Being a missionary is hard work. Everybody knows that. But the things we think of as the hard parts – lack of modern amenities, exposure to disease, and the like – only begin to scratch the surface of the difficulties of real missionary life. Often, it is the things left unsaid that really begin to erode the passion and soul of a missionary. Here are just a few of those things…

1. THEY DON’T HAVE THE TIME OR ENERGY TO WRITE…BUT THEY DO IT FOR YOU.

WHAT THEY SAY

Have you read my latest newsletter?

WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

Newsletters, blog posts, website updates – all the “experts” tell me that I need to be sending you fresh content on a regular basis so you won’t forget about me. But here’s the thing…writing is hard, especially for those who aren’t natural writers. You know what else is hard? HTML, CSS, PHP, and a bunch of other tech-geek stuff that you have to learn about just to make a decent-looking website or email. I really want to tell you what’s going on, but it’s hard to turn out grippingnarratives while I have a sick child asleep in my lap. And if I have to look up how to code a “mailto” link one more time, I’m going to scream!

2. FACEBOOK “LIKES” DON’T PAY THE BILLS.

WHAT THEY SAY

Thank you so much for the encouragement!

WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

I’m glad that you liked my Facebook status. I really am. The thing is, when I say we need $1,200 by the end of the week to pay the school fees for orphaned children, I’m talking about actual dollars and actual need. Contrary to the rumors, Bill Gates doesn’t donate a dollar for every Like. That part is up to you. So, the next time you Like my status, consider sending a few bucks my way too.

3. THEY ASK FOR MONEY BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO CHOICE.

WHAT THEY SAY

I’m trusting God to provide, and I’m so thankful for our donors.

WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

Lest you think #2 sounded a little whiny and money-hungry, you should know that I truly despise asking for money. I always have. And now I have to ask for it almost all the time. Even when I’m not asking for it, I’m thinking about asking for it. There are never enough funds to do all the good I’m trying to do, and I live with a nagging feeling that the one person I don’t ask is the one who would have written the big check. So, when I ask for money, know that I do so with fear and trembling.

4. YOU’LL NEVER HEAR ABOUT THEIR WORST DAYS.

WHAT THEY SAY

Please pray for me. It has been a challenging week.

WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

Things are pretty bad here. If I told you what’s really going on, you would either come rescue me, or think I was exaggerating. If you heard some of the things I’ve said out loud, you might question my salvation. If you knew some of the thoughts I’ve had rattling around in my head, you might question mysanity. Sometimes good days are hard to come by, but I don’t dare tell you the worst. If I did, you would probably tell me to throw in the towel.

5. THEY NEED A VACATION…BUT WON’T TELL YOU IF THEY TAKE ONE.

WHAT THEY SAY

I just need a time of refreshing.

WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

After 2 or 3 years of hard work, most people feel like they deserve a little break. Take the family to the beach. Visit a theme park, a national park, or Park City. I would love a vacation, but honestly, I feel guilty “pampering” myself, rather than putting all my time and resources into the ministry. On top of that, I know some people will judge me if my vacation is “too nice.” If I scrape and save pennies for 5 years so I can spend a week on an exotic island, you’ll never hear about it, because I can’t handle the snarky, “It must be nice” comments (the ones you’ll say to my face), or, “My donations paid for your vacation” (which you’ll think, but not say out lout – at least not to me). So, I keep some great stuff to myself for fear of being judged.

6. HOSTING TEAMS IS A NIGHTMARE.

WHAT THEY SAY

I’m so excited about your team coming!

WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

Bless your heart. You think you’re doing me a favor. Thirty people show up at my door and expect me to provide transportation, food, lodging, sight-seeing, and a list of service projects a mile long. You’re here to “help.” The thing is, the other 51 weeks out of the year, we manage to do what needs to be done here just fine. That is, except for the time we spend working on the logistics for your team. You come over and want to help build a fence, when I can hire local workers to build a fence for a tiny fraction of what you spent to come here. I appreciate your desire to help, and I even love having visitors, but consider the size and expectations of your group before you plan your trip. A team of 3 or 4 highly skilled people is much more valuable to our ministry than a gaggle of mission tourists.

