Ah, yes, the team met again on Tuesday night. We finished up the last part of our video training and discussed about re-entry. I didn't really know what to expect when we talked about re-entry last year. I was only bracing myself to face the times that I'll be missing and thinking of the Cambodians. Little did I know that I would come back to the states feeling like an outsider with such different perspectives. Some of the changes have stuck with me, but others have slowly crept back into the secular lifestyle. I just finished reading Revolutions in World Missions I borrowed from Pat and Lai-Ki, and some of the points the writer stated were much like what I experienced.
I risk the chance of offending some readers in the following, but this serves as an important reminder to myself as well.
K.P. Yohannan's thoughts upon arriving in the United States after years of evangelizing in his native country, India:
Those of us who grow up in Europe and Asia hear stories about the affluence and
prosperity of America, but until you see it with your own eyes, the stories seem
like fairy tales. Americans are more than just unaware of their affluence- they almost seem to despise it at times. Finding a lounge chair, I stared in amazement at how they treated their beautiful clothes and shoes. As I would discover again and again, this nation routinely takes its astonishing wealth for granted. As I would do many times- almost daily- in the weeks ahead, I compared their clothing to that of
the native missionary evangelists whom I had left only a few weeks before. ... Then I discovered most Americans have closets full of clothing they wear only occasionally- and I remembered the years I traveled and worked with only the clothes on my back.
How can two so different economies coexist simultaneously on the earth?
Everything was so overpowering and confusing to me at first. Not only did I have
to learn the simplest procedures- like using the pay telephones and making
change- but as a sensitive Christian, I found myself constantly making spiritual
evaluations of everything I saw.
...I began with alarm to understand how misplaced are the spiritual values of most Western believers. Sad to say, it appeared to me that for the most part they had absorbed the same humanistic and materialistic values that dominated the secular culture.
What impresses visitors from the Third World are the simple things Americans take for granted: fresh water available twenty-four hours a day, unlimited electrical power, telephones that work, and a most remarkable network of paved roads. In India, the water, electricity, telephones, and trasportation operate erratically - if at all. Communication is a nightmare. ...At the time, we still had no television in India, but my American hosts seemed to have TV sets in every room- and operating day and night. This ever-present blast of media disturbed me. For some reason, Americans seemed to have a need to surround themselves with noise all the time. Even in their cars, I noticed the radios ran when no one was listening.
Even among Christians, food was a major part of fellowship events. Even today I sometimes cannot freely order food when traveling in the United States. I look at the costs and realize how far the same amount of money will go in India, Myanmar, or the Philppines. Suddenly I am not quite as hungry as I was before. Remembering the heartbreaking suffering of the native brethren, I sometimes, refused to eat the desserts so often served to me. I am sure this made no difference in supplying food to hungry families, but I couldn't bear to take pleasure in eating while Christian workers in Asia were going hungry.One morning, I picked up a popular Christian magazine containing many intersting articles, stories, and reports from all over the world... I noticed that it offered ads for all kinds of products and services: counseling, chaplaincy services, writing courses, church steeples, choir robes, wall crosses, baptistries and water heaters, T-shirts, records, tapes, adoption agencies, tracts, poems, gifts, book clubs, and pen pals. It was all rather impressive. Probably none of these things was wrong in itself, but it bothered me that one nation should have such spiritual luxury while 40,000 people were dying in my homeland every day without hearing the Gospel even once.
If the affluence of America impressed me, the affluence of Christians impressed me even more. The United States has about 5,000 Christian book and gift stores, carrying varieties of products beyond my ability to imagine- and many secular stores also carry religious books. All this while more than 4,000 of the world's nearly 6,500 languages are still without a single portion of the Bible published in their own language!
Am I ready to be further stretched, broken, and convicted? Am I ready to re-enter, remain changed, and make a change?
- - -
While I'm at it, I'd like to share some more of my reading. Throughout his book, Yohannan emphasized the power we have as Americans to support native missionaries in spreading the gospel. The question is, are we aware of the new revolution in world missions and willing to join?
God is calling Christians in the West to recognize He is building His Church as a caring, sharing, and saving outreach to dying souls. He is using many North
Americans who care about the lost to share in this new movement by supporting
the native missionary leaders He has called to direct it.
God is calling the Body of Christ in the affluent West to give up its proud, arrogant attitude of "our way is the only way" and share with those who will die in sin unless
help is sent now from the richer nations. The West must share with the East,
knowing that Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:40)If the Western church will not be a light to the world, the Lord will take the candlestick away.
Yohannan wrote about a thirteen year old boy named Tommy who showed the spirit of sacrafice.
For over a year, Tommy had been saving for a new bicycle for school. Then he read about the value of bicycles to native missionaries like Mohan Ram and his wife. He and his family lived in one rented room and had to walk for miles or ride buses to do Gospel work. A bicycle would mean more to him than a car would mean to someone in suburban America. But a new Indian-made bicycle, which would cost only $92, was totally out of reach of his family budget. What amazed me when I came to America is that bikes here are considered children's toys or a way to lose weight. For native missionaries they represent a way to expand the ministry greatly and reduce suffering. When Tommy heard that native missionaries use their bikes to ride 17-20 miles a day, he made a big decision. He decided to give the bike money he had saved for the native missionary.
Gospel for Asia was founded by Yohannan to support native missionaries.
First, Gospel for Asia assumes that we who are called, are called to serve and not to be served. We walk before the millions of poor and destitute in Asia with our lives as an open testimony and example. I breathe, sleep, and eat conscious of the perishing millions the Lord commands me to love and rescue.
Hosanna- Hillsong
Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like You have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your Kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity
2 comments:
Good reminder that we are blessed to be a blessing.
amen to you both.
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