Three Truths One Lie

We’re coming up quickly to the end of our first stretch on the mission field. We’ve been here in Budapest for three and a half years, so what have we learnt? Well let me share with you today three truths and one lie.

Truth 1: The vision won’t look the same as the physical expression of that vision. Know the one who calls you.

As missionaries, we all come in with a vision of what overseas ministry is going to look like. And the idea is holy, it has brought us to this place. But that doesn’t promise us that the working out of that vision won’t look different. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is definitely not going to look how you thought it would.

Do it anyway.

There are things that do look similar to that initial vision: I knew I would be going into a lot of countries and capturing what they are doing in their ministries. And I am. Some of my most meaningful experiences have included shooting footage while our teams dropped aid into Ukraine 4 days into their war. I have videoed and interviewed my way around Catania, capturing the work that God is doing with the migrants through the willingness of the team. I have seen good work happening in Estonia, and in Spain.

But 90% of the time, I’m here in Budapest, editing in this office, making friends with local Hungarians, and learning little by little how they see the world. I’m learning how my American colleagues see the world.

The thing that gives me consistency through all this change in vision is knowing the God who called me. Even when the calling itself feels like it has changed, God has not. He is always good. He always has my back. He is always teaching me something, and loving me. So I can always rely on that, even when the world around me is changing.

Truth 2: 90% of the time, there is an ordinariness to the calling. Know the one who calls you.

My work and my life is far more ‘ordinary’ than I thought it was going to be. In fact, it became ordinary quite quickly. Then the real work began. I can see how this happens in normal life too. We move to a church, we love the newness of it, the great worship, the happy faces of strangers making us feel welcome, the coffee in the sparkly new foyer. But it slowly becomes normal. We have our first disagreement with the sermon choice. The backup singer wears an inappropriate skirt one week. The coffee volunteer sleeps in and we have to sit through our first service without a coffee in hand. These things also happen on the mission field. Holy colleagues turn into normal colleagues. That new exotic city starts to become known, it’s good side and it’s bad. The church pastor still hasn’t said hi and it’s been 3 months now. But it’s the sticking through things when they become ordinary that will give us the consistency we need to do the work God has called us to.

There are people in the Bible who also show us this principle. Naaman nearly turned down his healing because he didn’t like the ‘ordinariness’ of what he was asked to do. David practiced his slingshot on wild animals that attacked his sheep, never knowing that he would one day kill a giant on behalf of his nation’s army. Something you’re putting time and practice into now is going to be the key to a big victory in the future. Don’t look down on the small things! Don’t belittle your skill with that camera or that classroom of primary school students. One day those skills or that environment is going to be the key to something big.

I didn’t know how God was going to piece together my pastoral background with my experience in photography and design. There was a lot of trust in moving from one path to another, but God knew. He knew I’d end up here in the mission field, camera in hand with a willingness to talk about God. In knowing God, in spending time with God, I am reminded that the ordinary is actually the great. The attitude I take with me to do the ordinary is the very thing God is looking at.

Truth 3: You’re going to mess up, and it’s going to be big. Know the one who calls you.

No amount of prep and experience will remove the fact that you will make mistakes. And for all it’s perks, missions is one of the places where mistakes seem to cost a lot. I’ve said this a few times recently, but I’m going to say it again. When you make a mistake in work at home, you may lose your job. When you make a mistake in church at home, you may have to change churches. But when you make a mistake here in missions, your whole circle changes. You may lose your job, home, church, local friendships, everything. The potential cost of making a mistake is quite high.

However, there have been multiple times on this journey that I have messed up and I’m still here. One of my big mistakes was underestimating my need for cross-cultural study. Even after eventually doing the study, I have still offended people and caused damage through numerous cultural misunderstandings. And again, this is happening mainly in the ordinary spaces with teammates, not in the street with Hungarians doing a massive miraculous work.

On top of that, the sin that I have struggled with my whole life did not miraculously disappear when I moved here. Turns out becoming a missionary is not a fast track to becoming holier than everyone else. In fact, my sin supersized. There’s no way to quite prepare yourself for the way your biggest weakness becomes an even bigger version of that already big problem. Thankfully, I had people around me who showed me an insane amount of grace. And God provided a way out, he forgave me, as usual, and he empowered me through his Holy Spirit to overcome once again and pull up out of the mud.

Know the one who calls you. He’s faithful, even when we aren’t. He forgives even when we can’t. And he provides us with way more grace than we ever deserve, and then calls us right back to the work. He wouldn’t have called me here knowing all my weaknesses and low points and then not given us the grace and forgiveness to keep going. It’s the kind of God he is and I’ve never been more grateful for it.

The Lie: If you obey a calling to missions, God will bless you by removing the hard things and the spiritual battles.

This is one of the lies that was fully integrated into my system of belief. I genuinely thought that even in some small way, if I’m following God’s call to the other side of the world it’s going to get easier or better. But we are not promised that. We are promised that we will overcome. We are promised peace. We are promised the constant companionship of God. But he never says life will get easier when we follow him. In fact he tells us to pick up our cross and follow him up the hill towards death. That’s never easy to get your head around, and it’s not an easy path to follow.

But what I can tell you is the peace and the companionship and the victories over sin are all worth far more to me right now than a comfortable life. My story is full of bumps and bruises, but I’m here. I have learnt a lot more about God and about myself. I’ve learnt a lot more about my family and what we’re capable of.

Are you in the middle of a similar challenge? Rest assured that God ordained this. Keep leaning into God, make him your first priority, and get to know him, like really know him.

And in the words quoted in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, “It’ll be ok in the end. If it’s not ok, it’s not the end.”