Why Sending isn’t a Consolation Prize
When my husband and I moved overseas with seven of our children, we were ecstatic to have full support raised in less than three months. This isn’t the norm, but we had decades of relationships and experience serving in two churches. The excitement for our going resulted in incredible generosity toward a shared missional vision. At the time we could not have imagined that, in God’s providence, we would discover another elation—that of sending when we could not go.
This change showed us in greater detail that Great Commission work is dependent on both the sender and the goer. The gospel can only reach the ends of the earth if there is equilibrium between both parties. Senders and goers share and participate fully in God’s kingdom expansion. It should not be the case that a fire burns in the belly of the missionary, but the sender coldly hands over hard-earned finances. Now, as we watch friends work for years to raise support, fully prepared to go in every other respect, I fear the body of Christ has forgotten the meaningful joy of sending.
The Joy of Going
Cattle were loaded into trailers and sheep were rounded up until our farm was strangely quiet. When the “sold” sign hung on the farm, nine of us moved, temporarily, into a 900 sq. ft. house that had been abandoned for three years. Three of our grown children planned to remain in the States, splitting apart our close-knit family. We didn’t plan to live stateside again, so we kept only a 5’x5’ storage unit containing photos and memorabilia we thought our kids might want. Everything else was in our suitcases.
Workers leave the comfort of their lives every year for harder fields than we did. For us, that cost was our farm in Florida, a comfortable six-figure job with incredible flexibility, and a large family. It was a privilege to be sent. We felt that every single day. For us, the sacrifice was a joy.
As we worked to establish the business for missions my husband had been asked to launch due to his years of experience, we immersed ourselves in culture and language, studying verbs until our brains ached and our mouths were sore from shaping new sounds. We watched our children thrive in their new culture. They made friends with neighborhood kids, played in the street until late at night, and came home with new vocabulary that we copied down for our next lesson with our language helpers. Shopping and haggling for meat and produce became enjoyable as we took time to practice language and get to know the people we saw each week. The women of our street taught me how to cook traditional foods as they laughed at my pronunciation, helped me repeat words, and pantomimed what we couldn’t find words for. We endured drug resistant head lice in a world with no clothes dryers (I finally ironed every piece of fabric in our flat, including mattresses). We endured salmonella that left us weak and bedridden. We were cursed and spat at in the street, we experienced violent protests and tear gassed air in our neighborhood, just an hour from an occupying foreign government. We would trade none of it. Christ is, and continues to be, worthy of it all.
Might by Mite
Our financial support arrived faithfully each month. Among those generous gifts was a small, ten-dollar deposit from an elderly widow caring for a grown disabled child. That ten-dollar check, which always included encouragement and prayer, made us want to work harder at language, business, and loving our neighbors. We knew that what was a small amount to us, was a huge one to the giver, but she gave even more by conveying how excited she was to faithfully participate in our journey. For her, the sacrifice was a joy.
This was not the only way God provided while we were on the field. One morning, as I shopped the open market of West Asia with one toddler on my back and another in hand, one of the sellers asked how many children I had. At my answer, the woman looked at me wide-eyed and immediately climbed onto a stool behind her vegetables. Her shrill, lyrical voice lit up the tent as she told the others to give the woman with ten kids a fair price. One by one, the ladies came over to see a photo of our family and discreetly tucked bunches of string-tied herbs or a few loose carrots into my bag, refusing to let me pay. I stood there with tears in my eyes, overwhelmed and humbled by the generosity of unbelieving women who had little, yet were blessing me. God’s heart is for those women, who are still waiting 2,000 years after Christ’s ascension to hear all He has done for them.
Each month I’d stare at the ten dollars from the widow and the prayer messages accompanying it and think, “Lord, make me more like this widow, and those vegetable sellers, who joyfully give out of their lack.” Consider the widow’s mite or the small boy with a few loaves and fish: our God is in the business of using mites given in generosity to accomplish His mighty purposes.
