The Hidden Problems of Mission
It’s a hard life being a missionary. I lived with a few for nine months last year in a place called Djibouti (a country the size of Wales but with fewer sheep, with a capital city of the same name, tucked in between Ethiopia, northern Somalia and the Red Sea). As I said, it’s a hard life; of course there are little inconveniences like the heat (Djibouti’s the hottest city in the world (up to 50 degrees Celsius in Summer), malaria carrying mosquitoes etc., but the main problem is the work. These poor missionaries are expected to show our Muslim friends the true way to God, but are hampered by the Bible itself!
For those of you who haven’t read it, the Bible contains a lot of, to say the very least, inconvenient instructions that Christians are meant to follow. The basic instructions about loving people and being nice are well known, but on reading the Bible more carefully, these missionaries found … SPECIFIC instructions! They are told to share their possessions with other belivers; to offer hospitality; to encourage good honest toil; and ultimately to aim for “equality amongst Christians” (this last one comes from 2 Corinthians).
So where’s the problem? In a country where about half the inhabitants are refugees, where there is chronic unemployment, people living on the streets or ten to a room and all the missionaries come from the affluent West, there’s a real problem.
If Western missionaries were to share their (by our standards, meagre) possessions with the poor they would soon be in no position to offer the services they do (a school, agricultural aid, workshops etc) and the question is to whom to give. Converts from Islam to Christianity are at an obvious disadvantage having often lost any support they might have received from family, friends etc, and would be first on the list for help. Similarly for accommodation and food (see “hospitality” above); when a person faces homelessness for believing in Jesus the least a missionary could do would be to offer shelter.
These factors can result in trouble because of “rice Christians”, i.e. people who claim to be Christians, but aren’t, in order to receive some kind of benefit from the missionaries. Some young men I knew did this to try to get me help them obtain visas to the U.K. but generally expectations are more basic. This has two particularly damaging effects. First is the temptation to treat everyone who claims to be a Christian with suspision; that famous passage on love says that love always trusts and hopes, which is easier said than done when so many people are trying to deceive you. Secondly, missionaries are accused of “buying converts” (one government officer asked, not totally tongue in cheek, how much he’d get if he became a Christian). Some unscrupulous sects do indeed use bribes, and some ex-Muslims (in contravention of orthodox Islam I hasten to add) were offered money and protection if they returned to Islam.
And as for encouraging honest toil, though the mission can offer very few permanent jobs, and certainly none to refugees with no work permits, help is always needed with various practical tasks (a lot of my time was spent building the classroom in which I taught, welding, messing around with Landrovers, etc). Most of these jobs require some kind of ability, and often the people with the relevant skills and belief in hard work were Ethiopian refugees, not from the majority Somali group. Choosing the best person for the job could lay the missionaries open to charges of discrimination. There’s more to loving one’s neighbour as oneself and spreading the good news than meets the eye, so spare a thought (and a prayer even) for the hidden problems of mission.