EMQ » January–March 2021 » Volume 57 Issue 1
By Greg Carter
This is it – everything we had hoped it would be. Yes, the journey was much longer, and certainly more circuitous than we could ever have imagined, but we were here! Finally arrived in the place we had long dreamed and prayed for; we are now missionaries, on-site, in the country we love. And yet that first night, I wept uncontrollably. Why?
My wife, Jessie, and I[1] had learned through our training at MTI[2] about the five stages in the transition bridge. For us, the chaos started around Thanksgiving of 2016. We were downsizing our lives, selling most of our worldly possessions, packing up our lives. Adding to this Jessie was pregnant. The plan had been to have baby number three on our first home assignment. So much for that ideal. Unlike the first two, baby number three engulfed Jessie with waves of nausea.
We were leaving all that we knew that gave us stability: exiting the church missions home, Jessie leaving her best friend, watching the new owner of our minivan drive away. The accumulation of so many emotions in those last months came cascading down on me in our little, temporary airport hotel room. It was a release of the compounded stress. And it didn’t stop there. Life was really hard; our emotions seemed to be held together by a shoestring. What are we doing here?
Let me take you back through my journey – the journey of moving from casual interest in missions, through the process of preparing for the seemingly overwhelming challenges of living successfully cross-culturally. Jessie and I will share this space with Nick, our missions pastor, for his impressions.[3]
How This All Got Started
Jessie and I met as young adults on the same missions team to Japan. I remember telling her that if you are not headed to missions, then we shouldn’t date. Her call to missions came at a youth camp when she was only thirteen. Thus, we knew when we got married that we would be missionaries. And we both assumed that it would be Japan.
We chose to attend Community Baptist Church (CBC) the Sunday after our honeymoon because of their strong missions focus. We were vaguely familiar with their missionary prep program but didn’t want to do it – too long. Looking back, we are so thankful for those five – yes five! – years. We probably wouldn’t have endured the stresses of the first few years on the field without that preparation. We desperately needed to learn those things on this side of the ocean.
Nick’s Turn
I remember our first conversation. Jake asked me what it looked like, in general, to be a missionary. I asked where they wanted to serve and Jake said that his heart was in Japan. I encouraged him not to limit it to his own personal experience. CBC had no other missionaries there, though the country did fit our strategic plan. We finished that initial conversation agreeing that we would both keep an open hand; either one of us might change the destination.
I then explained the Missionary Development Process (MDP),[4] which describes how someone is sent by CBC. Jake’s first question was how long the MDP process would take. Hearing probably two and a half to three years, they sat back and looked at each other. That hit them hard. They already had a relationship with an agency and had been assigned a coach. I explained that choosing an agency is typically in the second stage of the MDP. Talking again a few days later, I could feel the tension as Jake said that they would need to look for a different sending church. Long story short, the Dumovics went back to the agency to explain their dilemma. The agency encouraged them to stay with CBC. A church that is so supportive is rare; don’t change horses at this stage of the game.
The MDP
Nick: The MDP process formalizes next steps for people who want to become a missionary. It’s a checklist directing specific steps the individual takes at his own pace, toward readiness. We utilize mentors who keep the mentorees moving in the right direction.
When the wannabe missionary begins the process, he signs an MOU.[5] We make it very clear that there is no guarantee that you will be sent or supported by CBC. The initial application is followed by a grueling 2-hour interview. I meet with them and their mentor and lay out expectations that hopefully prevent misunderstandings.
The MDP involves a lot of assessments. We require the writing of a doctrinal statement, a test of Bible knowledge. The mentoree is given a case study of a problem brought to him/her by a teammate, and s/he needs to give a response founded upon Scripture. The capstone in this phase is an oral defense of the doctrinal statement; you could reasonably equate this to an ordination council. The group includes the senior pastor, another pastor, and a professor of a local seminary; all of whom asked questions.
Jake: We jumped into the MDP process, doing the assessments, checking things off the list. Seemed like I spent the whole summer writing my doctrinal statement, understanding that I would defend it orally. With all the parties involved, scheduling was really hard. I was still working full-time, and Jessie was a teacher (and pregnant with our first). Finally, we had it scheduled for a Wednesday evening after work. The first question was, “How do you know God’s Word is sufficient?” Looking back, I know what he meant. But at the time, I’m thinking, What language are you speaking? I fumbled around, gave some inadequate answer, and started to sweat profusely. Needless to say, the experience was really humbling, even more so considering that I had graduated from a Bible school.
Nick: Jake and Jessie moved through assessment phase well, but the oral defense rocked their world. He did well on most of the questions. The one where he stumbled was bibliology. He crashed, disappointed in himself. A retake was scheduled for 6 months later. I knew that Jake was frustrated, and I gave him several books to read to address his deficiency. The second time around he nailed it; I was so proud of him. He would have earlier argued all day long that he was ready. But this time he aced it.
