Worldly Holiness

Girona Cathedral Inside, originally uploaded by papalars.

I promised I’d return to the reason for our trip to Andalucía, week before last, and why we were in Ronda with the wild bridge. By the way, the two pictures I most recently posted have really made a hit on my flickr site. Lots of views and comments. What do you think about the girl with the birds below?

Anyway, we took that trip to Andalucía in Southern Spain to speak with some people about collaborating in ministries of “member care.” One of Carol’s strong interests is to come alongside people who are hurting in some way. Member care is a fairly recent area of ministry in the mission community but has been something all missionaries have needed or experienced at some point in their time of service working cross-culturally. The challenges of missionary work can be daunting and they affect each of us in different ways. When conflict hits, when there are problems in the ministry, or when relationships go south the added layer of being in a cross-cultural context can make things more difficult. Things occur in the extended family that the missionary cannot be present for. Even the question of “where are you from?” can be reminders that we are strangers in a foreign land. Missionary children often feel this most intensely and sometimes struggle with identity and relational bonding. In other cultures ways of dealing with all these issues are different and the normal support structures that one would seek out in times of trouble are not there. What is a missionary to do? That is where member care comes in. And that is what we are hoping to be part of here in Spain.

One group we met with in Granada has around 150 Latino missionaries working with our focus people in the region. Carol wants to come alongside these wonderful servants who have left all to serve the Lord. Many of them are single women also, and need someone who speaks their heart language—Latin American Spanish!! By the way, we personally are no strangers to this stuff. Pray for us as we seek to both provide member care to others as well as find healthy ways to take care of ourselves and to build that support structure necessary to thrive in cross-cultural ministry.

Annie Dillard affirms that the clue to full spiritual aliveness is found in the very forces of calamity that we would avoid if we had the power to choose. The 3 d’s [disillusionment, dislocation & desert] that missionaries experience can bring us new growth or make life miserable, depending in large part how we process our stuff. Struggles and conflict can make us more alive, in paradoxical ways. This is counter-intuitive for most Westerners, where a Western spirituality focuses on upward mobility that has an innate fear of “the fall.” But we need to embrace the dark and difficult things we experience, our suffering and our sin. Not in a way that makes Eeyore our patron saint, but in a way that is honest, truthful and open to God’s healing touch.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16