ashamed.  He was not ashamed of his actions as much as he was of the council meeting we were conducting.  Though he would not defend his actions, others in the congregation did.

Mark had been their spiritual father; he was the one who came back to the village to tell them about Christ.  “How could he be removed from leadership?” they wondered.  “Was the issue only that he taken another wife?”  An accusation such as theft or even adultery would have made more sense to them; but they could not comprehend us removing him as a leader just because he took another wife.  Though we were never able to convince them, the decision was made that Mark could no longer be their pastor, and we appointed another man to take his place.

Mark remained in the church for a short time, but he was disgraced.  Being an outcast, I heard a year later that he had started drinking heavily.  The church was reduced to a handful of old women, and though it continues today, it no longer has the impact in the community that it once did.

Journey Niche Notes

Doing the Hard Thing

Someone once said that it is necessary sometimes to climb out on a limb because that’s where the fruit is.  There is a reason why there are more missionaries per capita in Kenya than any other country in Africa.  The weather in most parts of the country is temperate, the people are friendly, and there is receptivity to the Gospel.  The areas without a high concentration of missionaries are in the north and on the coast.  In those areas, the people are more resistant, animistic or Muslim, and difficult to reach in a harsh environment.  However, if the goal is that every person hears the Good News of Christ, someone must be willing to take on the difficult tasks.

The story is told of communication between David Livingston, deep in the jungles of Africa, and the church in England.  Livingston pleaded for the mission society to send people to help him.  Their response was, “When the road is completed for proper travel, we will send people to join you.”  Livingston’s reply was, “We need people whether there is a good road or not!”

When I began in Turkana, the road was poor and dangerous.  Since 1983 they have built a new, paved highway; and it is remarkable to see how many denominations have since felt a call to Turkana.  There are still many areas in Kenya, and the rest of the world, where there are no roads—where the living conditions are difficult and even dangerous.  We need people who are willing to go to those places.  We need people committed to doing the hard thing.

No Glory in Self-Martyrdom

Sometimes Christians, especially missionaries, get into a competition over who is suffering more for Jesus.  At the Mennonite Guest House, a place where we often stayed when visiting the capital city of Nairobi, we would meet other missionaries in Africa.  I never enjoyed the communal meals we shared, as it seemed that everyone was being evaluated by how tough they had it on their particular field—by who was sacrificing the most.  The order of sacrifice went something like this:

If you lived in the city, you hardly qualified to be called a missionary; you had it too soft.  If you lived at an outpost, like we did in Kitale, you fared better in the eyes of the suffering, but still you were not quite in the league of true pioneers.  Those who lived in the bush, lived in a mud hut, or rode camels were considered to be at the top of the hierarchy of sacrifice.  Those who lived in the harshest environments were the real missionaries.  Sadly, this game is still played by missionaries as well as sending churches.  He who suffers the most is most loved by God and certainly most loved by donors back in America.  It was a silly game thirty years ago, and it’s just as ridiculous today.  Sacrifice is relative.

One evening after the service of a mission’s conference in Denver, a woman came up to me with tears in her eyes.  She had seen my slide presentation and the people I worked with, and she grabbed my hand and said while sobbing, “Brother Lewis, I admire you so much.”  She went on and on until I was embarrassed.  Finally I asked, “What do you in this church?”

She replied, “My husband and I drive a bus and pick up kids for Sunday School.”

“Listen, lady,” I said with sincerity.  “I’d much rather work in the bush of Kenya than try to herd a bus full of screaming kids.”  To me, that was real sacrifice.

I’m glad I had enough sense not to move Sandy and the girls to Lodwar.  I might have felt like I was sacrificing more for God if I lived in the desert in the heat and mosquito-infested bush, but I probably would have paid for it by losing my family.  God has not loved me less for living up country, and my wife probably has loved me more for not insisting I make all of us suffer a little more for Him.

I repeat: sacrifice is a relative issue.  What is perceived to be a sacrifice to one person is normal for another.  God isn’t looking to see how hard we can make life; He’s looking for those who will serve Him no matter the circumstances.

Beyond Ability

On deputation I met Richard Konnerup, veteran missionary to Ethiopia, who began working in that country in 1962 when it was under the rule of Hailie Selassie.  He told stories of his house with no running water or electricity and of his wife cooking food in a hole in the ground.  He recounted an incident of a friend and he who, while trying to cross a swollen river, dropped into a hole mid-stream.  After a full day of pulling their Land Rover out of the river, they spent the next two days disassembling the engine, drying out the parts, and reassembling the engine.

As I sat there listening to this incredible story, fear gripped me like a hand around my throat.  “If this is what it takes to be a missionary, I better reevaluate my call,” I thought.  I have zero mechanical skills.  If you gave me a hammer, saw, and nails, I couldn’t build a square box.  To the embarrassment of my father, the best I can do is change the oil or a tire on a vehicle.  Tear down an engine and reassemble it?  Forget about it!

In spite of my inability to build a house or overhaul an engine, in the 13 years I was in Kenya, I was able to work around the obstacles that come with being mechanically handicapped.  Before I left on a safari into the bush, I would remind Sandy of the day I would be back and add, “But if I don’t make it back on that day, give me two more days before you start to worry or send out a search party.  If the truck breaks down, it will take me two days to catch a ride back home.”  As many times as I traveled those treacherous roads, I never had a major mechanical breakdown.

Too many people fail to pursue their dreams because of their lack of talent or giftedness.  There are plenty of books written about people who overcame adversity and became champions, and it’s not necessary for me to restate the obvious.  If you want something bad enough, you will find a way to make it happen.  In spite of your limitations, trust God to bless you beyond your abilities.

Living With Doubt

In his book Leadership is an Art, Max De Press writes, “We do not grow by knowing all of the answers, but rather by living with the questions.”  For missionaries, pastors, or teachers, having all the answers is an occupational hazard.  Our days are filled with preparing another lesson so that on Sunday we will have the answers.  Who has time to question?  Who would dare to question?  If I were to voice all of my doubts, I would, as a supported missionary, put my livelihood on the line.

No Christian school is going to tolerate non-conventional thought.  Certainly a church is not going to continue supporting a missionary who does not adhere to sound doctrine, and when you have 100 donors or more, what is considered sound doctrine can be a moving target depending on the beliefs of those 100.

My crisis of faith in the desert of Kenya could have been fatal.  There have been many people down through history who have walked away from God disillusioned with life and its meaning.  Though I have been spared becoming an apostate, I am no longer comfortable with going along with accepted truth as it has been handed down to me by my culture or the dictates of my theology predecessors.  In the day we live in, I might be branded a post-modernist, but my struggles began before the term was invented.  I consider myself post-Job.

Though living in doubt is at times uncomfortable, it is not lethal and is, in fact, quite normal.  The difference between most Christians and me is that I readily admit I don’t understand God or His workings and truly see through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13:12 KJV).  What I do see may be basic, as it was with Job; i.e., that there is one true God and that all men are in rebellion against God and in need of salvation.  However, though I believe Christ Jesus is “the way the truth and the life” (Jn. 14:6), I do not have an easy answer for Mark’s father or the millions who seek God but have never heard the Good News.  My role, as one who has heard the Gospel, is to share what I do know with others who have eternity in their hearts but do not know His Name.  Like Job, I am frustrated by what I do not understand; but I am willing to wait for full knowledge rather than assume I have most of it now.

The church would probably be served better if more people acted more like pilgrims than authorities.  Being an agnostic gives one the liberty to say, “I’m not sure; I’m still seeking to understand.”  Since we will never get it all right on this side of time, it’s okay to live with uncertainty until all is revealed when there is no more time.

You Make the Call

The decision to remove Mark from his pastoral position, though correct as it relates to New Testament teaching, may very well have been the wrong decision.  We made our decision without considering neither the cultural environment of the Turkana or the totality of Scripture as it relates to polygamy.  Certainly the ideal of marriage was set when God gave Eve to Adam; he did not give him Rachel, Susan, and Britney as well.  Nevertheless, in the Old Testament, there were many patriarchs with multiple wives, and they didn’t all turn out badly.  The only thing Jesus had to say about marriage was the stand He took against divorce.  While most readers would adamantly oppose polygamy, we’ve become a little slack with, and perhaps much more accommodating to, divorce…the one consistent prohibition in both the Old and New Testament.

Most people who read this book will never have to make a decision on polygamy, but a majority will have to make a spiritual judgment call on something in their lives or in the lives of someone else in the church: whether it is right to sue a company or neighbor just because they can; paying for “services rendered” and hoping no one raises the issue of it being a bribe; accepting an invitation to go to a party that is clearly non-Christian to maintain a relationship with the one who invited you; withholding money from the local church and directing it to a cause you feel is more worthy.

There are many gray areas in life upon which we feel we should take a stand; but many times they are issues that don’t affect us.  Decisions, of course, have consequences.  Whether we made the right call in Turkana is something I will not fully know until all things are revealed in eternity—when things we did on earth no longer matter.

Chapter 6

Professional Upgrade

When you know you don’t know, you can do one of two things: remain in a blissful state of ignorance, teaching those who know less than you while hoping you’re not found out, or you can take on the task of learning something new.

God is gracious; and throughout my early ministry, He worked around my zeal for His purpose.  I had no understanding of culture when I went to Kenya; I only knew the “G cord” of ministry (which I learned in Bible college and from five years as a poor preacher in Texas).  As to knowing the craft of missions, I was clueless.  An old man, who was a legend in China because of his 30 years of service there, taught the only missions course I had in college.   Dr. Fred Donnelson confirmed in me that missionaries were people who were out of touch with the real world and who lived in their own.  Since I had no desire to live overseas, I didn’t bother to take any other mission classes that weren’t required.

When I arrived in Kenya, my thought was that the Kenyan people were just like those in America except that the black population was greater and they spoke a different language and were backward.  I was blissfully ignorant of how to work cross-culturally, but deep down inside I knew the only person I was fooling was myself.  I had zeal without knowledge, and before long it caught up with me.

I don’t recall when I became a serious student of culture, though it was no doubt around the time of my theological crisis.  While in search of answers for my own questions, I discovered there was a great deal more I didn’t know about life and the world that I lived in.  I found books on missions in the bookstores in Nairobi and mission periodicals lying around at the Mennonite Guest House where we often stayed when we visited Nairobi.  I was fascinated with all this new knowledge and wondered, “How come I haven’t heard about this stuff before?”

Convinced no one else in my denomination knew the things I was discovering, I began submitting articles for their bi-monthly paper and began my own monthly newsletter entitled “Focus On Missions.”  I sent it to people all over the world (whether they wanted it or not).  I enjoyed writing though I didn’t (and still don’t!) have a clue of the correlation between subject and verb.  Caught up in my new passion of learning and writing, I submitted articles to Leadership, Christianity Today, Evangelical Missions Quarterly, and several lesser-known publications. My articles were not only accepted, but I was actually paid for them!

While I was fascinated with what I was learning, I became increasingly concerned about my lack of knowledge.  My thirst to learn more was all consuming.  The Bible College I had received my unaccredited degree from instituted a distance-learning course where I could complete my B.A.  I enrolled, and suddenly I had become a student again and was enjoying it.  I wasn’t as dumb as I had thought, and I was making good grades.  It’s amazing how much easier it is embrace study when one is motivated to learn.

The Kenyan churches we helped establish were going quite well, and the pastors didn’t need me to be as hands-on as I had been earlier.  With my newfound interest in learning and writing, I began producing study material for our Bible Institute in Pokot.  My Swahili, though good enough to communicate, wasn’t sufficient for writing, so I wrote the lessons in English and hired a secretary to translate.  I wrote lesson material for every subject taught in our institute’s three-year course, and they are still using that material today.

Dr. Lewis?

On a previous visit to the U.S., I traveled to Biola University with our eldest daughter, Becky, to check out colleges she might attend when she finished high school.  I had heard of Biola (primarily their seminary, Talbot) but didn’t know much about it except that it had a good reputation as a quality, Christian university.  Becky wasn’t ready to think about college at that time and wasn’t much interested in those we investigated.  However, Lloyd Kwast, professor of History of Missions at Biola and former missionary to Cameroon, asked me about my education.  Would I be interested in a Master’s Degree?  Biola had just created a new department called the School of Intercultural Studies (SICS), and Lloyd suggested that I enroll during my next furlough.  Up to that point, I had never given graduate studies a thought; but with my new thirst for knowledge, I was open to giving it a try.

Our second term in Kenya was five years, and we needed to return to the States.  I was not anxious to get on the road again visiting churches and giving reports on our ministry in Kenya.  Though I know it’s important, many of the churches that supported us were overwhelmed with missionary speakers, and I knew it wasn’t crucial that I visit them.  The idea of using that furlough to learn more about how to do my work effectively appealed to me, so I wrote my supporting churches for permission to use our furlough time to further my education.  I assured them that if they wanted me to visit them, I would make the arrangements to do so on weekends.

There were only a few churches that said they would like for me to visit, and only one that reacted negatively.  That pastor wrote and said, in essence, that he didn’t have a college degree and didn’t think I needed one either; then he promptly dropped our support.  Thankfully most of our supporters were encouraging, so we moved to California in order for me to do graduate studies.

Enrolling at Biola, I took a course workload that, in hindsight, was unreasonable.  I was burning the candle on both ends as I crammed three years of studies into one and half years, taking courses throughout the summer.  Because of my practical experience on the field and because of my writings for the Institute, I was exempted from some courses.  Consequently, I was not only able to receive my Masters in Intercultural Studies, but I completed most of my required resident work for a Doctor of Missiology degree.

I have never considered myself to be a scholar, and my poor performance as a student in formative years kept me from pursuing an academic career.  My reason for pursuing further education was purely for instrumental purposes.  I wanted to learn what I needed to serve on the mission field better and, in the process, gain the legitimacy that an advanced degree could provide.  It was one of the smartest things I ever did.

The men and women who taught me were like cold water to a thirsty soul.  Marvin Mayers, Judy Lingenfelter, Harold Dollar, and Lloyd Kwast gave me the practical tools to be better at what I did on the field.       Sherwood Lingenfelter was the resident anthropologist at SICS and took an interest in my work as well as in me personally.  Through his influence and encouragement, my studies took a decidedly anthropological turn.

