.jpeg)
Bryan: Missions requires extreme trust in God, something that is often difficult even for Christians who aren't called to go. For a missionary, this trust can be tested while preparing or while on the field. Will we be provided for? Will we be safe? Will our work be fruitful? These questions and many others are ones each missionary needs to prepare their hearts to answer. Our question this week is for missionary Brooks Buser. It comes from Maggie Garrett who asks, "How are you able to trust God to provide for you and your families throughout the whole process?"
Brooks: So this is a really good question and I appreciate Maggie bringing it up, because there's so much that you have to trust God for, especially when you're going to unreached language groups. There's just no end to the amount of things that can go wrong, that can sidetrack, that can be dangerous—there's just a tremendous amount of those things.
And so Christians, not just in the last 10 years or the last 50 years, but for thousands of years, have had to fall back on the belief that God is sovereign over all things. And if God is sovereign over all things from where every star in the sky is positioned perfectly down to the last micron to the governments that are in control of China, that are in control of Papua New Guinea, that are in control of Egypt, to the laws that are passed, to the number of people among this language group that will be saved—if He's in control of all of those things and all of the details in between, then I can trust Him and I can trust Him for the major areas of provision that I need.
And I kind of broke these out into four categories. And so one would be provision: when most people think of going to the mission field, they think of how am I going to provide for my family, how are we going to eat, how will we be supported? That that would be under the category of provision. Number two would be safety, that's very obvious and easy to understand. Number 3 would be fruit: I want to give my life to this particular work, I want to see people converted by God's grace, but I have to trust the Lord for fruit. And then finally, for His sufficiency for Him to be enough in the midst of all of these things.
So I'll just take these one by one.
Number one, on the provision side, just speaking practically, I've never found a missionary that is a studious communicator. And when I say studious, I don't mean how much volume they churn out, but how well they think about what they churn out, what they send out, how much they give their supporters. Most missionaries are badly supported because they write too long of prayer letters, not too short, but too long, and they're not very interesting. Missionaries need to learn to be better communicators. This is one of the classes that my wife and I teach down at Radius is how to be a good communicator. And then coupled with that, as with missionary finances. Good communicators don't just happen over in the language groups that they're sent to: they're good communicators back in their home country as well. And so God is pleased to use anybody, but typically it's your good communicators that God can use most effectively in their home context and in a foreign context. God provides for families through various means. We've seen God using ravens to supply Elijah. He's provided for Paul in a myriad of circumstances. But missionaries need to know that God has given us wisdom as far as how we communicate. I would just throw that in there.
Safety is the big one—to trust God that He is going to look after your family. And this is one of the tough things with having kids. They're a wonderful gift from God, but this is going to stretch parents much more than it's going to stretch single people or married couples without kids. To have the rock solid conviction that my God loves my child more than I do. He cares about my child's future. He cares where Beau goes to high school. He cares if he gets good grades in the middle of the jungle while he's being homeschooled. He cares that he has friends to play with. He cares that he turns out normal. This is one of the great fears of missionary wives: will my kids turn out normal? And it's a real fear. It should be if it's not on their radar that a lot of missionary kids come back and they have a hard time in their passport country. And so how do you help think through that? Well, I think there's a bedrock impetus that my God cares about my child. And so there will be tough things that he goes through, she goes through, but in the end my God cares about them and He is going to provide for them. There are also classes on how to raise missionary children that are tremendously helpful.
Fruit—how God is going to work through your hands, your mouth, your feet as you bring the gospel to a foreign language group, trusting God for the fruit of what will come out. I think this is one of the great things that we see in scripture, that God is typically pleased to use frail human beings, weak human beings—not the rock stars, not the ones that we would say, oh, that guy's a missionary, he wears REI and he goes hiking a lot and he really cares about sharing the gospel. God typically uses the weaker vessels of this world to bring Him great glory.
I'm encouraged so often when I read 2 Corinthians 12. Paul recounts how he had this thorn in the flesh—we don't know what it was. I translated this passage and I remember translating it and the Yembiyembis asking me what was the thorn, and I don't know what it was. There's some indications that it might have been his eyes, but we don't know. But anyways, the passage, Paul says this three times(this is verse 8 of chapter 12 of 2 Corinthians): "Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this that it should leave me, but He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
What a wonderful place for Christians to be in, especially missionaries that are going where no gospel has gone before. That God, You will be pleased through my weakness, through this broken body, sometimes through this tongue that still can't conjugate that verb correctly. It gets it right seven times out of ten, and I'm going to work to get better. But You're going to use my weaknesses. You're going to use this fallen human being who, warts and all, loves You, still falls, but wants to see these people come to the knowledge of saving faith, of who Jesus Christ is. And so that fruit, we leave that as well up to our God.
And then finally, the sufficiency of God to see us through the dark hours. I think I've talked about this before—I sometimes share this story. But when we moved into Yembiyembi, before the wives and the kids moved in, me and my two co-workers went in to build our houses. They'd staked out certain places where they wanted us to live. And on the way in, my leg got caught between two motor canoes. Motor canoes are really long canoes that have a motor on the back of them. One was going one way, one was going the other, but they weren't going very fast. But my leg got caught and it grabbed it and just twisted it. And the whole way—we had about a nine-hour canoe ride to Yembiyembi—it was just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. We didn't have the helicopter in the area so we couldn't medevac me out of there. And so I stayed in there for the whole building trip, just with this massive knee, hobbling around trying to nail things, trying to work on things, and just knowing from playing sports that I'd torn some sort of ligament. And just thinking to myself, Lord, we haven't even learned one word of the Yembiyembi language. We haven't built an airfield. I haven't translated one word of scripture yet. And I've already lost my knee. How in the world am I going to see the end of this journey?
And this verse again that I come back to—2 Corinthians 12—that God was pleased in my weakness. Brooks, I'll take care of the gospel spreading among the Yembiyembi. I will save who I will save. This is ultimately and completely a work of God. And I think in that I found sufficiency. I could sleep at night going with a bad knee. The Lord is going to accomplish this. He's going to work through all of my weaknesses, and through that, by His grace, something may come out of this. We didn't know—we were still early in the stages of ministry—but by God's grace, we were able to see a church planted there that still is going to this day.
So that's my general answer for how God provides through the whole process of missions.
Bryan: To read more about those who trusted God, go to missionary.com/biographies. If you have a question you would like to hear answered on Ask Missionary, drop a comment on this episode, get in touch with us on social media, or send us an email through missionary.com and your question may be featured on this show. And don't forget to subscribe to the show to get notified when the next episode airs next week. Thanks for listening.