Being Useful in Their Society

From LW, 2004
The apostle Paul was a tentmaker missionary; he made and sold tents while spreading the Gospel.  Today, the term tentmaker missionary refers to a missionary who works at any secular paying job.  Whether a person does or does not work at a paying job on the mission field, an important piece of mission work is being able to be useful in the society to which you are sharing the Gospel.  Being able to work alongside people, introduce new strategies or new tools altogether to the benefit of the society, and helping to improve the lives of people displays respect, humility and love.  I would like to learn more specifically about tentmaker missionaries to closed countries—what their means was of entering the country and how they went about sharing the Gospel.  I would also like to learn how how I myself may be useful in a society, how missionaries are labeled by the people in countries, the positive and negative sides to tentmaker missionaries, and useful skills to have as a missionary.

From interview with EB and PB:
“One of the key characteristics of a missionary is tolerance to ambiguity and multiple tasks.”  He was called as an agriculturalist but that probably only accounted for 20% of what he did.  They started businesses and were directors of a hospital while they were there.

Interview with Dr. B:
He came into a culture where one out of every two children were dying before the age of five and focused on that need.  He helped build a hospital which changed that deathly rate to 9 out of 10 children making it past the age of 5!  Some other ways that he was useful in their society:  he helped create peace between three warring tribes and was named a justice of the peace; he translated their language into writing which improved upon the peoples’ inferior feelings about themselves; as a result he saw the transformation of an entire culture now able to read the Word of God in their own language.  Dr. B. was also able to take his monthly salary and help to partner with families in sending their children to get an education and he was them become  doctors, teachers, lawyers, etc…

From Interview with JC and CC:  He was able and expected to hire people and provide jobs for them within his home including:  laundry, cook, and security guard.

 They had many home schooling curriculum resources with books at all different levels of reading, so they created a library for the people to check out books.

 When someone was sick, their medical solution for everything was tea.  She carried around with her her “doctor book” and was able to help a lot of sick people through diagnosis, prayer, and western medicine.

From Class discussion, April 15^th: For medical missions to be holistic, then teaching and prayer must be brought in as well as medicine—otherwise we could be seemingly supporting atheism rather than faith in God. 

From textbook Stepping out, chapter 19, “No Longer Strangers:” 
“After two months in Brazil, Joyce wrote in her diary:  ‘Its hard for me to believe that people who look so alike on the outside can be and think so differently on the inside.  Even though we are both Christians, we perceive reality from opposite sides of the sea” (109). 

“Learning the language and studying the culture are two steps that can prepare you to know people personally.  Don’t stop there.  Attempt to develop friendships with different types of people, from taxi drivers to night watchmen, from secretaries to village midwives.  Talk to people across the spectrum of social roles and levels in society.  Attend local churches.  Observe regional celebrations.  Try relaxing under the trees, or playing soccer” (110). 

“Linguists Tom and Betty Brewster highly recommend “bonding” with your host culture by living in the home of a local family for the first week or more after arriving overseas.  This exposure will develop a personal, social, cultural, and spiritual bond between you and your hosts unlike anything you can develop in classes or by reading a book.  Bonding comes by rubbing life on life” (110).

“Be aware that friendships in other cultures often do not mean exactly what we think they might.  What we call friend, other cultures might call acquaintance.  Friendship for them involves a commitment of time and self sacrifice to a degree many Westerneers do not understand and for which they’re unprepared” (110).

“Many cultures maintain a protective distance.  All the information you will need to close this gap is readily available.  But you’ll have to ask those around you.  Spend time viewing life from the perspective of the nationals.  Learn to ask good questions of your national co workers and friends” (110).

“Prayer will sensitize you to interpersonal issues to be resolved.  Work to remove or tear down those barriers over which you have some control or influence.  Focus on similarities between people and culture; don’t highlight the differences.  Find a reliable sponsor in your culture who is willing to give you honest and direct feedback on your language and behavior.  Let that person serve as both a model and teacher to you in the nuances of cultural differences and folkways” (110). 

Ideas from BP, 2003

Development: a process enabling a community to provide for its own needs, beyond former levels, with dignity and justice.

  Tentmaker: a cross-cultural witness who works at a paying, usually secular, job overseas. Often they are able to gain entry into “closed” countries which restrict traditional mission efforts. Tentmakers rarely make tents for a living, like the apostle Paul did, but they all should have the intention to further God’s work. -         Stepping Out, pg. 57

  Dealing with culture shock is important for being useful in their society. These five practical ideas for dealing with culture shock will enable you to live and be useful in their society:

1. Talk it Out- talk with a national friend especially
2. Get into a routine- language learning often gives a built in way to get to know locals
3. Try to learn the local language- learning a person’s language communicates respect and acceptance
4. Learn all you can
5. Examine your expectations
6. Keep learning about your own culture
7. Use the opportunity to grow spiritually   --Stepping Out, pg. 148

In order to be useful in their society, make sure to keep yourself healthy  -- Stepping Out, pg. 161

  Being useful in their society involves making a personal strategy choice.  One choice is to hold a secular job. People in other cultures are not used to knowing people who do not have to work. It is possible that for a foreigner to be accepted into a culture, they may need to hold a secular job. Secular jobs give opportunities for spouses to also make connections, serve roles and become part of the common culture. 

Being useful in their society might happen through a social service such as a medical position  The other strategy for being useful in a society is to be useful as a religious staff member. -- Class 2/17/03

In addition to being useful in their society, it is often expected that you will contribute to the local economy as well. For example, foreigners may hire locals to do housework or other work for them. This is not viewed as lazy. Instead, not hiring and supporting the local system may be viewed as stinginess.  -- Class 2/17/03

  Baking and English teaching brought people into Jim’s home when he was in Taiwan. Their oven and English skills were what they could offer the people in their neighborhood, community and network.-- Interview with Jim Found

Household help might be a necessity when living on the mission field. It might be accepted that you have household help. People may know you have money, and will consider you to be “unselfish” or “unwilling to share your wealth” if you do not have household help.  - Taped Interview of Karen B, 2-24-03

“After bible translation, what? Many Things!  Literacy, of course, since even a New Testament is useless without someone to read it.  More translation, so much of the NT is meaningless without the OT background.  Leadership training is an urgent and unending need.  Writing and publication of literature: textbooks for the leadership training classes, Bible study guides and commentaries, Biblical history and geography, Sunday School materials, tracts for evangelism

Medical work usually is very urgent.  Tools with which to work: tracts, cassette tapes and players, filmstrips, projectors.  

Music is so basic to a vital Christian church.  Consequently, one of the greatest needs on the mission fields today is for missionaries who are equipped to follow up the translators and evangelists, feeding and strengthening the young tribal churches they have founded.” - Mission Work in Today’s World, pg. 157-158

The D's found themselves in a small medical outreach because the people found out they could be diagnosed and get medicine.  It built repoire with the Muslim people; they felt confidence in the D's. They were able to pass the ministry on to local people before it got out of hand.  The village has projects they would sometimes help with.  Interview with the D's, 4-28-03

Initially, the approach to working with the Yala-speaking people in Nigeria was medical work through a medical center. Before their work began, 1 in 2 children died by the age of 5- mainly from diseases such as malaria, hepatitis, small pox and the measles. The B's also worked to reduce the Yala language to writing and develop programs of literacy.  - Interview with Dr. B, 5-6-03

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