My doctoral dissertation, The Social Structure of the Kara Pokot and Its Implications for Church Planting, was so weighted toward anthropology that I asked Sherwood to be the chair of my doctoral committee.  I felt that if my thesis was going to get out of committee, I might as well make him the chair so he could guide me toward its completion.  The dissertation, though significant, is more practical than scholarly.  I can relate to the author who was criticized for not producing works of profundity and replied, “I wish I could write things common people can’t understand, but I’m just not smart enough to do that.”

Developing A New Church Planting Model

Upon our return to Kenya, I focused on field research.  Though churches had been established in our first two terms, the model I had used was, like those of most missionaries, distinctly Western in structure.  There were very few Pokot men attending the church, and I wanted to learn why.

Armed with tools to help me understand people rather than mere methods born out of my own culture and experience, I learned to ask questions and not just give simple answers to a people who didn’t share my worldview.

I discovered within the Pokot social structure that there was a severe mistrust and animosity between the sexes.  Pokot men perceived women as part of their property and, therefore, saw the church as a weak institution since only women attended the church.  Though we continued with the old church model in Pokot, which is all-inclusive, I also sought ways to reach men specifically, devising a different approach of outreach for them.  My new approach was to meet only with the men under a tree or at their compounds and talk to them about the God they knew only as Tororot.  The Pokot worldview centers around their cattle and the unknown spirits that cause misfortune.  I learned how to communicate with the men in a way that fit their worldview and context rather than from my American perspective.

Today’s missionaries seem to know the importance of the social sciences (at least the concept), but I didn’t.  During my last term in Kenya, I wasn’t working any harder (though I did work hard), but I was certainly working smarter.

I don’t consider our work among the Pokot to be a success story since the one totally Pokot church remains small.  Though I have gained some unique insights, I certainly don’t consider myself an expert in Pokot culture.  However, the one thing I did that many missionaries fail to do is research the context and write about my discoveries.  If there are those who take issue with my findings or my approach, I invite them to write about it from their perspective—and we will all gain from it.

In the spring of 1991 I walked across the platform to receive my doctorate.  Of all my earthly achievements without question completing my graduate studies and being recognized for the work I had put in to be considered, to some a degree, an expert in my field is the one I am most proud of.

Journey Niche Notes

Enabling Others

The world “enabling” has fallen on hard times in today’s world, primarily because it’s overused; but coming alongside someone with encouragement or even admonishment sometimes enables that person to keep moving forward.  That certainly has been true in my journey.  It is a well-established fact that no one travels through life totally in his own strength.  I do believe that much of what we accomplish is through our own determinations, but we build our life history through the chain of personalities and circumstances that ultimately make up our story.  The links in my intellectual growth would not have been possible if had not been for some key people who crossed my path.

While at BBC (and on academic probation), I told a friend that I was just going to quit.  “I don’t see the sense in being in school when there is a world out there that is dying and going to hell.  I just want to go out and serve Him, not be stuck in a classroom.”  I am embarrassed that I said that, and I cringe when I sometimes hear other young people say the same thing.

Tony Scoglio, the Italian A+ student whom everyone liked, said to me with sternness, “You quit now, Lewis, and you will quit every time things get tough.”  My personal insecurities had led me to believe that I was too dumb to learn and that I would never amount to anything—and Bible College almost proved me right.  Tony’s words, which seemed more like a “double-dog dare” for me to stay in school, were a vital link in my academic life.

After my first week at Biola, I told Sandy that I just didn’t think I had what it took to be in a graduate program.  Up until then she had no reason not to believe me (given my “stellar” performance at BBC), but, nevertheless, she encouraged me to stick with it.  She seemed to sense that my completion of the B.A. was a turning point and believed I could handle the graduate program if I could overcome the demons of insecurity.

It’s amazing how “little things” can impact you by lodging in the memory bank of your mind—things that are meaningless to others, but are building blocks for the rest of your life.  My first semester at Biola, I was struggling in one of my subjects when Judy Lingenfelter, my professor in an education course, asked to see me after class.  Even at the age of 40, I knew that when the teacher wants to see you after class, it’s not a good sign.

“You seem to be lost,” she said to me after the rest of the students had exited the room.

“Well,” I responded, “it’s been nearly twenty years since I was in school, and, yes, I am a bit confused.”

Judy then took me to the library and personally showed me how to navigate through the stacks of books, find journals, and do research.  It may have been a little thing to her, but it made a big impression on me.  I determined then that if I ever had a student who was struggling, I would emulate Judy’s act of encouragement.

A couple of years after my graduate studies, we left Kenya for good and returned to the states.  Some of my supporting churches perhaps felt betrayed that I had used my furlough for studies and then resigned my post soon after.  The reality is that my departure from the field had little to do with leaving the field.

My critics will point to things accomplished prior to higher learning versus after and would suggest that knowledge sapped my zeal, making me of no effect.  What they fail to realize is that if I had had this knowledge at the outset, I might have never left Del Rio and could have been a much more effective pastor/missionary on the border of Texas.  Or, having the knowledge at the outset of my ministry in Kenya, I could have been more effective in reaching the Pokot and Turkana.  It is conceivable that I would have accomplished much more had I had more knowledge with zeal, rather than zeal with no knowledge.  To the churches that faithfully supported me and encouraged me toward intellectual growth, I would like to take a moment to say that your investment has not been a waste and is still producing fruit.

Learn The Question Before Giving the Answer

I am well aware that a person can be engaged in the process of analysis to the extent that they never actually do any work.   Far too many people (including some academicians) would rather study the problem than try to solve the problem.  On the other side of the equation are those who try to solve a problem that does not exist.  It took the first 15 years of my ministry for me to understand these things.  Critics of higher learning certainly have reason to disapprove of the “eggheads” whose knowledge exceeds their intelligence and who have made a career of developing armchair hypotheses to issues they have never personally experienced.   However, that does not negate the importance of intellectual growth.

My growth process was not a straight path.  In 1968 Baptist Bible College was a blue-collar school for the lower-middle class.  It was a good fit for me, as that was my background.  At my Bible College, education was seen as a tool for practical work; this translated into courses such as practical homiletics, practical preaching practice, and practical Sunday school methods.

The issues that people continually grapple with in life—their worldview, poverty, and injustice—were never discussed.  Those subjects, my professors contended, were issues that liberals discuss; our studies only dealt with the real need of people—salvation in Christ.  Being of the fundamentalist mindset, they didn’t just have an answer, they had THE answer.

Since practical work was valued over academics, the school offered a three-year degree that was a dead-end academically.  They have since changed their curriculum and now offer only accredited degrees.  I was fortunate enough to finish my B.A. in their transition, but I always felt they did a disservice to those who graduated with just a Theology Graduate degree.

In defense of my school and its program, I want to be clear that I appreciate the education I received at Baptist Bible College.  I acquired a very strong foundation for which I am deeply grateful.  Everything I know about the Scriptures and doctrine is due to the committed men and women of BBC.  Baptist Bible College is what I needed at that point in my life, and I have nothing but gratitude to God for the foundation the college laid for my life and future ministry.

In spite of the very good things BBC did do for my spiritual and intellectual growth, it is what they failed to teach that is unfortunate.  They, and probably most colleges and seminaries, failed to teach how to wrestle with the questions of life before giving the answers found in their philosophies and theologies.

Noel Smith, a professor at BBC who taught a class on hermeneutics, was one of the most profound men I have ever sat under.  A man from the hills of Tennessee, his philosophical arguments confounded the most esteemed liberals in the area.  He had little use for foolishness, which included foolish theology as well as foolish theologians.  He often said that too many preachers “lie for the glory of God,” meaning that what they discharged from the pulpit was often heresy wrapped up in a denominational doctrine.  I have often thought that he and Oswald Chambers would have gotten on well, for what Noel Smith considered foolishness from the pulpit, Chambers called prigs.

Intellectually Speaking

Those seeking to serve cross-culturally often ask me the importance of a Masters or Doctoral degree.  My answer varies depending on the type of degree desired and how it will benefit the future ministry.  There are some places in the world where having a higher degree gives a person legitimacy even if he/she lacks experience.  We live in a knowledge-based world; thus, in most countries, having only a B.A. will not open many doors of opportunity.

Many of the leaders in national churches have their PhD.’s from the U.S. or England and, therefore, are not overly impressed with a new missionary coming to the field who merely has an undergraduate degree in biblical studies.  Having an advanced degree is not the key to success, but it can give a person an advantage as well as leverage.  The opportunities for much of what I have done in ministry would have never been opened to me if it hadn’t been for my doctorate.  However, having a title is not crucial in every situation.

If one’s goal is to work in a seminary, do church planting, or be involved in non-formal training, I believe a formal education in biblical studies is extremely important.  One does not need, however, to know Greek and Hebrew to communicate the Gospel to the Pokot of Kenya or the Aka Pygmies of the Congo.  Specialized training in communication to the illiterate might be more advisable.

There are many situations in which having a secular degree from a state university is more attractive than being a graduate from a Christian school.  Certainly this is true for restricted access countries; but even in open and receptive countries like Kenya, people who can do more than teach the Bible are needed.

If a person does not have a graduate degree, he or she can still have legitimacy on the field if they have a skill that will enhance their service to the church.  Graphic artists, computer experts, those who can establish a micro-business, English teachers, administrators, or even a certified aerobics instructor—all have a place in today’s world.  Finding your niche means working in your area of giftedness and matching that gift with the needs of the field.

Whether one seeks a degree or not, the pursuit of knowledge should never cease.  I read about a guy who was an accountant with an undergraduate degree in business.  For over 20 years, he has been taking courses at his local community college.  With somewhere around 128 college credit hours, most of his course work had nothing to do with his profession or was helping him toward a higher degree.  When asked why he kept on enrolling, he replied, “I love to learn.”  What a great answer!  From astronomy to zoology, his only goal was to learn.  Life is lived more fully when we keep on learning.

I met another missionary at Biola in the doctoral program who told me that every furlough he takes a semester of studies.

“I’ll be eighty years old before I get my degree,” he joked, “but graduating isn’t my main goal.  It’s to learn how to be a more effective servant of Christ.”

If I had a wish for every missionary home on furlough, it would be that they use that time to upgrade their thinking—to pursue intellectual growth.

Having a successful ministry certainly does not rest on just having a good education; that education must be coupled with experience.  Any legitimacy or authority on which I have to speak is a due to a combination of studies and my experience in ministry.  One cannot forever hang around the halls of academia; eventually the test of finding one’s niche will be on that field of battle called work.

Write About It

When I began my research on the Kara Pokot, I found very few resources.  I discovered half a dozen anthropological studies on the Pokot ranging from 1910 to the early 1980’s and found only one unpublished manuscript dealing with the Pokot and missions.  I have never claimed to be a foremost authority on the Pokot, but those who may be apparently had not written anything.

The maxim “publish or perish” has a lot of merit.  I began writing when I had little to say, but at least I said it.  I have hesitated to write more because I recognize that there are those who know more and have already said it better than I can.  Their thoughts, however, are not my mine and their opinions are not from my perspective.  My challenge to students, whether they choose to write for a denominational newsletter, a magazine article, or a full manuscript, is to write things down and let others know what they have discovered along their journey.

Chapter 7

The Missionary Family

Continuing with the theme that life is a team effort, it would be impossible, and certainly uncharitable, not to discuss the most important players in my life—my wife and two daughters.  Our family has always been unconventional in many ways, yet in spite of not always following the norm, Sandy I have been married now for thirty-seven years and our daughters have grown up well adjusted and spiritually mature.  My story is a shared story with them.

Sandy and I are of the early Boomer’s generation, which means we grew up listening to Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and the protest songs of the Vietnam period.  Our parents, like most of their generation, came out of the Depression and WWII era; hard workers, middle to lower-middle class people who voted Democrat (my mom being the exception) and had a disdain for those “damn Republicans.” Each generation has their weak spots; our parent’s generation problem was that they didn’t know how to parent.  How else can you explain the excesses of our generation…the high divorce rate, booze, sex, and general disdain for authority?

While my teen-age years were a self-made debacle and no fault of my parents, Sandy grew up with a much stronger moral compass.  I’m glad I met her after getting my life back in order or she wouldn’t have had anything to do with me.  As I look over my shoulder of time and remember what she had to endure as a pastor’s wife in Texas, I can only admire her unselfishness and commitment to our union.

Sandy will be the first to tell you that in her journey in finding her niche, there are two things she has come to terms with.   First, she does not have the gift in teaching adults and, second, she never had a natural affinity with the Kenyans.  In spite of those realities, she was engaged in the ministry from beginning to end.  She taught Sunday school in Makutano, had women’s retreats, traveled to Turkana, (probably more often than she really wanted to), and even taught young women in the Bible Institute.  Though it did not come natural for her to be close to Kenyans, she loved both the people and country.

Formed in Africa

The touchstone of our lives, of course, is Kenya.  Those thirteen years shaped our family and especially our daughters’ identity and, much to the dismay of our son-in-laws, is often a topic of discussion when we are together.        When the girls were small Sandy was the primary caregiver.  I certainly was involved, but it was my wife who carried much of the load in raising the children.  Not knowing what to expect when we moved to Africa, we resolved to give our girls as normal a life as possible.  Obviously we had no idea what that would be, but we had no desire to put their personalities in jeopardy for the sake of the work.  Moving to our house in Eldoret was beyond our wildest expectations and, apart from the Kenyan environment we lived in, we saw our life as normal as any family in America.  We celebrated Christmas, though with fewer gifts, and a Christmas tree that was a little odd looking, birthdays, and special days like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July like any normal family would in the states.  As parents, we had boundaries, but neither Sandy nor I were very legalistic and so our girls grew up listening to music and watching movies of their generation.

Kenya is blessed with fresh fruit, vegetables and just about any meat you want to buy, though chicken and turkey was a bit pricey.  Because Sandy had grown up in the Southern U.S., she fed our kids homemade biscuits, chicken fried steak, fried okra, fried green tomatoes  (our motto is “if it ain’t fried, it ain’t food”), with a few Arkansas specialties like chocolate gravy and chicken fried turkey breast.  In spite of the grease, the only person to have a weight problem in our household was me.

