Physical Pressures

Poor health is a common cause of depression, mental distraction and ministry inefficiency, and can be used by Satan to interrupt God’s work.  Fatigue is a familiar problem in the tropics where heat and humidity are extreme.  In New Guinea, for example, malaria of every strain is endemic.  Everyone either has it or will soon get it.  Though not usually fatal, malaria is a considerable inconvenience that robs one of strength and can sometimes keep a patient in bed for weeks at a time.  Added to this is the threat of hepatitis, dengue fever, amoebic dysentery and all sorts of pesky parasites and tropical diseases that can permanently destroy a missionary’s health.

Please pray for my wife and children, as well as myself, that we would make wise health related decisions and that we will be protected from serious illness and accidents.

Another pressure point for missionaries is the daily fact of hazardous travel situations.  Just getting to unreached peoples is a monumental task.  And a dangerous one (2 Cor 11:23-27)!  We are constantly on the move… by plane, train, bus, car, canoe and often by foot.

I have often had to deal with roadblocks set up by thieves and by enemies of the gospel.  One time a drunken man swung a machete repeatedly over my head and pounded our truck with it as my wife and children looked on in horror.  Another time, more recently, my son Jimmy and I were traveling from one town to another in Papua New Guinea when two men barricaded the road and tried to rob us.  They blew out the window next to my head with a shotgun as I laid over on top of Jimmy and sped through the road block.  Incidents such as this are not uncommon.  The need for your prayers for our constant physical well-being is obvious.

Spiritual Pressures

Is it possible that a missionary’s zeal can dwindle and his spiritual life go dry?  Not only possible, it will become a painful fact of life unless deliberate steps are taken to avoid this hazard.  One of the enduring misconceptions many folks have about missionaries is that we are super-saints, entirely immune from the doubts, temptations, fears, struggles and sin that plague everyone else.  Not only are we encumbered with the common burdens of all believers, but these trials are even more exasperating on the mission field.

My unexpected predicament began on October 3, 1977; departure day for my first missionary journey.  I boarded an international flight as a twenty year old, middle class American youth and, the next day, somewhere over the South Pacific, I was mysteriously transformed into an upper, upper class, rich expatriate.  Unknown to me at the time, that’s what I was when I arrived in Papua New Guinea.

Overwhelmed by compassion and broken-hearted by the spiritual and physical destitution of this swarming multitude, I quickly went to work.  I devoted myself to language and culture learning.  Within months I was teaching, preaching, counseling and giving away everything I had, all the way  down to my last shirt and pants!  Perhaps the people took advantage of me — but they continued to show up unexpectedly at my door, day and night, long after I was depleted of all material possessions.

It was an exhilarating time; developing intimate friendships (many remain to this day), teaching, preaching, discipiling, evangelizing, church planting.  Sounds like a fantastic ministry, doesn’t it?  However, it was long until the strain of spiritual exhaustion was crushing me.  I had not read, much less studied an English version of the Scriptures in weeks.  All of my study and most of my praying was “for the people”.  I felt my spiritual vitality  evaporating right out of me; here a little, there a little, almost imperceptibly at first.  After two years of rarely making time to minister to myself, I returned home on furlough.  I was physically sick, mentally depressed, emotionally wrecked and spiritually dry as dust.  I had allowed myself to become seriously oppressed by the devil!

I had utterly underestimated the incredible spiritual opposition that would come upon me as I invaded enemy territory where the gospel had never penetrated.  Satan and his cohorts will do most anything to keep the gospel out of the ears of unreached peoples… particularly in those places where he has been uncontested for centuries.

The sad result of the devil’s domination over people is that their thinking becomes twisted, their minds are blinded and their hearts are darkened.  And God’s truth does not easily penetrate the demonic darkness that encapsulates them.  Pray for me that I will recognize the attacks and counter-attacks of the enemy and that I will know how to use scriptural weapons in this ferocious battle for souls.

The missionary’s greatest enemy is himself.  Many missionaries wrongly adopt a “savior” mentality where we set out to single-handedly win our world for God.  We will sometimes sacrifice everything, even our families and our own relationship with God, to get the gospel to the people.  I know this is true for me at times.  It is important to understand the missionary tendency to become over-burdened and burned out.  Weakened spiritually, we become easily irritable towards our family, our co-workers and our national brethren.  If a faltering relationship with the Lord continues, pride begins to display itself in a “lording over”, dictatorial attitude, unusual impatience, and a sour disposition that negatively affects every area of home life and ministry.

Losing touch with God will also expose us to temptation unnecessarily.  Anyone can fall morally.  Take careful note of Samson in Judges 14-16. Financial integrity, truthfulness in speech and deed, purity in mind and body – All of these will be attacked!  The enemy uses loneliness, the endless agitation of a foreign culture and the low moral standards around him to aggravate temptation.  I have personally witnessed the tragedy of good men who burned out beyond retrieval and destroyed in a day what it took them years of hard work to build.  I know this is an ugly portrait of missionaries, but a demonized missionary is not a pleasant sight!  And it is an unwise missionary (and missionary supporter) who thinks this could never happen to him!  Selah.

Pray fervently that I will maintain daily, intimate fellowship with the Lord.  My spiritual life and ministry depend upon it.

“…  On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,
as you help us by your prayers.” 2 Corinthians 1:8-11

“Pray for Timothy, pray for Titus, pray for Barnabas and John Mark, pray for the saints, pray for those without Christ, pray for me, pray, pray, pray…”

The apostle Paul explicitly exhorts his disciples to pray in twelve of the fourteen New Testament letters he penned (assuming Pauline authorship of  Hebrews).   Ten of the fourteen finds him either thanking the saints or doggedly reminding them of his heartfelt desire for their intercessions.

Why all this emphasis on prayer?  Because Paul knew that his physical survival rested upon the petitions of God’s people!  It was an aching awareness that fruitful ministry and the preservation of his very life depended upon the grace of God being released into his life through intercessory prayer.  For Paul, pursuing prayer support was not simply a pious way of ending a “prayer letter”.

Those preaching Christ in front-line missionary situations understand Paul’s urgency.  We are repeatedly reduced to outright dependence upon God as we stand eye-to-eye with spiritual forces who are strangling entire regions of unreached peoples.  The Lord either shows his power through us in the moment or we may very well be killed by God’s enemies!  It’s often just that simple.  Sometimes it’s good to be desperate.  Desperation puts vigor and vibrancy into prayer meetings, reminiscent of the one responsible for Peter’s miraculous escape from prison in Acts 12!  Unfortunately, we are rarely driven to the persevering, high caliber of intercession that occurred on that day.

Well meaning brethren frequently say to us, “I’ll be praying for you!”  And some really do pray.  But too often, the promise of prayer was only the expected Christian response rather than a resolute commitment to wield spiritual weapons with us in battle.  Too often, missionaries are remembered only as a post-script in the closing prayer of an evening service.  Is it any wonder that missionaries are failing, falling and burning out at such an incredible rate?  The marvel is that there are any missionaries left at all!

Like the apostle, we cannot carry on effectively without your prayers.  So in the next few posts, let me share with you, quite openly, some of the difficulties of a foreign missionary.  As I detail the obstacles I encounter, put the face of your own missionary on the page, and learn with me how to better intercede for the missionaries that you partner with.