Changes
Your short-term missionary service has probably changed you. Tennyson wrote in Ulysses, “I am a part of all that I have met.” Every experience we have changes us to some extent, but many people find that their first cross-cultural experience changes them greatly. Seeing the world through someone else’s eyes makes you realize that things are not always what they seemed to you.
Changes in Bible Times
Jonah
Like many people in short-term missionary service, Jonah was profoundly changed while serving—or was he? Let us look at him before, during, and after his short-term of service.
Before: Jonah did not want to go.
During: After God pursued him, Jonah appeared to become a “model missionary.”
From all observable factors he was a successful missionary. His ministry resulted in 120,000 people being saved during his short-term service. However, the changes in Jonah were only surface, and they did not last.
After: Jonah was unhappy and outraged at God.
Inside Jonah was still just like he was before he served. He essentially told God, “I knew this would happen before I left home—that’s why I ran the other way. I knew that you were a gracious, compassionate, loving God, and you would change your mind about destroying Nineveh!” No deep change in Jonah!
Paul
We previously read in Acts 14 about Paul and Barnabas returning to their “home church” in Antioch where they had been commissioned. They had completed their work during their first term, and they gathered their local church together to report what had happened. They reported two things (v. 27). First, they reported all that God had done with them. Second, they reported how God had saved those of other cultures.
After Paul and Barnabas had been in Antioch a long time at the end of their first term, some people from Judea came down to Antioch and said that people of other cultures could not be saved unless they were circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses. When the local church in Antioch could not settle the matter, they sent Paul and Barnabas up to headquarters in Jerusalem to try to get it settled. After much debate, the administrators at headquarters “settled” the question and sent their decision back to Antioch in writing. (Acts 15).
This was a case of the missionaries, Paul and Barnabas, being changed because of their extensive contact with the Gentiles. They knew that God saved people who did not follow the customs of Moses. However some people (the Judiazers) back near headquarters had not changed.
Changes Today
My Story
Though I had prayed for missionaries and given to missions most of my life, I had never had a passion to be personally involved in missions. My involvement had been doing what I thought a Christian should do, not something I needed to be involved in myself. Now I was excited about missions and thought others should be as well. I could not understand why others seemed so apathetic.
I did not realize I had been the same as the others before I went until one member of our Bible study group said, “Ron, you have really changed. We are still the same.”
Another member of the group said, “Don’t worry. It’ll wear off. Mine did.”
A colleague of mine at the College said, “You’re just going through a mid-life crisis.”
Mission work was no longer something others did. It now was something I felt compelled to be an integral part of myself. I did not know exactly what I was to do, but I was called to do something. I was confused and searching for specifics but had not yet found any of them. All I knew was that I could not go back to being what I was before.
Your Story
During the weeks or months you were gone on your short-term missionary service, you, your friends, your family have all changed to some extent. However, you have probably changed much more than those who remained at home, especially if this is your first cross-cultural experience. Those who remained at home were not exposed to the same new ways of thinking and acting, so they have probably changed only slightly.
It is important not only for you to know that you have changed but also for you to know how you have changed. Like Jonah, some people return from their short-term service disgusted and sorry that they ever went, and they never want to return again. Like Paul, other people return excited about their time of service and take up the cause of world missions. What are some of the ways you may have changed?