By the second term, we had moved to a city called Kitale, sixty miles closer to our work in Pokot and Turkana.   Kitale was the last jumping off point before the bush with electricity and running water.  Our house in Kitale was much smaller and older than in Eldoret, but the property was two and half acres with avocado, orange and mango trees.  It was a place we were able to purchase and fix up, as we liked.  Today our kids still call Kitale home.

What made our family normal was Sandy’s flair of making a home.  If it were not for her, I often wonder how well the kids would have turned out?  Though we didn’t have all the luxuries of our peers in the states, we didn’t suffer.  Sandy could have been an interior decorator, as our house always had a warm touch with just the right pictures, pillows and little knick-knacks that made our living environment pleasant.  After spending a week or two away in the bush and sleeping underneath a mosquito net in some remote part of Turkana, coming back to Kitale was more than just coming home, it was a refuge for me.

Second, it was our home--a place to be refreshed, and yes, even escape from the stresses of culture. One reason missionaries do not survive the bush is that they have no place to getaway for refreshment and recuperation.  I have watched many missionaries settle in Turkana, only to see them move out, and sometimes never return to missions.  The Turkana people encircle the house throughout the day and into the night, waiting for whoever comes out so that they can plead for help, whether it’s a ride to town or money for medicine.  It’s impossible to help everyone.  Though those in the bush did many things to meet the physical needs of the Turkana, it didn’t reduce the numbers of people waiting for them to step outside the house to ask for more.  Every mission who has worked in Turkana eventually builds a fence and posts guards, so to live in Kitale, for us, made more sense than isolating ourselves without the benefit of having a nice place to live and be refreshed.

Boarding School

Sandy home schooled our children until they were in the fifth grade.  In the part of the country where we lived, there was no international school and the Kenyan education system, at that time, was not adequate.  Though the girls had a few friends in the church and area, by the time Becky turned twelve we had to make a decision on her, and eventually Sara’s, education.  I wasn’t much help in the schooling department and Sandy was on overload.   Through a lot of prayer and discussion, we decided that we would enroll Becky into Rift Valley Academy (RVA), which was a six-hour drive from Kitale.

Though we all thought boarding school was the right thing to do, none of us looked forward to the day when we would be separated.  The day we drove to RVA to drop Becky off at school was the hardest day in Kenya for all of us.  We entered her dorm, and it looked dreary.  The campus at RVA is always cold, as the school is located seven thousand feet above sea level.  Sandy of course helped Becky unpack, put up her things and made her bed.  Then it was time to say goodbye.  I wanted to make a quick exit, knowing that lingering wasn’t going to make the agony less.  Becky cried, then Sara, and then Sandy and my heart just ached.  Sandy cried even more after we left and I felt impotent to do or say anything that would make the pain go away.

RVA has a rule that parents are not allowed to visit their kids for three weeks after they enroll.  Though the adjustment was not without bumps, it was easier on Becky than it was for the rest of the family.  On our first visit, we were delighted to see Becky with her new friends and, though the second goodbye was still tough, we knew she was going to do well.  This gave us hope that we did the right thing.

Two Personalities

Becky has always had the energy of two people.  She began talking at an early age and hasn’t stopped since.  Though she was born in America, I swear she somehow has African genes.  She has never taken the “first price” seriously.  No matter what the issue, Becky would haggle with me, hoping that I would wear down and just give in.   Being just as stubborn, we were often at an impasse, with the outcome usually going to the older person.  I would often tell her, “I’m sorry if I ever gave you the impression this was a democracy,” a saying she once hated but now repeats to her own children.  Her response was, “Dad, you don’t know what it’s like to be a teen-age girl,” to which I would counter, “Yeah, and you don’t know what it’s like to be the dad of a teen-age girl.”  In spite continually butting heads, she turned out a terrific kid, thanks in large part to her mom.

Sara of course missed her sister.  Fortunately, there was a UN couple in Kitale and another missionary family who had a daughter Sara’s age, so socially she was doing okay.   But she longed to be with her sister and pushed us to allow her to join Becky at RVA.  Though we thought she was a bit young, we did enroll her for the fourth grade She did not adjust as we hoped, so we pulled her out before the end of the first term.  Sara’s personality was much different than Becky’s, in that she was more pliable and timid.  She re-entered RVA in the fifth grade and adjusted well. Suddenly, Sandy and I were empty nesters in our 30’s.

Making Family Time

The RVA calendar was the same as the Kenyan school system, which meant that our kids were in school for three months and then home for a month.  On the months that they were out of school, (April, August and December), we made the most of our time together.  The girls usually just wanted to be home, eating every favorite dish Mom would cook, watching the same videos over and over (though there was a time limit) and just being together as a family.  A couple of weeks of the year we would go to the coast and rent a beach house.  In all the years that we lived in Kenya, we never went to a major game park and never saw a lion or elephant.  When people ask us why, the kids answer simply, “Dad worked in the bush and we never did care much for camping out, so we always opted to go to the beach instead.”  Though we hated the end of their vacations, within five minutes after their arrival back at RVA, the girls were off with their friends.

In addition to the month long breaks, Sandy and I would travel down to see the girls every three weeks.  We would pick them up at RVA and go to Nairobi, just to get off campus, usually staying at the Mennonite Guest House.  There wasn’t much to do in Nairobi, but we would go to the biggest stores to shop and eat whatever new thing that arrived in the country.  KFC went out of business for poor health standards, pizzas slowly evolved from egg to cheese toppings, but we were never able to get a good hamburger.  We spent most of our money stocking the girls up with junk snacks to take back to school.  Sandy would have nearly a suitcase full of brownies and cookies for the girls that they probably shared with their friends before we even got off campus.

My thing has always been writing letters to the girls. I’d send them candy on Valentine’s Day, and when we were in Nairobi, I’d buy Archie Digests, (which were not easy to find nor cheap), and insert with every issue a note to them each week.  I understand the comics were a big hit with their friends and to this day Archie books are a fond memory for all of us.

Timing is everything and we never seemed to time things quite right with the girls’ school.  We went home on furlough in Becky’s senior year, though she did go back to Kenya with us to be a part of her classmates’ graduation.  Sara finished the ninth grade at RVA before we moved back to the states, which turned out to be horrible timing.  Third culture kids (TCK’s) usually have difficulties adjusting to their parents’ home culture and the closed rural area we moved into exasperated Sara’s re-entry problems.  Had we known it was going to be that difficult of an adjustment for her, we would have enrolled her in a boarding school in Europe.

In today’s world, sending children to boarding school seems to some cruel and not very caring as parents.  The horror stories of kids being scarred emotionally for life, while it does happen, are the exception, not the rule.  Though I realize this just sounds like a dad talking, I truly believe there are no two better young Christian women, wives and mothers as Becky and Sara.  Boarding school was not our preferred option, but it was the best option for us at that time.  Living through the separation was rough at times, yet all four of us would have to say God used RVA for His honor in our family life.

Journey Niche Notes

One Heart, Two Minds

There is a philosophy among some sending agencies that both husband and wife should be called to the mission field.  Since I’m not sure I agree with “the call” on anyone’s life for a specific task, I certainly would question that spouses must have the same leading to serve Him overseas.  When we were married, Sandy didn’t sign up to be co-pastor or co-missionary and it is unfortunate that there are those expectations placed on wives of those who take on full-time ministry as a profession.  I have met women who, indeed, felt they were called, into missions (some of them I suspected dragged their husbands to the field with them).  Certainly, there are those who share the life-long dream to be on the field together, but that’s not the norm.  Though women who have up-front ministries get the praise and the press, the primary role for most wives are their families.  While we were in the pastorate, Sandy was often expected to do things that were not her strength, just as I was.  I couldn’t have asked more of Sandy as my partner in Kenya and I’m glad I had a wife, not a co-pastor.

When we returned to the States, Sandy was often not accepted by a few in the mission organization we joined since she didn’t ooze with ministry babble on the great calling of the mission field.  A realist and not politically correct, she shared her struggles of the mission field, along with the triumphs.  This was deemed as not being the ideal model of a missionary wife.  As a protector, I defended her position rather than asking her to conform.  To me, Sandy was the ideal model of a missionary wife, and I can point with pride to our family and ministry as proof.

Some people find their niche early in life.  For Sandy, like me, finding her niche has been a process.  Sandy has an unusual thirst for God’s Word and has been active in Bible Study Fellowship for several years.  She has been instrumental in guiding our daughters, as well as other family members, in this quest to know more of God.   Though not an upfront teacher, she quietly influences others to go beyond the surface in their spiritual growth by guiding them through in-depth, inductive study.

Someone once commented that one of Sandy’s spiritual gifts is living with me. I’m not so sure they aren’t right.  In the years that we’ve been married, I’ve dragged her to the four corners of the globe. We’ve had some great adventures, seen many parts of the world that others can only dream about.  We have also been separated a great deal since some of the places my teaching has taken me would not be places she would want or could go.  Whether on deputation, working in the desert of Kenya, or teaching in other parts of the world, I’ve often been away from home weeks at a time.  My wife has never complained and that is something for which I will always be grateful.  Sometime back, a church threatened to drop our support because we were physically separated so much. They didn’t think it was a biblical way for a husband and wife to live.  I have often wondered if they would have said the same to Billy and Ruth Graham?  Our marriage has not been conventional, and far from perfect, but we have been joined at the heart, not the hip.  We feel that God has blessed our marriage.

Personal Space

When I consult missionaries, I encourage them to find their balance in how they are going to live on the field.  I have met some couples that have lived in hovels without running water, who eat on the floor and dress like the nationals.  For some this is important and it seems to work fine for them.  While I am not critical of their choice of lifestyle, I do question some of their motives.  Are they trying to see how much they can suffer for Jesus or have they taken the incarnational model to the extreme?

A few years ago, I visited a team in Uzbekistan.  The team leader required the missionaries to live as the nationals in every respect and, though the leader’s family functioned well, not all of the other team members did. This caused a great deal of tension within the team.

When thinking about lifestyles, it’s important to ask,  “What’s the goal?”  What’s really important: living like the nationals or being able to stay on the field for ministry?  I also wonder what national people really think of people coming from the West trying to emulate the way they live?  While wearing a Chinese pigtail worked for Hudson Taylor, I’m not sure we need, in this day of globalization, to emulate that model.  There is no way I could have lived like the Pokot, and if I had tried, they would have thought it strange that I would want to.  The Pokot often told me the story of a Catholic priest living in the bush that herded cattle and lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle.  When I asked them their thoughts of such a person they laughed and said they thought he had gone mad.

Relationships are not built by what you eat or where you live, but your genuine interest in others as people.  If your family can and wants to live more like the natives, I think it is wonderful, but it doesn’t automatically give you legitimacy and it certainly does not make you more spiritual than those who do not.

Of course, balance means the family should not ignore the economy of the people and not live in such a way that it is an obstacle in communicating the Gospel.  On my trips into the desert, I ate what the Kenyans and slept where they slept.  I did not build a two-story block building that looked like a Mogul castle on the hill.  The Pokot and Turkana people knew I had money, (their view was that all people from America are rich), but I was sensitive not to flaunt my wealth.  I usually wore the same shirt and trousers and one change of clothes, which is one more extra pair than most of them had.  I was careful that my riches did not detract from my love for them while at the same time not creating stress in my own life.  Missionaries who are obsessed with having what they had in the States are playing a losing game, and eventually will become dissatisfied and go home.

Another safeguard for our life in Kenya was that our home was our home, not a place where just anyone who wanted could drop by to visit.  I know that sounds terrible to many, but there were legitimate reasons why we discouraged national visitors.  Primarily because we did not want to flaunt our wealth, it would have defeated the purpose if we had an open door policy. We lived a great distance from the churches and therefore it was not easy access to drop by for tea. Though most of our pastors did visit us, it was not often.  Though bombarded by requests for money and clothes when I was in the desert, living upcountry was a buffer from our home being inundated with people we did know asking for aid.

Board or Bored?

Children’s education is one of the most challenging issues for missionary parents.  In some countries, MK’s attending the local school is an option, especially through the elementary grades.  Interacting with kids of the host culture can be a rich and rewarding experience, which will help children grow up not feeling so much like an outsider.  If the mission community is large enough in a particular city, the missionaries have banded together to hire teachers, giving the children a structure for education as well as social skills needed for their adolescent development.  It’s my opinion that the downside of home schooling in a foreign country becomes evident when the kids get older and need development in social skills.  One couple in Kenya taught their three boys through high school.  The parents are very intelligent and their boys didn’t lack a good education, but as one of the boys confided to my daughter some years later, “I grew up not knowing even how to talk to a girl, except for my mom.”

Though there are greater education options available today than there were for us, boarding school is still a matter that must be considered on some fields.  Boarding school, like everything in life, depends a great deal on what people make of it.  It helps to have a school like RVA whose staff is committed to their call of teaching children.  Unlike the old boarding school days where missionaries were assigned to be dorm parents or teachers, the staff at RVA sees their work as a ministry and they truly love kids.  Experts in education and child development testify that how parents approach boarding school, or just about everything else in life, will be reflected in their children.  If the parents have a poor attitude about sending their kids to school, the kids will probably pick up the same negative attitude.  Our family knew separation would be tough, but we also saw RVA as a great opportunity.  Sometimes when I hear parents give arguments that God gave the parenting responsibility to the parents, not strangers in a school, I wonder if they are not more concerned about themselves than their children?  We didn’t make the choice to send our girls to boarding school because we wanted them out of the house, nor to punish them.  Our daughters needed an environment that would help them in their development into healthy adults and it would have been selfish for Sandy and me to look just at our needs rather than the needs of Becky and Sara.

In the end, one has to make decisions based on their own family needs, not the opinion of others on the field or the popular theory of child development of the day.  Some kids indeed do not do well in boarding school and parents should never force a child to do something they are emotionally unable to cope with.   Sara struggled her first semester so we pulled her out, which turned out to be a good decision.  Other children never adjust and it may be that the parents may have to make the decision to send their children back to the States or come off the field themselves until the children are grown.

Serving as missionaries requires some sacrifices.  Without question, being separated from our girls was the greatest sacrifice Sandy and I experienced in Kenya.  Since we are a close family, the option of boarding school was painful.  It was also the reason their RVA days was a positive experience.  Our daughters have always known that we love them more than anything on this earth and it was because of our love for them we looked to their needs, not our own.  They never felt that we abandoned them nor thought the ministry was more important than them.  Today, as adults, they tell us how grateful they are for their RVA experience and having had the privilege of growing up in Africa.

