We had a mini-missions conference at Grace last night and our special guests were Vicki Murphy, an MK (missionary's kid) and Joe and Ellen Kunkle, both second generation missionaries. The recurrent theme of their message to us was "Remember, we are real people, too, and we are desparate for your prayers!"
It is easy to see missionaires as something more than human--divinely-touched, as it were--and a notch above the rest of us. That can lull us into a postion of carelessness in how we pray for them. The missionaries told last night about "angelic protectors" against satanic attack--and it was as if this were an everyday occurrence. Witch doctors and unsympathetic cultural context for their service are daily challenges to their faith--a whole other world, from our point of view.
Not to mention the issues of separation from family, mediocre medical care, unusual living conditions, a foreign language and strange food, isolation from other Christians...and, yes, this makes us believe they are super-human in their commitment to serve God.
But, they would want us to know that they are flawed and fragile, just as we are. And they are wholly human, with the same temptations and trials punctuating their daily lives. And they need us to be fervent and faithful in our prayer for them.
We may not able to go. We may even be happy that we were not "called" to go because we know how "unfortunately" human we are. But we can pray that our missionary friends--human as they are as well--will be sustained and encouraged as they serve God, wherever they may be.
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