A third-year student spent the summer in a country in South Asia as they prepare for overseas mission. Here are their reflections on their time away.
Not Your Average Worship Session
It was a short walk from shop to mosque. My host donned his topi (Islamic hat), got up from his cashier’s desk, told me tersely, “let’s go,” and began escorting me across town. Walking away from his hardware store, I’d usually have been greeted by stares, smiles and giggles from the locals - not many 6 foot 5” white men go wandering around these parts of the world. But there wasn’t much of that today. As we continued walking in silence, we joined a steady stream of focused-looking men and boys going over the bridge, through the strewn litter and past the chicken shacks, piles of jackfruit and parked up CNGs (tuk tuks) towards the main mosque for Friday prayers. There was barely a woman in sight. Public worship here is exclusively male.
We filed into the mosque in silence. I’d asked my host the previous day in some broken local language whether I could come with him. He’d looked surprised, but said yes. I thought he’d understand that I meant come and observe. My mistake. Just as he’d told me how to eat the food, how to walk along muddy paths in rainy season, how to avoid too much idle chat with curious locals – now he simply told me where to put my shoes, how to ritually wash myself, where to stand in the prayer hall, how to stand, how to kneel, how to pray like a Muslim. This was all he knew about how to worship his God.
I experienced a rush of excited and disturbed thoughts.
Well, I’m here now, and I can’t walk away and shame my host in front of the others.
Aren’t I free as a Christian to still come here and bow down to my Father, not to Muslims’ Allah?
I can’t understand Arabic, anyway.
This marble floor is killing my knees.
Didn’t my mission lecturer talk about C5 contextualisation? Christians worshipping in mosques?
If only my old-school, east-end nan could see me now!
Father, I’m bowing down to you in the name of Jesus Christ.
May the living water of your Spirit flow in this lush yet arid land.
And then, in the space of about fifteen minutes, we were up and out again, re-joining the stream of men and boys. There were some bemused looks, and hushed questions of “Musolman?” (Muslim?), but mostly people exited in joyless silence, back to their work or studies, or to milling around town, the relentless push and pull of poverty driving people back to earn their crust. The spiritual highpoint of their week was over. For me, the 'observational' experience was both entirely forgettable in its spiritual substance and yet unforgettable in having just worshipped in a mosque alongside row upon row of Muslim men.
But still, there was no joy for them. Only duty.
“The joy of the Lord is your strength”
The contrast of this with the Christians I met during my seven weeks in South Asia is probably the best way to summarise the impact of my time out there.
I met many different Christians: Western missionaries, Majority-world missionaries, South Asian believers from multigenerational Christian families who’d originally converted from Hinduism and animism, South Asian believers who’d either left Islam themselves or had followed in the footsteps of their parent’s conversion (Muslim background believers – ‘MBBs’). Along with this, I had very many insightful and precious conversations with them (often over good food) about their lives and testimonies, about serving in God’s kingdom, about suffering, missiology and ecclesiology and so on. I’m so grateful to the Lord to have had these learning opportunities.
But with the differences of context, culture and personality all taken into consideration, all of these believers unmistakably and consistently possessed this one thing: joy. You could see they had been touched by the love of Christ. And in a place as spiritually dark and dead as this South Asian country, this light shines brightly indeed.
We follow a suffering Messiah
Christians make up about 0.5% of this country's population. Crammed into their small nation is a vast sea of spiritual lostness. The believers there often reported feeling the strain of being such a tiny and persecuted minority in amongst the largest unreached people group in the world.
One foreign missionary, so seemingly full of life and joy, was also heartbreakingly honest about the misery of the brokenness around her, from financial deception and domestic violence, to sexual abuse and suicide. She grappled with Jesus’ commendation of the beleaguered church in Smyrna – “I know your afflictions and your poverty – yet you are rich!” (Revelation 2:9) – struggling to see the goodness in this for the almost carbon copy MBB churches (or, better said as this fledgling stage, 'fellowships') in this land. Why does it have to be this way? Amidst the joy of Christ, there is suffering and confusion. Of course, it was such a privilege to get to listen in on this.
Because for all this talk of joy, the message I got from the missionaries I met was clear: this is a very hard place to serve Jesus.
They knew of several missionaries who hadn’t just left the field, but had renounced their faith entirely. There are mosquitoes and diseases galore. There’s the almost unremitting humidity and the threat of pollution and ever-worsening floods. There’s the constant noise and bustle, and the systemic corruption that oppresses so many and keeps the majority of the country impoverished. There’s the fight for survival of the majority of the population, and the difficulty of knowing how best to educate your kids. There’s the reality of a ministry that is slow-going, full of disappointments and often, seemingly, bearing little fruit. The ‘cons’ list goes on.
“Seek first his kingdom…”
But in spite of all this, if there’s one thing from my trip to South Asia that stays with me more than anything else, it’s the against-all-the-odds joy of the MBBs, people who I’d like to one-day work among. They’re few in number, few in resources, and all of them have a tale of persecution to tell, yet their love for Christ – knowing that they’re eternally loved by him – is utterly beautiful and compelling. Not only this, but their stories of encountering Jesus as Lord for themselves offer so much hope and clear evidence that God is working powerfully in this nation to save.
If there’s one good reason to outweigh all of the ‘cons’ of serving in a tough place like this, it’s that God’s kingdom is already there, albeit fledgling and suffering, in the persecuted church. Moreover, I truly believe that God’s kingdom call is to prioritise Christ’s concerns and Christ’s people, to be blessed and to bless in return; to help with whatever resources God has gifted to us in any way we can.
That could be help by praying. Help by raising awareness. Help by giving money.
Or help by going. Help by staying there. Help by simply being present to serve.
As my main missionary hosts told me while we enjoyed sweet cha (tea) together and the best mango I’ve ever tasted, this country certainly has great need. But perhaps its greatest need is for long-term workers who’ll come and learn the language, who'll learn the culture, and who’ll have a persevering ministry of presence amongst the local church and people, serving in whatever way the Lord leads.
In other words, people who’ll give their lives.
People who already know inexpressible joy.
