A missionary

A missionary isn’t a missionary because they have the ability to sacrifice more than the other Christians. Missionaries that become missionaries for the glam and the save the world ministries they think up on paper will quickly fade. Glam looks more like dust on the mission field. Agendas melt and mix with those preconceived notions into mud at your feet. A missionary is simply a missionary because they love Jesus. Maybe that’s cliché. I like cliché. Maybe it’s not complex enough for fundraisers and conferences. But it is what it is. Love. Pure, undefiled, radical love for Jesus that absolutely must touch someone else. A missionary has the ability to take their intimacy with God to the streets with power. They have the ability to be transformed in their minds to mold into any culture at anytime, no matter the speech, the food, the living conditions, the dress, the danger or the hard soil in which they have been called to sow.

Today in Ethiopia, I was in search of fresh bortocan or oranges if you don’t speak Amerinja. While thinking how strange it was that I had been searching for this typically common fruit for two days, I remembered that the city had also been out of gas for several weeks and back at home we had no electricity or water. When you’re a missionary, your entire life changes. The topics of a typical day in the western hemisphere become culture shock when you live in Africa. Despite my scattered thoughts though, I was walking next to Holy Spirit so I wasn’t surprised when my spirit-woman fluttered inside me. Before I knew it, I found myself sitting in the sand.

“Selamnacho..” I began with my typical Ethiopian cheeriness. To any other group of women, my cheeks would have been dripping with kisses and my lips stiff from smiling with such extroverted joy… but these women were different. They were the hardest women I’ve seen on this continent, sitting on the dirty ground beneath the fruit stands and the big walls leading to the old city. They were completely inebriated from the drug kat, which proved its power over them by the bright green stains still clinging to their teeth. Brutal scars outlined their faces like a map displaying the course of their lives. Most of the marks were still fresh. Their legs were fully exposed in the late afternoon glow of sunshine, a sight you never see when you live in the fourth holiest Islamic city in the world. A tabletop of torn cardboard centered itself between them as they played some unrecognizable card game and passed a cigarette between themselves. Only one woman responded to my greeting, the rest never even lifted their eyes.

I felt like I belonged. I longed so badly to pick up some spades and hearts and nestle my way between them. I didn’t need to say so many words, I just wanted to be close. They were the most beautiful women with all their flaws, bloodshot eyes and missing teeth. They must have been teenagers somewhere inside their aged exteriors. They had been through too much to merely be a group of young women. As I did my best to squeeze into their lives for just a moment, a small street boy took the mobile from my hand. He apparently belonged to this group of girls. Another woman with the biggest open wound of them all, just on the corner of her eye, explained emotionlessly that she also had a baby. I wondered where that sweet homeless infant must have been. She didn’t look so concerned though.

For a moment I fought back tears as I imagined where they would be in less than an hour when the sun disappeared. I wondered if their hearts filled with dread the way mine did or was it just “clock-in” for them. I felt like I was under water as I searched for words in their language but none of them held enough love in their definitions to speak out clearly. None of them gave me the ability to open my mouth. I was floating in a tank of desperation without oxygen enough to breathe. I wondered if they had ever heard the name of Jesus. Jesus the Son of God. The sinless Man. The One who would only love them, never take advantage of their souls and bodies. The One full of healing and restoration. The true Creator and Lover of the dreadful lives they sat in.

As I walked away, I let the tears flow freely. Many religious Muslim and Orthodox women stared at me, shocked that I had lowered myself to the “bad girls” level. I only continued with pride. I was overflowing with love and desperation all at once… like Romeo and Juliet must have felt, or a best friend who loses their only confinement. It was the love, desperation and heart of the Father for the unreached. For the ones who don’t care enough to even hide who they are or what they do… the ones who reek of sin, rage and pain.