7. “GOING HOME” IS A LOT OF WORK.

WHAT THEY SAY

It’s great to be back home.

WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

Please understand, I now have two homes. When I’m at one, I’m away from the other, and there is a lot of emotion involved in that. On top of that, my life is absolutely crazy when I go “home.” I have to see relatives and friends, visit with partner churches, and take care of any number of issues that have arisen with my health, my electronic devices, and my government paperwork. Whether it’s a few weeks or a few months, I spend my time living out of suitcases and hustling from one appointment to the next. Is it good to be home? Sure. But when I get on that plane to go to my other home, I breathe a sigh of relief that life is almost back to “normal.”

8. IT’S EASY FOR GOD TO TAKE A BACK SEAT IN THEIR LIFE.

WHAT THEY SAY

I’m not very good at self-care.

WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

Let’s face it, I’m no saint. I’m not any more spiritual than you are. I don’t start my day with three hours of devotional reading and prayer. I typically just get up and get to work. And there is a lot of work to be done. In fact, there is so much need here that it’s really easy to become so focused on doing things for God that I lose sight of God himself. In pursuing my calling, I’ve somehow forgotten about the caller. My spiritual life is almost nonexistent, other than the occasional desperate cry of “Why God?”

9. IT’S HARD TO TRUST PEOPLE.

WHAT THEY SAY

I’m just looking for some good strategic partners.

WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

There are good people here, there really are. But I have seen the worst of humanity in my work here – much of it from people I worked with and trusted. Other missionaries and pastors can be the worst. Just when you think you know someone, they stab you in the back, the front, and both sides. I’ve gotten to where I simply don’t trust anyone. My guard is up, and it’s not coming down. I refuse to get burned again. If that means I have to do everything myself, then so be it.

10. THEY ARE LONELY.

WHAT THEY SAY

I’m OK – just really busy with the ministry.

WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

Having neglected my relationship with God, and given up on people entirely, I’m left with just me. I hate it. I want to quit. I have dreams about what my life would be like if I went back to my old home town, to my old church, and my old friends. I could get a normal job earning a salary – with healthcare and paid vacation. I could shop and eat at normal places. Most of all, I could have normal relationships. But here? I’m all alone. I don’t know if there’s anyone like me here, and I know no one back home understands. I want to feel wanted, invited, and loved. I want someone to pour into me the way I’m pouring into others.

