Missionary Bootcamp (e.s.)
“So how long was your son tortured for again?”
“It only took me a year to be fluent in Spanish. Now that we’re headed to a new field I can’t wait to start learning Chinese.”
“The hardest thing was having my sons say goodbye to their best friends…they were devastated.”
Those were just a few memorable quotes from students and advisors today. In between classroom instruction, bouts of laughter and moments of awe, we soaked in this overwhelming feeling of wonder… wonder that comes from knowing that there are disciples in this world called to sacrifice lives of comfort to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Don’t get me wrong, when we were in Oceanside, I knew that we were proclaiming the Good News alongside “souled-out bondservants of Christ.” However, there is something to be said when you encounter individuals who are built just like you.
It’s kind of like going to a family reunion. Families from all over gather at a mutual meeting place (usually in the middle of nowhere) to meet up with relatives, most of whom you’ve never seen in your life. But you greet each other with hugs and you hang out because you all have the same genes. You have something in common and you know it the moment you say hello. Everyone in our class has sold or given away their possessions, left everything and everyone they knew, and spent years fundraising and in formal training just to get to a point in their lives where they will experience vulnerability, weakness, poverty, and fear for the sake of the Gospel. Not everyone is called to this life and this certainly is not the only way one can serve the Lord, but if it’s in your genes…you’ll never be at peace until you GO.
So what are we learning in this boot camp? Well for one, the philosophy of our training is “Though He will work through you as a missionary, what He wants to do in you is of equal importance to Him. God is concerned about the heart of the missionary just as much as what He will do through them.” God calls missionaries to tasks that are impossible because it is He that does the work. As we seek to grow in Jesus, we become more dependent on Him to do the work, rather than relying on our own power and abilities. More than giving us great techniques on outreach and evangelism, we’re learning to draw closer to Christ.
Additionally, we’re learning about ourselves and how we interact with teams. We are also learning how to handle conflicts among those who are a part of the church and the missionaries who are a part of the team. We get to learn how to approach evangelism like Christ did – incarnationally. And we also get all the other cool stuff like language acquisition, cultural training, and crisis control. We’ll keep you updated on those subjects when we get to them.
Something we were reminded of today that I’ll pass on to you – we must preach the Gospel to ourselves everyday. Grace and Peace to you all.
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