How Do You Prepare People for the Hardships and Isolation of Missionary Work?

How do you prepare people for the hardships and isolation of missionary work?

There's no way to fully train someone for isolation, for repeated long-term hardships. One thing you have to do, though, is you have to manage their expectations. You have to be clear about what is being required here. This is why I love it when missionary trainers say things like, “You're there 20 years to life,” and, “You're there to die on the field.” It might sound melodramatic, but it's a way of setting people's expectations.

So, we need to do that. We need to be honest about what we're calling men and their families to do. We are calling them to do something that will not be easy, that may not feel rewarding, that is among the hardest things we could ask them to do. So we need to be clear about that.

In terms of training them, there are practical ways in which training can take place. There are shorter-term challenges that they can be faced with. We can watch them do evangelism in more conventional settings, and they can stretch their limbs of evangelism that way. But the bottom line is this: what will sustain them is the grace of God and a firm grip on who God is. That's what they need. They need a greater affinity, a greater, closer walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. And that can be cultivated before you're in a situation of isolation.

The Apostle Paul talks about when he was put on trial in Asia. And he has these poignant words. He says, “No one came to my defense,” which is almost unimaginable at that stage of Paul's life, after all he had done. “No one came to my defense.” But then he said this: “But the Lord stood with me.” And it's that closeness to the Lord, that understanding of how God ministers to His people in the midst of loneliness, that we need to begin to familiarize men and women with, now, before they're in dire need of that knowledge overseas.