Chapter 8

Strategically Leaving The Field

They say that the job of a missionary is to work himself out of a job. If he does work himself out of a job and returns home, he is often criticized for leaving the field and people begin to question why he has quit.

Our initial work in Kenya was complete; and after establishing thirteen churches and a Bible Institute with everything led by the Kenyan Christians, I began to speculate as to what my future role should be in Africa.  My niche has always been in launching projects, not maintaining or administrating them.  Though there are always new ventures that could be pursued in Kenya, I questioned my ongoing role on the field.

I don’t believe there is any special merit in a missionary remaining on the field for a lifetime.  Those that do obviously believe their role is important, and I give them credit for their commitment and honor them for their service.  However, in many cases, it would be better if missionaries would leave the field in order that the national church could take ownership and grow on their own.

There are some situations where missionaries can overstay their welcome and effectiveness, and I know of one case where a missionary couple lived in Africa for forty years with national churches wishing they would go home for the last twenty.  Because of their paternalistic style, they had become a detriment to growth and had rendered themselves ineffective.  They say that the best speakers are those who quit when people want them to continue rather than continue while the people wish they would quit.  I preferred to leave while the people wanted me to stay rather than having them wish I would just go home.

The Process of Transition

Though Sandy did well in Kenya, I knew she struggled in her role, especially after the girls went off to RVA.  Had there been a real strong reason to remain in the country, we would still be there; but it became clear to me that I had to make a decision.  I was over forty years old and knew that if I were going to have another role in ministry in the years ahead, I would have to do it before my age became an obstacle.

One factor in furthering my education, though not an initial motivation, was the sense that I would one day have to make a decision about future ministry.  I had discovered in Kenya that my niche was teaching, and I certainly enjoyed my studies in cultural anthropology at Biola.  Upon completion of my Master’s program, I entertained thoughts of becoming a teacher in a Bible College or Seminary in the United States.  As my resident work at Biola neared completion, I made inquiries of schools regarding a teaching position.

A school in Arizona contacted me for an interview, so Sandy and I visited the campus.  Neither of us had any peace about it, but I was afraid to close the door.  Sandy said to me on the flight back home, “Listen, let’s not make a decision just to settle in the states.  If God doesn’t open up anything that we both have peace about, let’s just go back to Kenya.”  And that’s what we did, though I still believed our time on the field was coming to a close.

As we made our way back to Kenya, Becky remained in the states to enter college.  It was another heart-wrenching goodbye.  Though she had been out of the house for several years at RVA, she was at least in the same country.  Getting on the plane without her was difficult.  Upon arrival in Kenya, Sara went back to RVA, and Sandy and I went back to our house in Kitale.

Life was getting back to normal on the surface.  I informed our Kenyan pastors that I would not be spending as much time with them but would be working more exclusively in Pokot.  It was during that time that I concentrated on my field research and tried to develop a more contextualized model for reaching the Pokot with the Gospel.  The pastors were not pleased with my decision; we were close, and they felt like they needed me.  However, I told them there was a time when they needed to go on without my help.  I would, of course, speak at their conferences and help them in case of emergencies, but teaching regularly at the Bible Institute and speaking at their church services was a thing of the past.

Unexpected Opportunity

A little over a year after we resettled in Kenya, I received a letter from a guy I met at Biola by the name of Dwight Smith.  I had a couple of classes with Dwight, but we were not close friends.  He was a pastor in San Jose, California, who had previously been a missionary in Columbia for a few years.  After completing his course work, he became president of a small mission-sending agency called United World Mission (UWM).

Dwight is an innovator and a visionary who wanted to remake UWM into a model of what he thought mission agencies should be.  One of his goals was for UWM to be a training institution, not just a sending agency.  Taking a page from Cam Townsend of Wycliffe, whose motto was “Do one thing; train your own people,” Dwight wanted UWM to do one thing well.  He wanted to instill a philosophy of saturation church planting and to train those who were sent out by UWM.

After becoming president of UWM, which had their headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida, Dwight found a dilapidated twenty-eight-acre campus in Union Mills, North Carolina.  Formerly housing an orphanage, the buildings had not been occupied for several years and most of the buildings were in disrepair.  Like most visionaries, Dwight was able to see the potential but had no desire to personally develop a training program.  So he inquired from the staff at Biola about a possible trainer, and they suggested he contact me.  To this day, I do not know who suggested he contact me or why, as I hadn’t discussed with anyone on staff my thoughts about leaving Kenya.

Dwight’s letter, though intriguing, was not the best timing.  Our family was now settled back into our routine.  Sara was thrilled at being back at RVA and was flourishing.  Sandy and I had settled back into Kitale and our comfortable surroundings.

After discussing Dwight’s offer, however, Sandy suggested that I fly to the States and check it out.  If it was something I thought was a good fit for us, great; if not, that was okay, too.  We had arrived at a place in our lives where decisions could be made with thoughtfulness and prayer, not because of a crisis.

The Need For Training

Dwight is a salesman; he does his best work by verbally painting a vision.  His vision of training missionaries to be more effective for their service overseas was not a hard sell to me.  I had been on the field long enough to see too many missionaries who, though having a heart for ministry, didn’t really know what to do.  My conversation with a missionary in Kitale, that I’ll call Ralph, is typical of many I had in Kenya.

Standing on the road outside his house one day, I asked, “How’s it going, Ralph?”

“Lewis,” he answered, “I don’t have a clue of what I’m doing, and I have no one to give me any guidance.”

He told me that in his organization they have a high standard for acceptance.  He had a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master of Divinity Degree and had even spent two years in Zambia as an associate missionary.

“With all the education and preparation I’ve had, you’d think I would be equipped for ministry here, but I’m not.  I know Greek, but I don’t know how to plant a church.  In Zambia I was the short-term ‘go-fer’, going on errands and doing things the career missionaries didn’t want to do just to stay busy.  No one mentored me, and I was not invited into meetings when they discussed strategy.  I want to be a help to the church here in Kenya, but I just don’t have a clue as to how to start.”

I wish I could say that Ralph’s case is unique, but it isn’t.  There are many missionaries who go to the field ill prepared, and they end up either leaving the field after their first term (an average of over twenty percent industry wide and as high as forty percent among some agencies) or they end up doing busy work; i.e., things that are neither strategic nor particularly needed.  The prospect that Dwight presented me—to really help missions through training—was an offer I could sink my teeth into.  But with every new opportunity, there are questions to be asked.

Joining The Team

When I met with the UWM Board, one of the members asked this question: “Is it right for us to bring a successful church planter off the field to train missionaries?”

My question in reply was, “What kind of a missionary would you rather have teach?”

The board members question is common in many churches and sending agencies. When hiring a missions pastor at a local church or a position within a sending organization, there is a tendency to find someone who is retired, in poor health, or who didn’t do well on the field and put him in a teaching or leadership position?  The mission industry is notorious for doing things cheaply and second hand.  I was attracted to UWM for its vision for doing things better—not just wanting to send more missionaries but better missionaries.

I agreed to join the leadership staff of UWM with some reservations.  One was of a financial nature.  As a pioneer church planter in the bush of Kenya, I was the epitome of what North American churches consider a “real missionary.”  Like it or not, the more you suffer or appear to suffer, the more people are willing to support you financially.  After thirteen years in Kenya, though we were certainly not over-supported, we didn’t have to worry about finances.  Since I belonged to a conservative Baptist fellowship, I felt certain many would drop our support if I joined UWM, a non-denominational organization.  I also wondered how much support would continue if we were no longer on the field, though still in missions.  My fears were genuine; we lost eighty percent of our support when we joined UWM.

Because leaving the field was a conscious and deliberate choice and not forced, it was an emotionally difficult decision.  My closest friends in the world at that time were the Kenyan pastors of the churches that had been established—especially pastors Gichuki, Mugoya, and Gagula.  We had gone through a lot together, and I had seen them grow from new converts to strong spiritual leaders.  When you invest your life in the lives of others, you don’t say goodbye easily.  Our last Sunday at Makutano was a day of sadness, joy, laughter, and tears as we talked about our journey together.  I knew the decision to leave was right, but it didn’t make the departure any easier.

Not A Smooth Landing

Western North Carolina is a beautiful part of the country at the foothills of the Smokey Mountains.  I knew Sandy would like living there.  Becky, of course, was excited that we would be in the states, though she was attending John Brown University in Arkansas.  I wasn’t sure about Sara, however.  At RVA she didn’t just have classmates, she had a dorm full of sisters.

Sara, like Becky, flourished at boarding school.  We pulled her out of an environment where she was thriving and placed her in public school in Rutherford County.  Like many small communities, Rutherfordton was closed to outsiders.  The kids were not particularly mean to Sara, but she was an outsider…way outside.  If Sara had transferred from another state, even a northern “Yankee” state, she would have at least known the American values of teenage girls.  Sara was a third culture kid and was miserable throughout her high school years.

“It’s not that I’m not interested in what the other girls are interested in,” she told us eventually.  “Talking about clothes, movies, music, and boys is okay, but that’s all they know to talk about.  They don’t have any interest in where I am from, and they have no interest in spiritual things.”

Sara’s re-entry grew worse with each passing week.  She would often come home after class; go straight to her room, and stay—sometimes with the lights off.  The only time she felt normal was when she would be at the UWM campus and meet other missionary kids.  We tried to help her through the adjustment period and even took her to a counselor—which turned out to be a waste of time, as the counselor knew nothing about third culture kids.  In hindsight, it was just terrible timing on my part to make a change at that stage of Sara’s life.

Transition was not as easy for me as I thought it would be either.  I had found my niche as a missionary in Kenya and was excited about the possibilities of this new role as a trainer of missionaries; but it was new territory for me, and, therefore, I was not secure.  The first two years back in the states was one of the darkest periods of my life.  My identity as a missionary was gone; my relationship with the denomination I had been a part of all my Christian life had been severed; we lost most of our monthly support; my daughter was having problems; and the tension created by trying to “fit in” eventually affected our marriage.  I became resentful and entertained thoughts that I really never wanted to return home but was forced to do so to meet the needs of my family.  Though few people outside of our household knew it, I had gone into deep depression and eventually went on medication just to cope.

Journey Niche Notes

God’s Timing

“Okay, God,” I’d often pray while trying to decide whether to return to Kenya or not, “You’re omniscient and You know the outcome of my struggle and will reveal it to me sooner or later.  But if it’s all the same to You, my preference is that it be sooner.”

Walking by faith and trying to yield to His leading is sometimes tedious.  Like kids in the back seat asking dad every five minutes “Are we almost there?” God’s kids want to get to the destination without the experience of the journey.

I hate ambiguity, so the uncertainty of whether to remain in the states until I found a teaching position or to go back to Kitale was difficult.  I am convinced, however, that God does not lead you away from something until He has opened a way for you to go somewhere or do some thing.

The path to North Carolina was a bit indirect due to the fact that we settled back in Kenya and lived there a year before God opened the UWM opportunity.  But life is seldom a straight line from point A to point B.  So—why the crooked road to North Carolina?  Who knows?  Perhaps Sara needed another year at RVA to build up her confidence; perhaps Becky needed to experience life in the states without her parents as a safety net; perhaps Sandy needed to be tested in her willingness to trust God in the face of self-interest; perhaps I needed that year to develop a clearer understanding of how to communicate the Gospel to the Pokot; perhaps the existing churches and national pastors needed that year to learn what it would be like to go on their own though I was still in the country.  Perhaps it was all of those things.  Or, more likely, it was none of those things.

In that year of resettlement in Kenya, Dwight was not the leader of UWM yet and, therefore, the pieces were not yet in place.  Certainly God used the situation to build what was needed in our lives at that time, but there is no need to spiritualize and find the hidden “deeper meaning.”  We were just still “in the car,” still on the journey, and it’s as simple as that.

Kingdom Thinking

In making the decision to leave the mission field, I sought counsel from several people, though I had to be careful whom I confided in.  If the “grapevine” got wind of my contemplating leaving Kenya, questions would be asked for which I had no answers.

I did ask the leader of our Baptist Mission his advice, and his only suggestion was that, if I returned to the states, I find a church to pastor.  That was no help at all.  I had been a pastor, and I knew that wasn’t my niche.  It was obvious that there was no room for me within my mission organization or college, and so it was either stay put or look elsewhere.  My denomination didn’t have churches where there were missions pastors on staff, which, had I discovered, would have been of interest to me.  I did not want to pursue teaching at the college in Arizona or any other college because I wasn’t interested in teaching missions to undergraduate students.  The person who could give guidance in my transition was seemingly non-existent.

So why was I willing to leave the field to join another organization and jeopardize my relationship with a group of people I had been part of all my life?  There were two reasons.  First, Dwight Smith and UWM were willing to accept me when my own denomination did not.  Sometimes we look for opportunities; sometimes opportunities find us.  Though I was seeking God’s direction in my life, I wasn’t on the phone or writing letters of inquiry when contacted by UWM.  Life has enough rejections.  It was gratifying to be recognized for what I could offer to missions beyond being a pastor.

Second, the vision of UWM and my vision were compatible—and when their goals coincided with my interests, a partnership developed.  To create a training program for missionaries, rather than just fit into something that was already established, was obviously attractive to one for whom creating programs was a gift.  Helping missionaries be more effective in ministry was a contribution I could make.

Joining a non-denominational organization introduced me to a new world of Kingdom thinkers.  It was refreshing to find that they were not interested in planting just their brand of Christianity in the nations of the world.  UWM’s Statement of Faith was very much like mine as a Baptist; however, there are those in UWM who are of like faith but are from varied denominations.

On the field I had moved away from strong denominationalism while still maintaining my core doctrinal position.  The crisis of faith I had experienced made my list of doctrinal essentials much smaller than when I first arrived on the field.  There is nothing wrong with being part of a denominational structure, and I am still a member of the Baptist church; but denominationalism can be an obstacle as well as a benefit.  UWM reinforced in me the belief that the Church is much bigger than any one group, and the Body is truly made up of many parts—some which don’t even resemble the Baptist church.

