life as usual

As I am here in Ghana, my best friend Stephanie is in Mexico (also as a short-term missionary). We have been able to email back and forth and have been sharing about our experiences abroad. There are some obvious differences considering the different cultures and the different ministries we each work in; yet at the same time we share similar experiences, mostly from within our own heads and hearts. Most recently we have discussed a particular “situation/experience” that we are facing and I thought it would be good to just let my readers in on a little insight that can be affirmed by all the missionaries I know and work with, and it is this: Being a missionary is not a constant spiritual high!

For anyone who has ever done a short-term missions trip (as in one month or less), what you most likely experienced was the romanticized version of missions. You go with a goal to accomplish, you accomplish that goal and go home. You get a look into a different culture and you see how much you take for granted living in America; you see how people with so little love God so much; and quite often you are surprised at how much you were blessed when you expected to go and be a blessing (which you were). Anyways, those experiences are usually amazing and you feel so close to the Lord.

When you go to a place and are living there, the “honeymoon” stage ends. As you start to build relationships and get in to a routine, that high starts to fade (kind of like what happens after you get home from your short-term trip and get into your daily routine in America). Even though I am really far away and it seems like my life must be really crazy and even exotic, I am living a regular routine life just like any of you back in America—it is certainly different from the life I have back home, but routine nonetheless. I have bad days; I get disappointed by people and I disappoint people; I go to church twice a week; I have some random adventures with friends; I caught a cold when the weather drastically dropped down to 85 degrees….you see, I go through the same sorts of things that you do, I just go through them in a different place. When I signed up to do this, I did not know what to expect and in fact was told to “expect the unexpected”. I did not expect that I would be on some crazy spiritual high for nine months, but I also did not expect life to feel so monotonous at times.

So, I just keep on going. God has called me to this place. When he did so, he did not promise me that I would see hundreds of people come to know him, he did not promise a revival in Tumu, he did not promise that I would even make a difference in anyone’s life. He did promise to be by my side every step of the way and he did promise that he will do something in my own heart. I know that nothing is for nothing. God has me here for a reason and I cannot let the fact that it’s life as usual here disappoint me or distract me from doing what God has called me to do. I know that the Lord is working in me and through me even when I don’t always see the fruit of my labor. And even if I go through this entire process and never really “accomplish” anything in anyone else’s eyes, I know that I have made God happy just by being and living here in Ghana. This is not to say, however, that I am having a bad time here or anything, this is just to let everyone know that being a missionary does not make a person’s spiritual life any greater than anyone else’s. We all have a part to play in our spiritual health. It will always require us to spend time in the Word and in prayer. Geography or job description does not change that.