We trust this letter finds you well and encouraged in the Lord’s work.
During our last prayer service, some young men were Spirit filled. It was such a joy! According to a message I listened the other day, the baptism in the Holy Ghost is the mother miracle while being born again is the father’s miracle.
The guest house’s construction is moving forward. The workers should soon pour concrete on the guest house ceiling which will also be our future apartment floor. Please pray that we can bring back to the rental company each support post. Each costs US $50.00 to purchase. One year, we were robbed of most of them. A few nights ago, our Church’s neighbor received five visitors. Our guards at the site said they also tried to jump on our side, but something stopped them. Pray for protection.
Someone posted that article on the PAOC website. I found it so inspiring that I decided to share it with you.
We stood in the lobby after the funeral. We’d spent the hour before hearing beautiful stories of simple faith lived by a simple woman. Besides the fact that she was intelligent, caring, and genuinely interested in other people, one theme seemed to resonate throughout the eulogy: she showed up. She showed up to church. She showed up to serve and to teach. She showed up to be with friends and family. She simply showed up and said yes to Jesus in her daily life.
There will be no biographies written about her. There won’t be sermons inspired by her. Because she merely showed up.
In the Western world, when even Christians go after celebrity and fame, we want stories that are big and flashy. We want the “likes” and the thumbs up and the wow stories. Because the Church doesn’t often celebrate the everyday yes. We don’t celebrate the stay-at-home mom, or the man serving faithfully in his 8-to-5…
In the missions world, I know I feel increasingly more pressure to share the stories that will inspire people the most. Especially when 50 other people pay your salary, you choose to share the stories that will pack a punch. Because we want numbers and statistics and performance reports… 25 people got baptized? Share that one. 100 people received Christ? Gold mine. You planted another church? Christian celebrity status.
I know there’s another side, and that’s that we can’t always expect people to know the right questions to ask, especially if they’ve never lived cross culturally. Or, because they can’t be expected to know our context of living, they don’t understand the magnitude or significance of our stories. And in that, we missionaries must extend grace and ask God for humility. We don’t have a right to be heard or understood or asked to preach or exulted for our work. We must aim to please God alone.
But there’s still no denying that the missionary life is often lonely and unglamorous. And often we put the most pressure on ourselves. We read the missionary biographies and the stories of our heroes of the faith and we feel like a failure. We compare ourselves to Christian celebrities and try to mimic their actions in the hopes of finally being good enough.
As we stood there in the lobby after the funeral that day, feeling more forgotten than we realized, a wise woman looked us in the eye and told us how proud she was of us, how what we do matters, how much she prays for us, and how important our simple “yes” continues to be. A daily yes to Jesus- not big, sexy, missionary stories. Not multitudes of salvations and baptisms and churches planted.
And with tears in my eyes I remembered: God sees me.
So, to you, fellow missionary, when you feel forgotten, I’ve been there too. To the ones who feel their stories aren’t good enough, God sees you and get this: He’s proud. He delights in the fact that you showed up today. That you got out of bed, that you homeschooled your kids even though you didn’t have time or energy to talk to a single national, that you got through that really difficult cross-cultural interaction, that you killed the mouse in your cupboards and the cockroaches in your shoes, that you tried your best to communicate in your second language, that you survived another day in the blazing tropical heat, that you endured a night without power and no sleep, that you choose to stay in the midst of political instability and uncertainty, that even though you desperately miss your family overseas and feel lonely, you pursue those in front of you. That you said yes and that you keep saying yes.
Because God isn’t asking for stories with big, sexy numbers and print worthy inspiration. He’s not asking for you to become famous or known. He’s just asking for your every day yes.
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Erin Duplechin is a missionary wife and mama of three living in Papua New Guinea. Before moving overseas, she served as a worship leader and continues singing and writing songs abroad. She writes regularly about God and jungle life at erinduplechin.com.
Thank you for your prayers and support. Please do not stop praying for Mathis, our grandson, who suffers three to five episodes of hypothermia a day. Pray for healing, restauration and encouragement.
Michel & Louise