Those who have remained my friends and financial donors are also Kingdom-thinkers.  Jerry Thorpe, who pastored a large church in Odessa, Texas, and who has been a friend for many years, said to me, “Lewis, I trust and believe in you.  If you need support to sweep streets until you find your niche, our church will be there for you.”  Jerry is not naïve nor blindly loyal, but he is a Kingdom-thinker, and I am indebted to him and many others like him who see the Great Commission as going beyond their own denominational world.

Re-Entry

Most people are aware of culture shock, which is common when a person moves overseas.  Culture shock, or culture stress, results from the loss of familiar symbols such as language and customs which we grew up with in our own culture.  Most people who go cross-culturally experience some culture shock to varying degrees.

I liken culture shock to having malaria, which I am well versed in since I have chronic malaria.  A mild case of malaria is much like coming down with the flu—aching body, headaches, and fever with the added bonus of chills.  It’s normally not lethal, but it sure makes one miserable for a time.  We took the prophylactics, but chloroquine will not prevent malaria; it only decreases the severity.

So it is with culture shock.  It can kill you (take a person off the field) but more times than not, it is just an emotional discomfort until the missionary adjusts to the field.

Few people realize or recognize reverse culture shock or re-entry stress.  It’s difficult for many Americans to understand that one can return to their home culture and experience a feeling of loss.

When we returned to the states in 1980 for our first furlough, I had a very strong emotional reaction to being back in the land of plenty.  The severe drought that affected most of Ethiopia that year had its effect on Turkana as well.  Every week I was taking one ton of grain down to our churches to be distributed to those who were most in need.  The people were listless; the heat was unbearable; their herds were dying and many herders committed suicide.  With that backdrop, we went back to the states—and the contrast was staggering.

Fat people were everywhere!  I remember going into a cafeteria for lunch and seeing the selection of food that seemed to stretch a mile.  I returned to my car and just began crying uncontrollably.  I wasn’t being judgmental of my culture or it’s abundance.  I wasn’t seeking to make a political statement.  I was just weepy a lot during that time and didn’t know why.  I didn’t realize that I was suffering from reverse culture shock.

The other contributing factor to reverse culture shock is the seeming ignorance of or concern for what our lives were like in Africa.  The first day home on furlough, our relatives didn’t know what to say to us.  They asked very few questions about our lives or the people we worked with.  I sat on patio and listened to the men in my family discussing the price of cattle while the women talked about the sales at Penny’s.

Sandy has a theory about churches and their understanding of missions.  Often in mission’s conferences, the congregation is given an opportunity to ask questions of the missionaries.  Sandy’s theory is that if the questions of the congregation go beyond “What do the people eat?” they are above average in their knowledge of missions.  Re-entry is stressful for missionaries for they soon realize that they no longer fit.  And the only question some people know to ask is, “What do the people eat?”

Sandy had an apparent seamless transition, but both Becky and Sara had reentry difficulties, Sara’s being the most severe.  Like Sara, my reentry moving to North Carolina had more to do with a feeling of not being able to fit in.  I had invested many years of ministry between two unreached people groups in the bush of Kenya.  Having completed the job, I was at loss as to how to start over.   Kenya was a closed chapter in my life, the death of a dream fulfilled.  It was hard to let go.

In spite of the difficulties, I still believed returning to the states was the right decision for us.  Sometimes the crucible of changed circumstances is the tool God uses to mold us into vessels He can use for His glory.  Like Job, if we can praise Him in time of blessing, should we also not bless Him in the time of testing?

Though I did not question God’s leading, I did question the darkness.  At the same time, however, I didn’t want to be guilty of “lying for the glory of God.”  My problem was not “that woman you gave me, God.”  I also did not want to give credit to the Enemy suggesting that I was under some unusual satanic attack.  The period of pain I experienced in transition was largely self-inflicted and not part of God’s will.

Insecurity is primarily a lack of faith and failing to trust that “He that begins a good work in you is able to complete it” (Phil. 1:6).  Had I trusted Him more and less on my own strength, I would not have tried to manage things so much myself and the transition would not have been so severe.

If one can make it through the valleys of life, that person will ultimately come out the other side back into the sunlight—provided they don’t continually make the same mistakes.  The passage of time is a wonderful healer, and over a period of time, I eventually adjusted to my new environment and role.  Though I missed doing what I was good at in Kenya, my focus began to turn more on how to equip missionaries in what God was leading them to do in their lives.

Chapter 9

Equipping Others For The Task

When I met Lindy and Becky, they lived in a mud house in Pokot equipped with solar power, and they hired people to haul water up from the river.  They were a delightful couple that, within a year of their marriage, had joined a mission organization that advertised they were doing pioneer work among the unreached peoples of the world.

Lindy, who was a service repairman at a local hardware store back home in Kentucky, had no formal training but had served in his church, which was pastored by Becky’s father.  The organization that sent them to Pokot had not prepared them to be missionaries, believing that all they needed was a call, and raise enough money to survive.  They lasted less than two years on the field.

I accepted the position of director of training with UWM partly because of people like Lindy and Becky, Ralph and Roberta, and many other missionaries I’ve met in Kenya and other parts of the world.  There are many fine missionaries who are going to the field unprepared and who are making the same mistakes that I made.  They need guidance on how to serve Christ effectively on the mission field.

Make Training Mandatory

The basis for the program I established with UWM, which is called The Center for Intercultural Training (CIT), is that everyone who joins UWM is required to go though the standard 16 weeks of training—even if the appointee has an M.A. in missions.  Part of my joining UWM was to make sure that everyone on the field was singing from the same hymnal (or in today’s world, the same overhead).  Because many of the appointees are second-career people, like Lindy and Becky, who have had little exposure to cross-cultural studies, training is vital for their success and survival on the field.  Why this isn’t a requirement from all organizations is still a mystery to me.

If you ask most mission agencies what the educational requirements are for a missionary to be approved in their organization, the answer will usually be, “Thirty semester hours of Bible.”  I’m not sure when this standard was set or by whom, but this thirty hour requirement is still prevalent in the mission community today.  Conversely, when you ask an agency how many hours are required for appointees in cross-cultural studies, surprisingly there are usually none.  When I ask mission directors about their requirements for cross-cultural study, the standard reply is, “We encourage people to get as much training as they can.”

That’s it?  We reject people from the mission field if they don’t have the required thirty hours of formal Bible study, but we just encourage them to take mission courses?  I met a young man who had recently been approved by a mission board, and the only mission class he had was a History of Missions course.  He is a prime candidate to become a missionary dropout.

To merely suggest that missionaries pick up mission-related studies at their convenience is demeaning to our profession.  Professional services require professional training.  Sadly, too many people look at the ministry, and missions in particular, as a calling of God that is mystical and undefined—not as a profession.  The church has failed to understand that God’s call should be matched with specialized and focused preparedness equal to, and perhaps surpassing, all other professions.  We have cheapened the profession of missions by not requiring people to meet a standard of cross-cultural preparedness before releasing them to go overseas.

When we began CIT in 1989, the class workload was much more extensive that it is today.  I regret that they now train people for less than three months; but they have yielded to the reality of the “market.”  It’s difficult to get agencies to require their appointees to take any training, and most students outside of UWM are on campus for selective one or two week modules.

Since the courses are time compressed, it’s important that the training missionaries receive is structured for maximum benefit.  Most of the modules at CIT deal with the affective dimension of preparedness, which includes spiritual and emotional maturity.  Missionaries often leave the field because of family problems (marital, children, etc), conflicts with the co-workers, or lack of spiritual maturity.  I find that what little training is done with many sending agencies is, for the most part, affective; i.e., primarily psychological evaluations.  The affective dimension is important, but it’s only one piece of needed missionary training.

The courses I taught at CIT were effective focused—which was my interest and motivation for joining UWM and seeing a training program developed.  Getting people on the field and helping them cope is essential, but what are they going to do when they get there?  “I know what the big picture is,” one missionary writes.  “It’s winning people to Christ, establishing churches; but what do I do Tuesday morning?”

Teaching Philosophy

A mission leader once asked me, “What is the method you emphasize in church planting?”  There are many methods that church planters emphasize, such as the cell model, central church model, chronological study, power-encounter, etc.  I replied that I do not emphasize any particular method.  Not only do I not teach a method, I have an aversion to prepackaged programs.  Some of the difficulties I dealt with when I began work in Kenya, as well the ministries in Del Rio and Gainesville, were due to being tied to methodology.  Even UWM’s emphasis on saturation church planting is not a model used in my classes—it really isn’t a method but more a philosophy that does not work in many parts of the world.  “I don’t teach methods,” was my reply.  “I teach how to ask questions.”

“People don’t want questions, Lewis; they want answers,” an exasperated colleague of mine once said.  It’s true—people want the formula, the how to’s of getting the job done.  The problem with that approach is that we, the church, are oftentimes giving answers to questions people aren’t even asking.

Learn the questions before you give the answers.  You can tell people that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, but that means little to a Hindu who has three hundred and thirty million gods who are all incarnate!  I can tell the Pokot that God loves them, but their concept of God, which they call Torrorot, is a mystical figure that lives on Mt. Metlo that overlooks their valley and is not involved in the lives of humans.  Methods only work when they apply to the context of the people.  I fear that most missionaries and pastors have not yet learned that fundamental principle.

My first emphasis in pre-field training is on leading people to really know the context of the people group they have focused on for ministry.  And they need to know more than what they eat or what their climate is like.  What is their worldview; what is their concept of family; what is their economic and political life?  Most of those who take my class end up having more knowledge of the people they are going to serve than the people themselves.

Second, I teach what to do on Tuesday morning.  My recommendation is that missionaries do nothing but learn language and ask cultural questions for at least the first year, and maybe the first two years, that they are on the field.

Third, create a strategy—a model if you wish—that gives contextual answers to questions.  In other words, what are the cultural questions the people have, and how can one use those questions to communicate the Gospel?

Unfortunately, too many missionaries pick and choose what they think they need in training and leave out other components that will help them be truly more effective.  One can take a language acquisition course, but what good is it if they don’t understand the questions?  It is the context that gives meaning, not the words—just as it is with God’s Word.  Learn the questions before giving the answers.

New Role – Same Need For Training

The role of the missionary has changed drastically over the past thirty years.  The pioneer missionary going into countries and planting churches in the remote parts of the world, while still valid in some regions of the world, are fewer than ever before.  Today’s missionary from North America needs to be a facilitator with gifts and skills that complement the national church.  Some missiologists and churches contend that there is no longer a role for the western missionary today; and though I concede that their role has changed, there will always be a need for those who have gifts and abilities that can advance the work of Christ.

“Short-term missions” is the present trend that many churches are now promoting.  Like everything in this world, there are good short-term programs and there are others with little strategic value and primarily just benefits North American Christians.  Ideally every short-term team should have some training before they launch out on a two-week venture.  This would insure that their ministries are, indeed, meeting the needs of the host culture.  Marvin Mayers, one of my professors at Biola, coined the term Prior Question of Trust (PQT), which asks this question, “Is what I am doing or saying building or undermining trust?”  Short-term teams would do well to understand the PQT; this would require training before they leave home.

The greatest challenge for all of us is finding our niche.  Whatever that niche is, there will always be the need to equip people to do their job more effectively.  The missionary facilitators today, more than ever, need to understand the context of the people they are going to serve if they wish to truly add value to their work.  Are more North American missionaries needed?  Probably not as many as in the past.  However, Kingdom thinking suggests that we need better missionaries, and for that to happen, they must be equipped.

Journey Niche Notes

A Moral Issue?

When I asked the CEO of one of the most popular missionary-sending agencies in the U.S. what his organization did in terms of missionary preparation, his answer was, “I’m kind of an agnostic when it comes to training.  I’m not sure it’s worthwhile.”

My response was, “If you aren’t doing anything, you’re not an agnostic, you’re an atheist!”

His organization had one of the highest attrition rates, and the personnel director confided in me that, “Yes, we do indeed appoint many people, but we have nearly as many people drop out of missions and return home as we send out.”  She then added, “We have people bleeding all over the world.”

From the time a missionary couple is appointed to the field to the completion of their first-term (normally four years), the investment in their lives will be nearly a half million dollars—and a significant number of those missionaries will not return to the field after their first term.  It is my contention that training is more than a nice idea; it’s a moral imperative.

The reasons missionaries leave the field are varied.  Some things are unpreventable—sickness, the need to take care of elderly parents, or the ultimate unpreventable reason, death.  (There’s not a lot we can do about people leaving the field because they are dead.)  However, seventy percent of the reasons people leave the field have to do with preventable issues; e.g., culture adjustment, team conflicts, financial problems, conflict with their mission agency, etc. (Brierly 1996).  If failure to train is not immoral, it’s certainly irresponsible; to squander half a million dollars on missionaries who are unprepared for cross-cultural service is foolish.

The church is either unaware or in denial about missionary attrition and ineffectiveness.  We revel in the success of a few while quietly ignoring the failures of others.  Missions have become primarily an emotional program that has lost sight of sound economic principles and is not practicing good stewardship.  The church and missionary-sending agencies continue to send nice people out to do nice work, hoping if they just get them on the field, nice things will be done for the Kingdom.  When a missionary drops out, we are saddened but not alarmed—at least not enough to rectify the problem.

Finances, of course, are not the only, or even the most important, moral reason for missionary preparedness.  The greater moral argument is the emotional and spiritual consequences for those not equipped for cross-cultural ministry.  Missionaries who are inadequately prepared will often come off the field broken, battered, and emotionally scarred.  The stress of living overseas contributes to marital infidelity, MK maladjustment, and poor interpersonal relationships with co-workers.

These moral failings are not just the work of the Devil, though Satan does use these issues to destroy the lives of people.  Churches and agencies that send people out without proper training and who do not pay attention to the missionary’s psychological and spiritual condition are sending people out who are prime candidates for Satanic attack.

Brent Linquist, president of Link Care in Fresno, California, sees every day the tragic results of missionaries not being properly prepared for ministry.  Agencies that neither screen their candidates nor provide them with training send broken families coming off the field to Link Care, hoping their staff of counselors will be able to salvage them and restore them to emotional and spiritual health.  Brent wonders why agencies and churches don’t invest in “preventive” training.  Using the old Fram oil filter commercial where a mechanic graphically stands by a car that needs a major overhaul that could have been avoided if the owner would have just invested four dollars in an oil filter, Brent says to the church, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”  The cost of preventive missionary training is far less than the high cost of crisis counseling—not to mention the moral responsibility we have to send spiritually healthy people in the first place.

