How to treat “your” missionary

Those of you who know our family, know that we are so fortunate to still have our own company back home, so even though we’re are out travelling and volunteering in missions, we still have some income, which pays for what we do and a little extra to treat ourselves and our children.
Even though we are not showering in money and luxury, we are able to afford our flights, housing and food from the income we have. There’s normally not a lot left for much extras or a typical Norwegian lifestyle when we are back home, but we very much realize we’re getting by way way better than many.

We are on a short term trip in Cambodia at the moment and this blog was written towards the end of our family-weekend in a nice hotel in Siem Reap.

We also got to visit Angkor Wat, which is a ‘must do’ when in Cambodia.

It was so awesome to be able to do this, a real treat for ourselves and our children, and I can promise you… we already have a pretty great ywam base with A/C and amazing food, very different from how other missionaries sometimes live.
I wish we could have taken the whole team with us as a treat, they deserve it so much more than we do! We are often surrounded by missionaries (young and old) who barely have enough for food and housing and they live on total faith for even their return ticket to get home, so there’s no way that some extra support will go to other than saving up for that flight, or the next staff fees.

So, this is a big thank you to everyone out there in the world who sponsors a missionary out on the field, without you, all those ‘out there’ couldn’t do what they’re doing: bringing Jesus to the unreached, teaching English, translating and distributing Bibles, building schools, rebuilding houses after storms, loving the orphans, bringing food to the poor, making neighbor kids happy with fun and games, training other missionaries, bringing hope, bringing medication, bringing skills, bringing joy, bringing love and sooooo much more!
Because of you this next generation will hear about Jesus even more!
Because of you lives are being touched!
Because you choose to pray for and financially support a missionary. Thank you!

Being a missionary is something we feel led to do.
I’ll generalize missionaries as “we”, this might or might not be true for all missionaries, but I’d think this is definitely true for most of us:
We love meeting people all over the world and making friendships, we love sharing God’s love, we love the adventurous side of it,  and we might even love learning a new language to connect with locals and eat the local cuisine.
We love being a missionary!

But, here’s the deal.
It can be hard too!

We probably live in a country we don’t know with a language we don’t know (yet), we miss our family and friends, we eat food we’re not used to (with the accompanying belly aches), we shower with cold water (if we are lucky to have a shower available) and we might not have a toilet like we’re used to at home, we have to deal with bugs you’ve never heard of and geckos are our friends because they eat (some of) the mosquitoes.
We jokingly say we’re “suffering for the lord” and secretly we feel we are sometimes.

Don’t get me wrong, we do want to stay in missions, we do love our lives and it’s all sooo worth it. We very much appreciate your prayers and feel the love and blessing!

My point of this blog is here:
The financial support you send us is so much appreciated, but also so needed. With it, we pay our housing, our food and support projects our organisation might have. For most of us this means.. there is not a whole lot left for a coffee or a coke, and if there is more…. we feel guilty about using any of “your” money on anything else.

If we buy that nice long skirt (because hey, we normally need to dress modestly, and we wash by hand and clothes don’t last very long), we almost don’t dare to post it online, because ‘what will our sponsors think’.
We might live in a country where we can have a our nails blinged up for 2 dollars, which is awesome (because we actually love to feel pretty instead of dusty and sweaty every now and then, and we can talk about Jesus with our nail lady – win win), but posting it online? not so much!

Being a missionary in a country with a beach close by? Better be careful with those picture on your day off. Why not post it? Because we feel we shouldn’t, because we don’t feel it’s our money to spend.

Is that how we want it to be for those people we send out, who we support and who we love for doing what they do – giving so much to share God’s love with people without hope?!

May I encourage you to tell “your” missionary how much you appreciate what they are doing, and let them know it’s OK to treat themselves like everyone else?
Even better – may I be so bold to ask you to bless them with a little extra some times and tell them to check in to a nice hotel or guest house in a city somewhere with the extra money; to get a hot shower, a bath, clean and fresh towels, a plate of french fries or pizza, a new dress or shirt, or whatever they would need to recharge.

When being in long term missions, a short break away from reality and eating food you’re used to from home, can mean so much!

Would you go the extra mile and share the extra love with “your” missionary?

Do you have a heart for missions, for seeing God’s love change the world, but you don’t have the possibility to be ‘out there’ yourself?
Support someone who is willing to go, and be part of the blessing!

Thank you for listening and for your support and prayer.
Without you all, we wouldn’t even be here in the first place!

Be blessed and be a blessing!