Monthly Archives: August 2023

Missionary as … Sniper

Posted on by
1

The picture of a sniper resonates with my experience of being a missionary particularly as it relates to timeline and target. On numerous recountings, I have described a former missionary’s perspective on mission to me, as we chatted at CMS Summer School one year. He said to me in the first term, learn the language and don’t kill anyone (other versions are stay married or make a friend). Second term, you can make a list of all that needs addressing. Third term, you can address the first item on that list only. Over roughly 10 years, this is a rough sketch of the missionary timeline and target.

To me the above timeline and target matches the picture of a sniper as one part of the way an army wins a war. Snipers have a key expertise. They can take out a small target from a long way away. In terms of mission service, aiming for taking out a target in the third term of service echoes this ability. It echoes the waiting and watching, basically just the time involved in this task; mission work is time intensive. Patience is required; is demanded.

The sniper pic also echoes needing a good vantage point; it takes time to learn a new culture and be able to start to speak into it. Even though I know Khmer culture more now than when I first came, I’m less inclined to offer strong pronouncements about what Khmer Christians should do; my vantage point has shown me all the things that I don’t know about Khmer culture. A wise missionary said it was easiest to teach a book of the Bible, harder to teach doctrine and even harder to teach practical ministry subjects cross-culturally. Each step requires more and more cultural knowledge to do well.

Finally, the sniper metaphor highlights a sniper’s weakness. If the enemy gets in close they are at a disadvantage in hand to hand. While a sniper is specialised, their speciality is a liability when it comes to other activities. A weakness of mine at the moment is that I struggle to understand conversations between Khmer speakers that don’t involve me. This weakness reminds us that a sniper is only one part of an army. They won’t win the war, but they play an important part. Their specialist equipment speaks to the skills they bring that are ultra good at one thing and not great at others.

As I think about timeline and target in our context: First term learn Khmer (though, never finish learning). Second term begin teaching in Khmer and later give leadership a go. Third term becomes a culmination of the first two terms: improving teaching in Khmer as I lead in various capacities. This hopefully gives you a sense of my sniper technique in terms of target and timeline.

Missionary as … Bridge

Posted on by
Reply

I used this illustration in a few previous posts, here, here, here, here, and here, the first one of those was even before we arrived. The sense that I tried to convey was that a missionary is a connector of two cultures. They stand at the intersection between two ways of life. While joining a new culture you lose some of your own culture, yet you never fully enter the new culture as an insider. You receive the blessing of two cultures, so instead of just grieving the loss of your passport country culture, you become a 150% sort of person (75% old culture and 75% the new). I know all the math brains are shaking their heads at this. Holding both cultures in our person, we become the instrument of sharing In the same way that a bridge enables sharing. As I said in the previous post, it allows riches to pass from both locations to the other. These riches are ideas, habits, resources and most importantly relationships. This sharing happens through the mediation of the missionary. The clash of cultures in the missionary shapes them and they no longer fit in their passport country, but neither in their location fully. Instead, like a bridge, they hover over the water, occupying the midway between two.

Now in the picture I’m not really hovering, but it seems more like I will crumble in a second. The value of this picture is a further implicit meaning. Unintentionally my local friend is bearing most of my weight, while my expat friend gets off lightly. This does represent a truth as well. Locals often bear the burdens of missionaries in heavier ways than those from the missionary’s country. There is both blessing and burden. Or someone wise might say that the burden is the blessing.

Missionary as … Series

Posted on by
Reply

I used the photo above in our first year in Cambodia, here, in a blog series about settling in to a new country. It was meant to illustrate all the decisions that missionaries need to make when they first arrive. It was part of a time when I was working out Cambodia as a place. Growing in my knowledge of Cambodia as a place also means growing in my knowledge of my place in Cambodia. That is, part of getting to know a location is knowing our place in that location. This series is about that; our place in this location, Cambodia.

Over the years I have been toying with different descriptions that capture our experience as missionaries here. Some of these, like the Bridge description, here, I have been fiddling with since before we even arrived in Cambodia. Others I have found helpful as I reflect on being on location, here. Hopefully they provide helpful insights into our experience crossing cultures in ministry. In sharing them I seek to both further consolidate my thinking on these mission images, while at the same time providing a sense of what we do and why we do it this way. Hope you find these helpful. Would love to hear your thoughts and create some interaction around these pictures of mission.