The third moral failing in missionary training is: ignoring strategic planning.  The most common remark I hear from missionaries on the field is, “I don’t know why I am here?”  They gave their lives for service overseas to make a difference in the world only to find that, when they got to the field, they were not needed—or they didn’t know how to make a difference.  One of two things will happen to these lost souls in missions: (1) they will leave the field unfulfilled or, (2) they will get plugged into doing irrelevant busy work.

Many missionaries have no goals or plans for their ministries.  If they do, oftentimes it’s either redundant or grossly non-essential.  What’s interesting is that many American churches that fund non-strategic mission projects do so because they themselves don’t have a clue regarding effective mission ministry.  Churches that sense something aren’t quite right in their mission programs strive for effectiveness by attempting to manage their missionaries from home office computers while possessing little understanding of the missionaries’ context.

Yogi Berra said,  “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up someplace else.”  Many people end up somewhere else, doing things they are not gifted to do, because they had no plan for what they should be doing in the first place.  Effectiveness comes from training people on how to think through the issues and obstacles they face on the field so they can develop an appropriate model that will address their specific ministry needs.  It’s immoral to send them to the mission field without the tools to do that.

Obviously I believe missionary training should be required, not an option.   Churches and mission agencies should not merely suggest people understand culture, religion, and the history of people before they go to the field; they should make training mandatory.  Few will ever take additional training on their own as long as there is an “opt-out” clause.  Missionaries are anxious to get to the field; they’re hungry to be engaged in the battle.  If leadership leaves training to the missionaries’ own discretion, they will go to the field without being properly equipped.  Until the leadership, churches and sending agencies, make training mandatory, it will never happen.

The issue of training is certainly not new.  In 1968 missiologist A.R. Tippett wrote:

“I should have kept a census of the many missionaries who have told me how they had been trained in anthropology.  I myself have often felt I could have reached that point of effectiveness in two years which took me ten as it was.  In the end, I had to take extended furlough without pay to make up the deficiency.”

Training will never take the place of the Holy Spirit.  I am well aware that it is God Who will build His Church and that He will sometimes do it with people who have never been to Bible school or had the benefit of missionary training.  I do believe, however, that the Lord’s work would be a lot easier on His vessels if they had a better understanding of how to do the work.  Because missionary preparation sustains life—the life of both the individual and the Church—training is truly a moral issue.  When we view missionary preparation in that light, it will not be a matter of should it be done but how much more can we do to give provision to those people God has entrusted us with.

Chapter 10

Coaching Globally

Though I was pleased with the concept of CIT, being in rural North Carolina was not an ideal setting for cross-cultural training.  If the campus had been in Los Angeles or even Charlotte, there would have been enough ethnic diversity for students to do hands-on research.  What is ideal about the campus in North Carolina is that it is removed from the trappings of the busy American culture.

Many of the appointees are not from the South; so a culturally restricted environment with limited access to malls, television, and growing evangelical churches does provide some atmosphere for experiencing stress connected with living differently.  But for maximum training, I believed a severe cross-cultural environment was needed.

Action Field Training

To compensate for the lack of a cross-cultural setting, I developed a program called Action Field Training (AFT). I felt if we could expose missionaries to a field setting, working through the issues we taught at CIT, it would make for a good balance of concept and application in equipping people for field service.

UWM had established a partnership with Dr. Paul (Bobby) Gupta and the Hindustan Bible Institute.  In 1992 we launched the first AFT in Madras, India, with a total of 32 people.  Husbands, wives, and children lived in dorms on the compound of HBI where they were teamed up for twelve weeks with national pastors and churches for ministry and research.   We pulled Sara out of school for six weeks during her senior year of high school to be a part of that AFT project; it ended up being a turning point in her life and in the lives of Sandy and me.

India is one of those places you either love or can’t wait to escape.  For a bush missionary like myself, India was everything I wanted for a training situation.  Madras (renamed Chennai), a city of ten million, is hot and humid; the noise, smells, and poverty are like nothing any of us had ever experienced.  The environment was devoid of most “perks” short-term teams from the U.S. usually enjoy—such as air-conditioning, specially prepared food, and travel in private vans.  Our AFT group was cooled by ceiling fans, ate the local food, and traveled by public bus or auto rickshaw.

Short-term mission programs are normally less than three weeks, which almost anyone can survive.  The “fascination” phase in our environment was over in less than two weeks, and by the fifth week everyone had gone through some stage of culture shock and sickness.  I heard rumors that they were going to assassinate me.

By the seventh week, all had turned the corner.  By the last week, there were regrets that, now that they had survived and were just beginning to enjoy their time in India, it was time to return to the States.  Relationships had been formed; insights into the culture had been discovered; teams and families had learned not only how cope but also how to function in an effective way.  Observing personalities in a stress environment also allowed me to evaluate what kinds of positive and negative characteristics surfaced.

When the training was concluded, I sat with each team member and discussed with them their feelings about their time in India; then I gave them an evaluation of their performance.  At the completion of AFT/India, all of the appointees but one went on to their field of service and did well.  I knew if they could survive Madras, there wouldn’t be another place in the world that would be a greater challenge.

When I suggested we continue the AFT program the following year, I faced resistance from the appointees and from some within UWM leadership.  In the early ‘90’s, most appointees were focusing on Eastern Europe, and they couldn’t understand why we had to have training in India.  I argued that the application was on the principles learned, not the region.  However, I wound up compromising and looking for a training site in Eastern Europe.

The next two years, AFT was held in Moscow.  Though helpful, the culture was not as conducive for training as India; Russians are more closed by nature, and the obstacles of language were greater.  In India the trainees worked with people that had an English base, and though few people spoke English fluently, with effort we could communicate.  In Russia we had to suffer through interpreters.

Eventually AFT was discontinued due to the pressures of the “market.”  Raising money for CIT and AFT became an obstacle for those going to the mission field, and though I understand the reality of economics, I regret that AFT is no longer a part of the training package.  CIT is practical theory, born out of experience by those who teach; AFT was the practical theory applied which gave us legitimacy in stating we train people, not just educate, for cross-cultural service.

Becoming A Coach

By 1994 significant changes had taken place on the campus at Union Mills.  Work groups from churches and organizations like RVICS (Roving Volunteers In Christ's Service, Inc.) had renovated the dorms and administration building, and today it is a functional campus.  Woody Phillips, Jr. became the president of UWM, and I had recruited a veteran missionary to come on staff to manage CIT.

Being more convinced than ever of the need for pre-field training, I contacted other agencies and tried to sell them on the need to equip their appointees and utilizing CIT as their training partner.  Though many agencies and churches were becoming aware of missionary attrition and the need for pre-field training, they weren’t ready to send their people to North Carolina.

Out of a series of meetings initiated by UWM over a period of two years, a network of churches, schools, and mission sending agencies was created called The Next Step in North American Missionary Training (www.TheNextStep.org).   The Next Step has been instrumental in raising awareness of training needs; however, there are still many churches and agencies oblivious to the critical need of missionary preparedness.

Fly fishermen understand the term “catch and release.”  The standard for mission agencies is to court potential recruits as though they were the most important people in God’s work and that they are crucial if we’re to be successful in reaching the world for Christ.  After they get them signed on the dotted line, they release them with a “God bless you” and “We will be praying for you,” but they provide almost no personal attention apart for the occasional policy letter.

I know one director of a sending agency who states flatly that he has no intention of visiting any missionary on the field—that he is a clearinghouse to receipt funds for fifteen percent of the income and nothing more.  If you have a problem, don’t expect him to come to your aid.  His purpose is to meet your need to get to the field quickly, nothing else.  Thankfully, there are not many like him in missions, but functionally many sending organizations and churches are not much better.  I did not want my role to be that of an educator—giving tools for appointees and then releasing them to the field, hoping they would actually remember what I taught and apply it in their countries.   With the new administrator taking on more responsibilities, I moved away from an official role with CIT to free myself to travel and coach our missionaries on their own turf.

The responsibility of a coach is to instruct people in a specific field or subject.  Visiting missionaries on their fields, I would ask:  What are you doing?  Why are you doing it that way?  Is there another or better way to do the job?  I had no authority over them—I was not their field director—so my role was purely that of advisor.  Since most of them had been through CIT, I knew the families well, so I was not an outsider asking questions.  Having no line authority, not everything I recommended was heeded; however, I never received negative feedback on my visits.  I was a friend and colleague sharing ideas.

Those I visited on the field always had concerns other than their ministries they wanted to discuss.  Though not their pastor, I invariably dealt with interpersonal and family issues.  By visiting them on their field, they felt as though they were connected with the organization and not just someone who had been wooed to the altar and then left on their own after saying “I do.”

Moving To Oklahoma

As part of the CIT teaching staff, I stayed active, giving guidance to the training program while also teaching; but my office was no longer on campus in North Carolina.  It was wherever I happened to be in the world.  In 1997 UWM decided to move their headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina.  In my new role, I asked Woody to allow me to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“Tulsa?” Woody asked with complete bewilderment. “Why in the world do you want to move to Tulsa?”

“Sandy and I have been married nearly thirty years,” I answered.  “I’ve dragged her all over God’s world from Texas to Kenya and North Carolina.  If we have to move, I want to make this move for her.  There’s no reason for us to move to Charlotte, and with my travels as a coach, no reason to remain at the CIT campus.”

We had never lived in Oklahoma nor did we have any close friends or contacts there, so why move to Tulsa?  Well, I was now traveling a great deal, leaving Sandy alone for weeks at a time.  Tulsa was only two hours from her parents and, most important, only an hour and a half from our daughters and grandkids.  Becky and Casey lived in the Siloam Springs, Arkansas, area near the Oklahoma/Arkansas border, and Sara and her husband, Aaron, had moved there as well.  The Tulsa airport was large enough to make easy flight connections, and my wife would have the emotional support base she didn’t have in North Carolina.  I’ve made my share of bad decisions in life, but this one was brilliant.

It was in Broken Arrow, a suburb of Tulsa, where Sandy discovered Bible Study Fellowship.  My wife has always had a deep interest in studying the Scriptures, and BSF is a program that has meant much in terms of her spiritual growth and ministry.  With having family nearby and BSF for involvement, I could be gone without feeling as though I was completely abandoning my wife.

Journey Niche Notes

Caring Enough To Say No

Kiley was a single girl who was part of our AFT program in India.  She had been through CIT and had done reasonably well, but I had some doubts as to her ability to be successful on the mission field.  The twelve weeks in Madras confirmed my fears.

Kiley grew up with an abusive family; this affected her interaction with others.  Every candidate has some emotional baggage—and some interferes with coping more than others.  In Kiley’s case, she was unable to interact with the team; she was always aloof, wanting to “go native” soon after arrival.

All the team members tried to work with Kiley, but she was defensive and insisted that we were the ones who needed to adjust, not her.  At the end of AFT, I sat down with her and stated that I could not recommend her to be fielded.  Predictably she argued that I was “against” her and unfair.  On our return to the U.S., Kiley and I met with the UWM leadership where I expressed my concerns regarding her ability to last if fielded.  Her comment was a typical last resort:

“You can’t stop me from going to China,” she blasted.  “God has called me, and I answer only to Him.”

Regrettably, using the “God called me” card often works.  It’s one thing to disappoint an appointee, it’s another thing to oppose God.  I am well aware that some great people have proven the experts wrong and have risen to prominence in their field in spite of resistance from the establishment.  Who hasn’t heard stories of individuals who stuck to their guns against opposition, overcoming the odds to become great and successful champions of the faith?  However, they are the exception, not the rule.

Sending churches are especially vulnerable to this spiritual manipulation.  One recommendation of those who deal with missionary attrition is that the local churches do a better job screening people before encouraging them to apply for approval from a mission organization.  We have actually had churches send people to CIT with a note saying, “We have doubts that these people will make it on the field, so we’re sending them to you.”  In the vernacular of the street, that’s a “chicken” way of getting out of their responsibility to screen people for ministry.

Every potential missionary must fill out an application form, and one reference must come from the sending pastor.  Not wanting to offend, pastors almost never write the obvious—that the person or family are misfits or have showed little initiative in the local church programs.  Instead they give kind remarks, hoping that maybe God sees something in them that they don’t.  And He certainly does.  But if God is indeed leading someone for service, He can make that known to more than one person.   Though He has the power to turn water into wine, that doesn’t mean He will make every pig’s ear into a silk purse.

There is a common philosophy in the church that it is God’s responsibility, not man’s, to say “no” to people.  Because so few people are signing up for career service today, some take the view that our role is to encourage and say “yes”; then if the person is not really called, God will intervene.  Well, it didn’t happen in Kiley’s case or countless others I’ve seen down through the years.  After rejecting Kiley’s appeal for approval with UWM, she made application to another sending agency and was immediately appointed.  She was a casualty of the field in less than a year.  I believe the agency that appointed Kiley not only failed to help her fulfill her dreams but also failed her as a person who needed some counsel.

I actually heard a missionary at an agency banquet for new appointees state, “I was turned down by three other agencies; but I thank God for this organization accepting me.”  We do no one any favors, including God, when we compassionately send people to the field when they are not ready.  What Kiley needed was counseling, not to be sent out hoping for Divine intervention.  It’s true that we are not God and shouldn’t take His role.  However, we are His eyes and ears in this process; and those who are sensitive to His leading will know when to say “yes” and when to have the courage to say “no.”

It Takes a Group

The team concept is popular in missions today.  We use the term loosely because group doesn’t have the same professional ring.  From my experience as a coach, most missionary families on the field function as a group of people who are tied together with a common interest; but they don’t really work together as a team.  My twin brother, Bill, who is a business consultant in organizational management, hates it when I say, “Teams don’t work.”  He argues they can work—and perhaps he is right—but there is a great gulf between what could be done and what actually happens, especially on the mission field.

North Americans are fiercely independent, and missionaries from the U.S. go to the field for a purpose they believe God has led them to accomplish.  Most go to the field after raising their own support, so they are not tied to company funds that can become leverage to make people conform and work as a team.  If the organization forces missionaries to work within a group that does not have the same goals they do, they can simply leave and join another organization that will allow them more autonomy.