Heartbreak
13 months into our mission, our pastor called to tell us that one of our grown kids was enduring an unthinkable situation. We were shattered. In ongoing conversations, our church and sending organization agreed that we needed to return and step into a supportive role. Within 24 hours I was on a 31-hour flight back home. Flying over the burning oil fields of the Middle East in the dead of the night, the plane silent with sleeping passengers, I remember praying, “God, how can you be glorified in even this?” Our lives suddenly felt like the vision of hell below me.
We grieved as a family for a long time. We still grieve. Returning was incredibly hard. It felt like the death of a dream. We missed our local friends and co-workers. Our teenagers missed being able to easily navigate a foreign city, they missed their friends and their new language. When I share our story, I explain God’s sovereignty in our lives this way, “At just the right time, God plucked our family up and put us down in West Asia. When the work He had sent us to accomplish was done, at just the right time, He plucked us up and put us back down in the States again. Have we felt a little motion sick in our spirits from the moving? Yes. But if we believe God is a sovereign God, we have to know that He is doing exactly His Holy will in the handling of the lives of His children.”
Yes, we felt God holding us and providing for our every need before it was anticipated. Within a month, my husband had three job offers. Coming back with nothing was like being newlyweds and setting up house again, minus a wedding shower or gifts. Taking a day job, my husband began to help with the business team of our sending organization, as these businesses continue to be a gateway into places closed to the gospel.
God opened doors for me to begin writing, teaching, and speaking as well. One August Sunday, seven months after we had returned, I turned to one of my grown daughters who had been with us overseas and asked, “What if there was a resource for parents and churches to teach their kids about unreached people groups?” Our family has been blessed to see Wonder Letters do exactly that, with individual, church, and school subscribers across the US and Canada sharing God’s heart for the nations. He does all things well.
From Sent to Sender
As we adjusted to our new life, we got serious about sending, since we were no longer in a position to go. In addition to our tithe to our local church, we committed to giving another portion of our income to supporting global workers. Of our monthly expenses, giving is the only subtraction from our income that brings us excitement. Phone bills and water bills hold nothing to the joy of supporting Great Commission work across the globe. Paul tells us in Philippians 4:14-19 that senders share in troubles, are partners in both giving and receiving, and receive credit for the spread of the gospel. Sending echoes God’s heart of love. He sent the world His Son. We get to partner in sharing that story when we send workers to the nations, echoing the Psalmist, “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.” (Psalm 67:4) Though our family returned in grief, we have learned that sending is not a consolation prize. It is a vital part of God's heart to reach the nations.
Supporting workers is a “faithful thing,” writes the Apostle John in 3 John 5, with the supporters fully involved as, “fellow workers for the truth.” When John wrote these words to his friend Gaius, Gaius was a stranger to the men he offered food and hospitality to as they traveled, working to spread the gospel. Nonetheless, Gaius supported them “in a manner worthy of God.” We aren’t told why Gaius didn’t go himself. What’s important is that Gaius acknowledged the importance of the gospel message and put his support fully behind Great Commission work. We are to do the same today.
As senders, our family eagerly reads the news sent from far off places, praying together for the workers we support. Our kids frequently pop their heads in on zoom calls to say “hi” or listen to a story from overseas. They text and email missionary kids, building connections. Our home and hospitality is always available to workers home on furlough. We know the Holy Spirit is drawing all men to Himself and it is a huge joy to participate in that work.
At the time I write this, our fourth child is preparing to be sent overseas by our church. My husband and I feel humbled to have experienced this spectrum of missional life—from waiting 20 years to go while investing in the local church, to being sent and supported well, to receiving compassion when we returned heartbroken, to serving in supportive and educational roles within Great Commission work, and now supporting other workers and sending out one of our own children.
Writing to the Romans, Paul offered the church timeless questions that solidify the value and necessity of both going and sending to this day: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:14-21).
It is our prayer that your’s and church’s answer in reply to Paul’s questions will be joyful going and sending! The heart of missions is not merely a duty. It is a delight. We delight in God’s redemptive story—a story of a God who sent His Son who, “for the joy that was set before him” (Hebrews 12:2), endured the cross for the nations. It is our joy to participate, as senders or goers, in God’s great rescue plan for all mankind.