The Unwritten Truth of Missionaries

Who are missionaries to you?

Are they the people you pray for at church? The people whose pictures are pinned up on the world map?  The people you send care packages to with your bible study?

The tagline on my blog is “I am a girl with a mission”. I didn’t even know why until I wrote this post. I feel like my mission is to tell everybody about the rollercoaster that is the mission field. I don’t know about you, but up until the day my family left for French learning in France, I only knew missionaries as the people whose picture was pinned up on the world map at our church. They would visit and tell about their journey, but that was it. They were just the people who, you know, do good stuff for the church and blah blah blah. Which I’m sure you know are more than that, but my little brain didn’t want to hold on to more on the matter.

Something I am really passionate about is sharing about our journey through and on the mission field because I feel that all the people who donate toward our mission, send us lovely packages, and take time out of their day to pray for our safety and well being deserve to know the honest truth of what it’s like to live out here.

Throughout my blog, for a few months, I have been hinting at how things have not been going the best. And maybe it’s about time I just confirm that it stinks. It really does. I like to make super upbeat posts and I most likely will have a smile on my face when you meet me, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

One of the things that gets me the most is when my friends post group pictures on social media. To see them all together, it makes me want to be there more than ever. I have learned to accept why we are here and why we can’t leave, but everytime I see one of those pictures it breaks my heart all over again.

It hurts when all you want is to see your dear friend’s face and all you can see is the reconnection symbol because Chadian wifi is the most unreliable thing there is.

It hurts when you go to the grocery store and you get asked a simple question and you have no idea what they said and even a less idea what to say back to them.

It hurts when you have to do school alone when you’re used to being surrounded by kids your age.

It hurts to see cute outfits on social media and know that you can’t get or wear that for a good while.

On the mission field you are constantly meeting new people. Or talking to people from your church. Often the little comment is made “I’m sure it was hard to transition into Chad.” and I just think “You have no idea.”

I think I am speaking for a lot of missionaries when I say, please pray for our journey and how it affects us. Any prayers are wonderful but something that I think is very important is to pray that we are strong enough just to be here.

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That said, I know why I am here. We all do. There is no way we would have ended up here if God hadn’t called us. And though times are harder than we imagined, God has a plan.

I am constantly struggling and constantly needing to remind myself of the “WHY”. I wonder why God would want us here struggling.

Then it all made sense. I have started doing little devotionals at night from a little book called “Walking By Faith”,and one night I read something that changed my view entirely on this whole situation. It said:

“The dark moments of our life will last only as long as necessary

for God to accomplish His purpose in us.”

That very moment it all made sense. It was like a little smack in the face. “Wake up Abby! Are you there? This is the WHY!”

God placed me here for a reason, not just my family but ME. I have barely figured that out yet but I will, because there definitely is something.

We all have things happen that are not in our favor. Things that are harder than we think we can take. But look to Him because all those hard times are less than a second compared to the time we can spend with Him.

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I hope you like today’s rant. I am not even sue what this post is supposed to mean but I think God took the wheel a bit, so it’s got to mean something.

My point is that being on the mission field isn’t some dream come true or big “adventure”. That’s one of the things that really bugs me. We are often told “This is such a cool adventure”. Which is kind of true, but that makes it seem like we are starring in a Dora the Explorer episode or something.

And after everything that we go through it all seems worth it for the rush God puts into us of thinking, “Wow, God really wants me here. My creator of the entire universe called ME.”

Lots of Love – Abby<3

P.S. If you have anything you’re curious about with our mission, lives, or anything at all, just ask. I am looking for new article ideas and I am happy to talk about whatever you want to hear! ❤