Though I do not often see good team models in missions, I do believe there can be better group cooperation on the field within competing interests.  My brother and I “teamed up” to coach some missionaries in West Africa several years ago, and he concluded that they, indeed, were not a team but a very good group.  They met every week to discuss their various ministry projects and to pray for one another.  As a group, they truly loved and supported each other.  However, they were not a team.  As a result of our visit, they probably work more closely together, but they already had the element of mutual respect that’s needed to be a better group.

Being a group is better than being a mob, which is more typical on the field.  Several families living in the same country does not make them a team.  There are multiplied independents who receive their support through the same organization and who basically agree with the organization’s ethos.  However, they do not meet together for a common purpose and are free to do ministry as they see fit.  Most interpersonal conflicts that take place among “teams” are a consequence of competing interests among members.  This problem can be rectified by not overselling the team concept at the outset and working harder at helping people support each other regardless of what they do.

On the mission field, it doesn’t take a village, it doesn’t take a team…more likely it takes a good group—and that’s not bad.

Influence

My wife thinks I give too much away —certainly not money, but position and authority.  It began in Kenya when I refused to maintain control over the national church or the Bible Institute.  A few years after establishing CIT, I gave it over to a person I felt could manage it better and who had the gift of administration.  I’ve held the position of Overseas Director as well as Area Director for Asia for UWM—but only to help out the organization.  Part of the reason for me not retaining those positions is that I do not like administration nor am I very good at it.  I have the ability (my niche) to establish a program; but if that program is going to succeed, it will have to have someone else manage it.

After we moved to Oklahoma, I was feeling a little regretful over releasing so much authority—a feeling of insecurity as to what my role was now within the organization.  I held the title of International Training Director, but what did that mean?  I had no line authority nor did I have any real decision-making power.  I expressed my uncertainty to Woody, and he assured me that my role was secure.

“Yeah,” I contested, “probably as long as you are around; but what if you leave or die (which he did two years later)?  What is the next CEO going to say about a guy who has a position, flies all over the world, but doesn’t have any decision-making authority?”

“Lewis,” he replied with slight grin, “leadership is influence, and you are one of the most influential people in this organization.”

To a certain degree, Woody’s comment that leadership is influence is correct—as long as the organization allows you to be influential in your position.  In some organizations, “money talks”—and those who have more of it have a louder voice.  Neither Dwight Smith nor Woody Phillips were threatened by others in leadership and, as a result, were willing to allow me to have influence without being in a position of direct authority.  I feel very fortunate to have worked with these two men who had that much confidence in me, and I feel that it is rare in churches and other Christian organizations.

Recognizing my role was more inline with influence than being a part of an organizational structure I began the process of being an independent consultant and established my own non-profit organization, committed to training and influencing missions throughout the world.

Not a Career Move

Though moving to Broken Arrow was good for Sandy and the rest of the family, it wasn’t the best career move for me.  Being separated from the organization made it difficult for me to communicate with the leadership that moved to Charlotte.  Though I did travel monthly to headquarters and was teaching at CIT regularly, there’s something missing when you are not physically at the office to interact with office staff and colleagues.  A lot of information is gained in the informal settings of the hallway, around the coffee pot, and after-work gatherings.  “Out of sight, out of mind” became a reality when I moved to Broken Arrow, and this led to isolation.

The best communication is face-to-face, but if that’s not possible, regular phone calls are the next best thing.  Communication should be intentional, put on the schedule, and followed through.  Even if the CEO or supervisor doesn’t have any real news, a ten-minute call can do wonders for a person’s feeling of connectedness.  Woody was better than most in communicating with the leadership, but he, like most people, only called when it was a matter of immediate need.

The worst form of communication is through e-mail.  I am a writer and think best when I’m at the keyboard.  I also communicate better through type than I do verbally.  E-mail is great for short notes—even a quick “I’m thinking about you and praying for you.”  However, it is the worst possible form of communication when it comes to solving personal conflicts or discussing policy.  If it’s an issue that matters, pick up the phone or wait until you see the person in the flesh.

If I had it to do over again, I would make the same decision to move to Broken Arrow rather than stay close to the Charlotte office.  Sometimes there are other things more important than business—even in the Lord’s work.  The years in Oklahoma set the groundwork for today’s journey; it was still a brilliant decision.

Lost Friend

Our telephone rang in the middle of the afternoon, July 2001.  On the other end of the line, a friend at the UWM office said, “Sit down, you’re not going to believe this..Woody is dead.”

At 54 years of age, Woody was only a few months older than me.  He had no history of heart problems, and so the massive coronary that killed him instantly came out of left field.  I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.  Woody had become more than the CEO to whom I reported; he had become a good friend.  Unassuming, he never took himself seriously, which was both a strength and a weakness.  He could be sarcastic and incredibly funny.  As I attempted to absorb the shock, I thought about his wife, Nelda, and their two grown children.

In the days after his death, we learned more about Woody’s condition.  He liked to run and did so faithfully every day.  He had been experiencing some chest pains after a workout and began reading in a medical book to see what might be causing it.  His own diagnosis was that he was just experiencing angina.  He was on the treadmill at a sports club when he collapsed.

People deal with grief differently.  With Woody, my grief was more anger than anything.  At his memorial, I heard the same babble about God’s will and timing—that God wanted Woody with Him more than down here on earth.  Nonsense!  Woody died because he didn’t listen to his own body telling him there was a problem.  I was angry—not at God, but at my friend.  He didn’t have to die; he died because of ignorance and negligence.

Woody’s death reminds me of the story of an old farmer caught in a flood.  As the water rose, he finally ended up on top of his house.  A boat came by, and the people yelled at him to get in.

“No thanks,” the farmer said.  “God will take care of me.”

As the water continued to rise, a second and third boat passed by to rescue him.

“No thanks,” the farmer insisted.  “God will take care of me.”

Eventually the farmer drowned, and when he stood before St. Peter, he said, “Why didn’t God rescue me?”  To which Peter retorted, “We sent you three boats!”

I felt that God had given my friend ample warning, and he died needlessly.

A few months later I, too, began to feel pressure around my heart.  Like Woody, I tried to explain it away.  “My twin brother has had two heart-attacks; my boss died of a heart attack; this discomfort I’m feeling is just imaginary,” I said to myself.  However, on the insistence of my family, I had an angiogram that revealed a ninety percent blockage of a major artery; an angioplasty was performed soon after.  I’m glad I didn’t wait for the third boat to come by before I acted.

I miss my friend.  I will certainly give him a piece of my mind when I see him.  Until then, I will try not to say to those who attempt to help me, “No, thanks; God will rescue me.

Chapter 11

Training National Missionaries

There is a myth surrounding missions.  This myth is prevalent in the church worldwide but especially in the churches of North America.  Like many myths, it has an element of truth but doesn’t quite tell the whole story, which often leads to error.  This pervasive myth goes like this:  “The hope of reaching the nations of the world is in the hands of the national churches of those countries.”

On the surface, this comment seems to contain self-evident truth.  Certainly the hope of reaching the world with the gospel does not reside in the efforts of foreign missionaries, whether they are from the old sending countries of Europe and America or the new missionary-sending countries of the Philippines or Korea.  Indeed, part of the mission myth is true.  However, the myth remains a fable because it makes an assumption that is totally false—that nationals in their own countries know how to reach their own people with the Gospel.

For me, the discovery of this mission myth began when a nationally known Indian leader asked me if I would be interested in teaching at his seminary.  I was surprised as this man had a reputation of being opposed to Western missionaries.  Knowing him only by his reputation, I said that I might be interested but that I wanted to know why he would want me, someone from North America, to teach?  His answer was revealing.

“We have a huge organization with over a one thousand national missionaries in India, Nepal, and Bhutan, and we have a training school for our missionaries in every state in the country.  However, we are not reaching our nation for Christ.  For the most part, we are planting southern churches up north, making in-roads among the tribal people; but we are not having much success working among the Hindu’s (eighty percent of the population) or the Muslims (fifteen percent of the population).  We don’t know how to go cross-culturally.”

It’s not that this man or the other leaders of India don’t understand cross-cultural ministry.  They do.  They have been teaching missions and have had a missiological society in the country for a hundred years.  But knowing the concepts of missions and having learned the terms, is far from knowing how to actually take the gospel across cultural barriers.

As my role continued to evolve as an overseas coach and consultant, I had the opportunity to observe the mission myth in action.  While mass evangelism has a tendency to cast a wide net for “whosoever may come to drink at the water of life freely,” at the grassroots level in neighborhoods, towns, and cities, the church takes on a distinct monolithic flavor.  There is nothing particularly wrong with a church being of the same ethnicity, language, socio-economic status, tribe, or caste as that is the way cultures function.  However, as Donald McGavran, often referred to as the father of the modern Church Growth movement, wrote about 35 years ago, the church cannot assume that people from different backgrounds are going to cross cultural barriers to hear the Gospel.  It is more than myth; it’s virtually impossible.

The Importance of the H.U.P.

Called the homogenous unit principle, McGavran’s basic concept can be reduced to a familiar axiom: “Birds of a feather flock together.”  Young teens don’t hang out with those over thirty; senior citizens take bus tours to Branson, not Six Flags; the middle-class don’t invite the lower-middle-class for a barbeque; engineers don’t talk shop to those in the ballet.  It is no real mystery that most people naturally group with people of their own kind.

You are not racist if you prefer going to a Korean church rather than an Anglo church, though prejudice may very well be the reason a Japanese person will not attend a Chinese church.  Aside from the evil motives of the heart, however, national missionaries seeking to reach people in every corner of society with the Good News of Christ’s salvation must realize that lost people will not easily cross cultural barriers to hear the Gospel.  Though this reality is simple, the church worldwide doesn’t seem to get it.

Teaching in Romania several years back, I was visiting a pastor who was telling me the struggles of starting his church and how he had a burden to reach everyone in his town with the Gospel.  When I asked him to describe his town, he said, “Sixty per-cent of the population is Romanian.”  This sounded reasonable to me since we were in Romania—and then he continued: “Thirty percent are Hungarian and ten percent are Gypsies.”

I told him, “Brother, you need to be thinking about starting at least three churches, not one.”  He seemed puzzled, so I explained: “Hungarians are not going to come to your Romanian church.”

Hungarians look down on Romanians and have for centuries.  To expect an unbelieving Hungarian to walk into a Romanian church, with a very small percentage of exceptions, is more foolishness than faith.  I continued: “And you need to start another church for the Gypsies, for no one wants them in the church.” That’s a sociological fact, not a biased opinion.

He smiled, but I could tell he wasn’t sure of my theology.  He, like so many others, wanted to talk about the unity of the Body, how there is no difference between male and female, Jew and Greek, and how wrong it is to foster prejudice.  My response was, “I don’t make the rules; I just observe what the rules are and try to work within that framework.”  To use another colloquialism, you play the hand you’re dealt, not the one you wish you had.  After people accept Christ, the church will have plenty of time to talk about unity and teach against bigotry.  But the Hungarians still won’t go to the Romanian church.

The notion of taking the Good News cross-culturally is not difficult to grasp, but knowing how to do it and then actually putting that knowledge into practice has always been the great obstacle.  In Kenya, the barriers are tribal conflicts; in the former Soviet Union, it’s the barrier of nationalism; in Bolivia, it’s Spanish ethnocentrism; in India, it’s caste division; and in the U.S., it’s socio-economic barriers.  These barriers are so profound that it’s simply a stated myth that the hope of the nations rests in the hands of the national church.  It ceases to be a myth only when the national church learns how to cross those cultural barriers.

Move Beyond Models

As I stated earlier, I have a very low opinion of methods and models as stand-alone programs.  Americans are not the only ones who export their models overseas.  Whatever model the missionaries came out of in their own culture, whether they are from Brazil or the Philippines that is the model they generally attempt to establish in another context.  In Korea, it’s the Cho model (the largest church in the world) which dictates that people rise before dawn for prayer meetings; in India, it’s “praying and fasting” every Friday night; among Russian Pentecostals, it’s rock-n-roll praise.

Sometimes these models reflect the mood of the culture; many times they are merely modeling their sub-culture.  Sometimes these models are effective within their own cultural context; however, that does not mean they are cross-culturally transferable. The worst church-planting model I observed was some Korean missionaries who tried to replicate the Cho model in Moscow.  Russians are not going to get up that early to pray.  Their church-planting effort failed miserably because they were never taught how to present the Gospel in a cross-cultural context.

The trends in missions today indicate that the future of missions will look less European and North American.  While we should embrace this trend, we should also be aware that true missions is going cross-culturally; therefore, the focus should be on preparing nationals for that task.

Journey Niche Notes

Supporting Nationals

A full-page ad in a Christian magazine had this headline: "Thank You For Not Coming."  The organization sponsoring the ad had one message: North American missionaries are no longer needed—just send money.  With the high cost of sending an American couple overseas (now over fifty thousand dollars a year), it’s an appealing thought to stop sending Westerner’s and support only nationals.

National pastors can live on fifty or one hundred dollars a month.  When you consider what is spent on one American couple, that same amount could support 50 or more nationals.  Supporting national pastors only is so popular today that there are now more than 150 organizations dedicated to raising money solely for national initiatives along with hundreds of national leaders independently raising money.    One of the largest national-funding agencies supports over 3,000 full-time workers in more than 50 countries.

Along with the financial argument for supporting nationals, there are strategic arguments as well:

• The need for North American pioneer missionaries is less than 50 years ago.

• Over half the Christian population lives outside North America.

• Nationals do not have to learn the language or culture, as do expatriates.

• Nationals can work in closed access countries where North Americans cannot.

With these arguments many North American churches are asking if they should just support national missionaries?  The short answer is a qualified “yes”, but greater implications require a thorough analysis.  As with supporting North American missionaries, funding nationals should be done thoughtfully and in line with the church’s outreach goals.

Are National Missionaries More Strategic?

Being a non-Westerner does not automatically make national missionaries more effective.  A study focused on why missionaries left the field showed that the missionary attrition rate among nationals was as high as North Americans (Brierly 1996).  Missiologically and biblically the question of supporting national churches and pastors create even greater questions.

