Christmas and Missionaries

My first Christmas Eve in Yembiyembi, I was invited on a pig hunt that nearly ushered me into the presence of the Almighty. The Yembiyembis had heard of this occasion and decided it merited a good hunt with the hope of some wild boar. One group went about two miles up the river and began flushing game down toward a choke point where about 15 of us stood ready to spear whatever came running down. As one medium-sized boar quickly occupied half the group, another, much larger, one came lumbering in with a spear already sticking out of its back and malice in its heart. I assume my abnormal size and skin color for that area singled me out for vengeance as it turned my way and accelerated to full speed. As I searched my memory for what to do in this situation, the YYs started yelling, “sa ukuto nanguada!”…go up the tree with great speed! I spent the next five minutes trying to get up high enough so its tusks didn’t tear my feet apart and petitioning the God of Abraham for my earthly departure to be postponed. Mercifully, some accurate throwing arms eventually pinned it down, and an axe brought its revenge tour to an abrupt end.

That night, the families of the hunting parties enjoyed the spoils of victory, and I prayed that Nina’s language comprehension skills were unable to compare the version going around the village with the more pedestrian version I had given her. After eating a greasy portion of the boar, we departed for our little jungle house, wrapped two presents for our son that our church had kindly sent months earlier. We thanked the Lord for his grace in making it to our first Christmas among the people we hoped to bring the gospel to, and went to bed.

Christmas overseas can be a particularly challenging time for missionaries, especially those in front-line contexts. There is usually very little that signals the Christmas season in those parts of the world. Chestnuts are not roasting on an open fire; boar liver is. Wearing anything “Christmassy” will cause you to sweat profusely, and there are few options for presents other than what your hands can make. The bigger challenge, though, is the enemy often reminding you what friends and family are doing back home. If you let your mind wander, you can get quite lost. It was in those times that I would come back to my King and how He knew exactly what I was going through, as He had felt the same ache, though on an infinitely greater scale.

For over 30 Christmases, Jesus would keenly feel the contrast of walking on a fallen earth surrounded by fallen men and the pure, without-a-hint-of-blemish love that He had enjoyed with the Father and the Spirit.

The YYs could be brutal to each other, inflicting machete wounds and often threatening to spear anyone who crossed them. Jesus healed, fed, and loved a people that would eventually gash his lifeless body with a spear to make sure he was dead. My family back in San Diego is a tight-knit group that works hard to make sure every member of the family is given ample gifts to feel recognized and loved. The Yembiyembis doused our faces in mud and threw flower petals at our muddy faces when we agreed to come be their missionaries. Jesus arrived to a teenage mother, with animals surrounding Him, and a government that was hunting for His life. In my more sober-minded moments, I was reminded that if my King had humbled Himself, taking on the form of a servant, being born as a man, what was being asked of me was not worth comparing.

This doesn’t negate the need for those of us “Senders” to remember the “Goers” in prayer, e-mail, and encouragement. How wonderful it was to receive a package from home during that season and be supplied with Chick-fil-A sauce, Double A batteries, the San Diego Tribune (even though it was three months old), and some notes from members of our church. Nina and I would open the package and linger over the box just to catch that brief smell of home. It’s a good Christian instinct to remember those in faraway lands that are laboring for the advance of the kingdom in places where few, if any, outposts of the kingdom (churches) exist.

This Christmas Nina and I are thinking of Micah and Lauren who are fighting to master that 2nd language, Jason S. who is faithfully checking Bible translations to get them into the hands of new church leaders, the team that has Jason and Tami on it and who will be sharing the gospel for the first time in history with their language group next year, and the “C” team who are fighting to stay ahead of a hostile government while still testifying to the gospel where God has them. None of these will see their families this Christmas; God has prepared something much better for them that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human mind has comprehended.

Someday missions will be over. In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the dead in Christ will rise, and the living will follow.  No more goodbyes, no more funerals, no more language learning, no more Bible translation, no more separations at Christmas because Christ was separated from the perfect family to purchase our freedom with His blood.

So, we struggle on until that day. We send and go to those peoples and those languages that do not know of the love of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Some of them have been marked for that great family reunion that will be far greater than any Christmas celebration this world has ever known. What a day that will be!