What would you say to a budding missionary candidate? I have a close friend who is a veteran pastor, missionary, and now a member care director in the city in which I serve. He says there has been a surge of young adults in recent years who have landed on the field, enthusiastic to redeem the city and bring justice to the oppressed. But they do not stay longer than two years due to exhaustion, dejection, and even loss of faith. The member care workers call this the “radical effect”—young adults, with bleeding hearts, seeking to do something radical for Jesus and the world, who do not follow through with their initial impulse. Often the prospects of formal theological training prior to going to the field seem irrelevant and demotivating.
In light of this challenge and my experience, I recently thought of these two key points of advice that I would give every missionary candidate.
1. Doctrine Matters
Little did I suspect that some of the greatest battles for biblical truth would not only be with Muslims, atheists, and Buddhists, but with others who claimed to be serving Christ alongside me. In my experience of many years overseas, the battle lines have been drawn on issues such as the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, the extent and the intent of God’s special revelation, the nature and mission of the church, the message and the means of gospel proclamation, the biblical qualifications of elders, the sovereignty of God and the lordship of Christ, and the nature of the unregenerate and regenerate heart. I began to observe an unspoken a-theological ethos in the missions world; indeed, in many cases, theological minimalism reigns. Mobilization efforts of would-be missionaries often focus on the prospects of exciting cultures, idealistic passions, immediate needs, and creative platforms; whole mission teams commonly unite around such emphases.
The doctrine of choice is often pragmatism: “If it works, then it must be true.” Doctrinal distinctives are usually the least common denominator. In our urgency, there is impatience with the slow work of sowing seed and for the even slower work of training up biblically qualified, indigenous elders. The need-for-speed and result-driven methods commonly shortcut the tiresome labor of training local pastors to be mighty in the Scriptures. Yet our missionary methodology always reveals our theology, or lack thereof. For instance, a deficient view of Scripture leaves the Bible unused and/or misused in evangelism and discipleship. Defective views of depravity and regeneration employ methods of “reaching” people that do not command repentance and submission to Christ’s kingship. Errant ecclesiology leads to teaching hopeful converts that they neither have to leave their native religious structures nor forsake their religious texts.
In his book Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies, and Methods (InterVarsity, 2008), Eckhard Schnabel helpfully explains:
Missionaries, evangelists, and teachers who have understood both the scandal of the cross and the irreplaceable and foundational significance of the news of Jesus the crucified and risen Messiah and Savior will not rely on strategies, models, methods, or techniques. They rely on the presence of God when they proclaim Jesus Christ, and on the effective power of the Holy Spirit. This dependence on God rather than on methods liberates them from following every new fad, from using only one particular method, from using always the same techniques, and from copying methods and techniques from others whose ministry is deemed successful.
We must heed the appeal “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). One of the enemy’s oldest tricks is to coax us to let our guard down and assume the gospel. When the hard edges of gospel doctrine are assumed, they are quickly forgotten; the mission, then, is aborted.
2. Pain Is Part of the Plan
I grew up with a health disability that would have prevented me from ever going to college, obtaining a job, or living a long, normal life. Before God mercifully delivered me from it, he graciously delivered me through it. Many days and nights I laid in the darkness of my room in much pain and nausea, praying in the silence that God would give me the sustaining grace to preach the gospel to the nations. I started pre-seminary at the age of 5 when God sent me my wisest and most influential teacher: affliction. Through his loving discipline, God taught me about his sovereign goodness and inscrutable wisdom.
Having grown up facing much affliction, and having learned well the theology of suffering under a sovereign God, I was still naïve to how unrelenting and inexplicable are the trials of the missionary life. If not for the doctrine of God’s wise sovereignty in suffering, I would never have made it. Long-term missions can indeed be a place of excitement and adventure; however, it is also inescapably a place of adversity and barrenness. It is moreover the land of self-emptying and learning to laugh at yourself; learning to think, feel, dream, and reason in a foreign language; learning to enjoy the adopted family of Christ in light of distant relationships back home; learning to keep silent in the face of stiff criticism from those who once supported you; learning to eat the Word of God as your daily food; learning to pray for your wife and children because their lives literally depend upon it; and learning to navigate wisely on the path of self-denial amid a global culture immersed in self-indulgence, self-promotion, and self-preservation.
I would soberly admonish any missionary candidate that the mission field is not all romance and radical adventure; it is also mingled with heartbreak, loss, and self-denial. But therein we discover God’s boundless love and wise providence. C. S. Lewis said in in his poem As the Ruin Falls, “The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains.”
Perhaps D. A. Carson says it best in his excellent book on suffering, How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil: The more the leaders are afflicted with weakness, suffering, perplexity, and persecution, the more it is evident that their vitality is nothing other than the life of Jesus. This has enormously positive spiritual effects on the rest of the church. The leaders’ death means the church’s life. This is why the best Christian leadership cannot simply be appointed. It is forged by God himself in the fires of suffering, taught in the school of tears. There are no shortcuts.
God loves his servants so much that he allows them to suffer, so that his grace will sustain them in order to make his glory known. Our weakness is the God-ordained instrument through which the Holy Spirit fills us with the power of Christ.

Evan Burns and his wife, Kristie, have served as long-term missionaries in the Middle East, East Asia, and now in Southeast Asia. He also serves as assistant professor of spirituality and missiology and director of online education at Asia Biblical Theological Seminary in Thailand.