If the goal of the sending church is to establish local churches abroad, financial giving to national church planters can undermine that goal.  The local congregation has no motivation to give or take ownership of a ministry designed to reach their own country if they know it is being funded by outside sources.

In countries where unemployment is forty percent or more, national leaders voice concern that national church planters are attracted to the call of a salary rather than a genuine call to ministry.

National church planters do not really have a cultural advantage working in their own country, and sometimes they are less effective.  Most national evangelists remain in mono-cultural settings, not crossing cultural barriers (linguistic, class, tribe, or caste).

As with all financial issues, there is the potential of greed and corruption.  While funds do trickle down to the national lay pastors, much of the money remains at the top.  The overhead for agencies and nationals raising funds in the West is considerable.

In developing a strategic mission policy, Western churches need to be well informed; this requires research and education.  The congregation should be sure they are not supporting national involvement simply because it is the current fad in missions.

Here are some frequently asked questions about supporting national ministries:

What national programs should a funding church support?

First, the mission policy of the local church should continue to focus on the unreached people groups.  Find the national initiatives that have targeted and trained people to reach those the sending church has set as a priority.  Second, ask those seeking funds to provide a list of past donors to their cause in the last five years, and then call those on that list to get their assessment of the national ministry.  It is acceptable to ask for a detailed financial report on funds received and disbursed from the national organization.  Three, if there is an expatriate on the field, contact him and ask his opinion of the national work.  It is not paternalistic to ask questions, though some may resist giving answers.  Good stewardship research will keep everyone honest and advance the Kingdom.

Should the funding church pay for the support of church planters, evangelists, or church building programs?

In my opinion, as one who has worked as a pioneer church planter and is now involved in international training, the answer is no.  It harms the spiritual growth of the local church and creates dependency.  I am in favor, however, of supporting training, schools, literature, or other projects that equip nationals for ministry.  This will require reviewing of the overhead needed for training, which many are resistant to fund but which is, nevertheless, needed.  Training cannot be done without trainers and venues for training.  More thought should be put into giving nationals the tools for effective ministry and not just funding them to go to the field.

Is the Church Racist?

It has been said that 11:00 a.m. Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America as Anglos, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, et al, gather in their respective assemblies to worship.  That is a reality—but does that make the church racist?

When Sandy and I returned from Kenya and were settling in North Carolina, we visited many churches.  One church I really liked was in a little town called Caroleen; it was an all-African American Baptist congregation.  I liked this church—not, as some assumed, because it was black and we had just moved from Africa—but because the pastor was one of the best speakers I had heard in the area.  He was the Professor of Religion at a local seminary, had a PhD in Theology, carried a 4.0 GPA throughout his studies, and—he was blind.  The music was atrocious, uncharacteristic of a Black congregation, but the pastor’s messages were profound.  I loved to hear him speak.

One day Sandy said to me in candor, “We need to find another church.”

“Why,” I asked. “I like this church.”

“I do, too, Richard,” she replied.  “But the people don’t understand why we are here.  We don’t fit in.”

It was true.  The people were friendly and always greeted us with smiles.  But we were never included in anything; we were never invited to their homes for lunch or other get-togethers.  We were three white faces that were a curiosity.

Did that make this church racist?  No.  No more than the countless thousands of other segregated churches meeting each Sunday morning.  I am opposed to segregation, and I do wish people would integrate more than they do.  It’s true that there is racism and prejudice to some degree in all of us; and it’s an evil that continues to divide us as a people as well as the Body of Christ.  However, assuming that it is inherently evil to have segregated churches simply because “birds of a feather flock together” is to miss the point regarding how cultures function.

God, in His infinite wisdom, created cultures for a reason.  I agree with Sherwood Lingenfelter of Fuller’s School of World Missions, that cultures are often a prison of disobedience (1998); but cultures are also the vehicle God uses to bring people to Himself.  Our responsibility is to see the great mosaic of this world from His perspective.  Establishing churches within the context of where people live is not sinful within itself; and it is the only way every person in every neighborhood, village, city, and country can hear the Gospel and have the opportunity to accept or reject Jesus Christ.  When we complete the task of getting the gospel message past cultural barriers, we will have truly taken the Gospel to the whole world.

Chapter 12

The Journey Continues

A few months before Woody passed away, I told him I was thinking about moving overseas.  I was spending weeks away from home, and though that was the norm for us, both Sandy and I were weary of the separation.  Also, living overseas would help my support base, which we never fully recovered when we left Kenya in 1989.  Though my ministry would not change, something in the minds of donors makes them feel they are giving to real missions if the missionary is not living in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.  Our base of operation would change geographically, but I would still teach in the states and in other parts of the world.

When I suggested to Sandy that we make the move, she jumped at the opportunity.  Some people are surprised that she would be willing to say goodbye to the grandkids and live in a non-Western culture; however, we have both learned that our niche is in living cross-culturally.  I would have had a difficult time convincing her to move to another city in the U.S., but she was very eager to live in a foreign country again.

Two years ago we moved to a large city in Asia.  Here we are following the opportunities the Lord is opening up for us, which are significant.  I teach regularly in non-formal and formal programs, casting the vision for reaching the whole nation through a thorough understanding of culture.  Sandy is very involved in establishing a BSF group in our city, continuing her interest in the study of Scripture while helping nationals in their spiritual growth.  The urban environment we live in does not have a large percentage of Christians, so we believe BSF is a significant ministry and a contribution to the national church.

Believing that our work has evolved into an exceptional ministry, in the spring of 2002 we established our own non-profit group called Lewis Cross-Cultural Training, Inc. (LCCTI).  With the incorporation of LCCTI we are able to serve other mission agencies, schools and national organizations more freely.  UWM was a good fit for me initially and we contributed a great deal by establishing CIT.  But like culture, nothing remains static and the motion of change eventually leads one to look for avenues for greater impact and effectiveness, which is why we established LCCTI.

Final Niche Notes – Lessons Learned

In writing this book, I sometimes felt like the three-legged, one-eyed dog that answers to the name “Lucky.”  We’ve had our share of ups and downs, but I feel, in spite of the bumps along the way, that the journey has been blessed.  Noel Smith said to a friend in the last days of his life, “Just about the time you learn how to live, it’s time to die.”  I’m not an old man, and I hope I have a lot more life left; however, I have learned a great deal about life since beginning our journey while realizing I have much more still to discover.

Discovering the Niche

Finding your niche is sometimes a process of elimination.  I have learned that I do not have the gift of pastoring a church.  That is a very special and wonderful gift, and I admire those who faithfully shepherd their flocks.  I would think there is a great deal of satisfaction in staying in one place for a lifetime, watching and caring for people as they go through their pilgrimage.  What a great reward it must be to baptize boys and girls who grow up to be parents and then baptize their children and their grandchildren—to live in one town your entire ministry and have an influence in the community.  It’s a wonderful calling; it’s just not mine.

Every leader must learn the value of management; however, some are better at it than others.  My shortcomings in administration led me to learning the art of delegation; and whether it was in Kenya or CIT, I was able to find good people who could do things efficiently.  I learned from some of the visionaries I worked with that, as Abernath said, “Good strategy ends up being defeated by bad management (1999:49).”  Good ideas are only as good as those who can implement them.

One does not have to be a visionary to be an entrepreneur.  Early in my ministry, I was not restless because I wanted better things—I just wanted things to be better.  Del Rio was way too early in my growth process for me to realize that there was potential in a unique ministry on the Mexican border.  Gainesville taught me clearly that I was not gifted to pastor.  But through Gainesville and the mission’s conference, I launched out into the deep.

Kenya, especially Pokot and Turkana, freed the gift in me to try new things—things outside the “nine dots of life” that my friend, Marty Mosley of Priority One International, often talks about.   If Charles Handy is right—that “We need more unreasonable people who want to change their world, not adapt to it, and who want to challenge orthodoxy rather than rationalize away its inconvenient bits (1990:254),” then I fit into the profile of the entrepreneur.   One friend in Tanzania defines that as having the spiritual gift of a prophet, and though that might be true, I wouldn’t want to put that on my business card.

Whether we use the word entrepreneur or the ancient term prophet, we need more of us.  I try to instill in my students and colleagues to think of different ways to reach the world with the message of Christ.  Our love affair with pre-developed methods will prevent us from making the breakthroughs needed in communicating the message of Christ to the Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim.  As the saying goes, “When the horse is dead, dismount.”  After abandoning a lifeless method, create something new.

I do not consider myself a scholar by any means (though I wish I was).  However, I have discovered the “enjoyment of learning” later in the process of life, especially when it comes to issues that seem never to be within my grasp.  Culture, the function of religion, and the truths of God, including our theories called theology, continue to confound and intrigue me.

Though I never did like being called “preacher,” I embrace the word “teacher.”  I enjoy the classroom, the interaction with the students, and the growth process that only comes in a group setting.  Being sometimes confounded and confused with the issues myself, my style of teaching is what they call the “Socratic Method.”  This simply means I pose more questions rather than spoon-feed answers, which often frustrates those who want me to fill in the blank for them.

***

My life’s dream was to be a football coach, but I didn’t have enough self-confidence growing up to pursue that dream.   Nevertheless, the dream of being a coach, though not on the gridiron, has been fulfilled as I work with missionary teams throughout the world.  Since I have played the game in Kenya with victories as well as a few defeats, my advice is more than mere armchair theory; it’s born out of the sweat of the game. We need more people of experience and specialized knowledge to be coaches and mentors to missionaries.

I am as guarded about the term coach as I am missionary.  Coaching people is not just to be a short-term project for American pastors or laymen who use that term as an excuse to visit a foreign country.

The most effective coaches are those who have lived and experienced the challenges of cross-cultural life.  I often meet pastors who are very knowledgeable in missions and who truly love and respect missionaries; they believe they understand how a cross-cultural worker really feels.  Just as a guy can’t perform brain surgery because he slept at a Holiday Inn Express, neither can one truly coach people on the mission field until he has lived the life of those he is trying to instruct.

***

When I explain to people what I teach, they sometimes go MEGO on me (My Eyes Glazes Over).  If you read the course description of my class, it looks like any other cultural anthropology course.  What makes my teaching different is that I’m a storyteller.  I do not tell stories to entertain nor to cover up a lack of knowledge of the subject…exactly the opposite is true.  I tell stories that are relevant to the subject at hand so the student can see how the subject actually plays-out in real life.

Most preaching and teaching is abstract and not connected to real life situations.  Chuck Swindoll’s teaching and books are popular because he is a master storyteller.  Jesus understood the importance of telling relevant stories; His teaching was filled with parables about real life situations.

Working with the Pokot and Turkana, I would listen to the people at night or in their meetings under a tree.  They told stories.  I learned quickly if they were going to listen to me, I would have to be a storyteller as well.  Some people are good at this; others seemingly cannot do it at all.  It’s my niche, however.  I’m a teller of stories, and we need more who can tell The Story in a culturally contextual form.

***

Another aphorism of Noel Smith’s was, “You can’t eat a God bless you.”  How many times as a struggling young pastor or new missionary trying to raise support did I hear those words of Dr. Smith’s ringing in my ears?

“God bless you, Brother Lewis; we’ll be praying for you,” as church members walked out of the church.

“We’ll be praying about your support needs, Brother Lewis,” the pastor would say while knowing all along the church was not even considering committing to us financially.  He just didn’t have the courage to tell me the truth.  It’s easier to “lie for the glory of God,” Smith would say, than just be honest and say, “We can’t help you, but thanks for coming and speaking.”

Of course, I can look back on those times now and smile; however, one should know that the spiritual “verbal slight of hand” is still prevalent in the church.  God, on the other hand, always raises up people to meet the temporal needs of those who operate in faith ministries.  It’s an odd system and one that no one seems to care for—but it’s the way missions operates.  Though not unlike the way most non-profits are funded, such as the United Way or even political candidates, it’s a system that tends to be less prestigious or legitimate for missionaries.  I will forever be grateful for people who have given us more than a “God bless you.”  They have taught me to be more sensitive to those who seek support and to be honest with them whether I can help them financially or not.

***

Though I am not a theological reductionist (one who reduces every answer to a verse of Scripture), I have often told my students that the real secret to successfully serving Christ can found in the greatest commandment: “To love the Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Matt. 12:30).

No matter how gifted a person may or may not be, the foundational principle in this pilgrimage we call life is to walk consistently with the Master.  All the strategy in the world is meaningless if we are not walking close to Him.  He is able to overcome our deficiencies and our inabilities and to bring honor to Himself.  It really is not about us but about Him.

My journey has been bitter/sweet, for such is life.  However, as I look over my shoulder as well as down the road ahead, I know He has been with me and will be with me in the days forward.  My hope is that I will finish well.  Staying close to Him will make that a reality.

Bibliography

IntroductionChapter 1CALLED OR DRAFTED?Chapter 2Passion Without A Plan

Abernath, Donna J.

1999  How Not To Waste Your Investment in Strategy.  Training and Development,    Vol. 53, Number 6, June 48-53

Anderson, Walter

1988 The Greatest Risk of All.  Houghton Mifflin Company.  Boston.

Brewster, E. Thomas and Elizabeth.

1976.Language Acquisition Made Practical. Lingua House. Colorado Springs, CO

Brierly, Peter

1996 Mission Attrition: Why Missionaries Return Home.  Eltham, London

Bruce, A. B.

2000 Training of the Twelve. Christian Classics Ethereal Library.    Grand Rapids, MI

Chambers, Oswald

1990 Baffled to Fight Better: Job and the Problem of Suffering.  Discovery House       Publishers.  Grand Rapids, MI

De Pree, Max

1989 Leadership is an Art.  Doubleday.  New York, NY

Handy, Charles

1990  The Age of Unreason.  Harvard Business School Press.  Boston, Massachusetts.

Lewis, Richard G.

1991 The Social Structure of the Kara Pokot and Its Implications for Church Planting: A Strategic African Model.  UMI Dissertation

Lingenfelter, Sherwood

1998 Transforming Culture: A Challenge for Christian Mission.  Baker Book House.  Grand Rapids, MI

McGavran, Donald A.

1970 Understanding Church Growth.  Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans.

Tippett, Alan R.

1968 Anthropology: Luxury or necessity? Evangelical MissionsQuarterly, Vol. 1, No. 5

The End

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