Not Quite So Fast. How About an Internship?
Jake: With the oral defense behind me, I thought that we were ready to go. Then I was told I needed ministry experience. Rather than raising support in 2015, would I wait a year? What?! While I initially saw this as a roadblock in our timeline, this also turned out to be good because I was hired by the church as a pastoral intern.[6]
Nick: I described this internship to Jake. You will be in my office, with me in every meeting, in every counseling situation, be like a fly on the wall. You’ll attend pastoral staff meetings, deacon meetings, executive leadership meetings. You’ll see how staff gets along well, how to disagree with passion and vigor, see and watch disagreement; all among people who love and respect each other.
We debriefed staff meetings. What is important is not what decisions are made, rather, pay close attention to how they are made. What and how we present, interact, deal with someone who might be acting in the flesh – that is what you want to learn from these meetings. And this is applicable on the mission field. As much as we try to operate in love, we still sometimes mess up. I cautioned Jake that I would let him down, that sometimes he would be frustrated with me or with the senior pastor, but he would have to learn how to deal with it. Because of the time I would need to invest, Jake had to bring enough initiative and productivity to the table that there would be a net gain, otherwise this would be a failed process.
Jake: There was tension at the beginning of the internship. Nick was in the office only two days during the first month. What he did leave me with was an email listing fifty assignments. One of those was to read through his backlog of emails; Nick is overwhelmed with emails. As a result, some were shelved for months, and my assigned job was to sift through them, review and determine how to respond. I needed to give a rationale for why to proceed or not. One of the benefits was that I gained proficiency in communicating at a pastoral level with people. I learned how to nuance my writing. This helped me see how to consolidate my thoughts in being considerate of the recipients.
Honestly, during the internship my heart was tested too. That summer the office was remodeled. The maintenance staff needed everyone to empty our offices and move down the hallway to a separate room. Nick was gone, so packing his office was my job. My flesh was saying, Am I this guy’s servant? This is not what I signed up for. Several days later Nick pulls me into his office. “Hey, I noticed tension between us. What’s going on?” Busted! “Is it that obvious?” While this sounds trivial it helped me understand that there are lots of things we may not want to do but need to do. And I’ve found this to be true in Japan. I spend lots of time “moving things around.” I need to be a servant to others; sometimes missionary work is grunt work.
One of the clearest benefits of being a pastoral intern was sitting in the elder meetings. The pastors are so intent on keeping unity. Conflict is a big issue, but if I can see it done well here, I don’t have to settle for the situation of missionaries not getting along. While I may not be able to achieve that level of commitment over there, I can aim for it – be a part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Initial Arrival and Adjustments
Jessie: The first six months after our arrival were rough, in one sense, because of having a baby in a different country; the others were born in Atlanta. Baby Wren brought happiness in the face of the grief that we were experiencing leaving the United States. Japan has been a great experience for our kids. Having children helped in our assimilation. The kids adjusted so well; they are genuinely happy to be in Japan.
Jake: In some ways it kind of feels like we are still adjusting. We are forming as a family; there are the normal things of setting up a home, figuring out where to grocery shop. Fifteen months after arriving, we discovered a mall just a few minutes away. What! How had we missed that? Every week there is a new discovery. Why didn’t I know that store was there? Hmm, so that is how I am supposed to be throwing out my garbage. We try always to be learners, asking questions. It’s a never-ending cycle of processing what is taking place. It seems like we are always exhausted. By 8:00 p.m. we are zonked; there is so much more mental energy working in another language, trying to figure out life.
Becoming Part of a Team
Jake: We took a vision trip in early 2016 to see the situation and meet our future teammates. Simon, our team leader, had put lots of time prepping for our visit. Because of that, there was not a lot of ambiguity in our minds of what we were going to find upon arrival. He even made a trip to the States to be at our commissioning service. Needless to say, we had high hopes, and lots of expectations. Friction started 6 weeks after we arrived and continued. There were lots of reasons for this: transition brought stress, Simon was learning to be a team leader and we were his first Western teammates he had in eighteen years.
By nature, I am very inquisitive; I was fresh off an internship, well indoctrinated with CPM-speak and philosophy. But what I kept hearing was that we needed a building and a full-time pastor. Simon is much less confrontational. Having been here for so long, he had developed a Japanese style of communication, very indirect. On my part I know I can be prickly; add to that my low competency due to my recent arrival and all of this cycled out of control. We have kept at the communication and attempt heart-to-heart conversations. But these are still tense. We are bonding; maybe I’ve not quite found the right kind of glue. I am reading on leading from the second chair. I know I have failed in many ways in how I communicate.
A Visit from the Sending Church
Nick: My practice is to visit our new missionaries on the field once they have been on-site long enough to have experienced struggles, but not so long that these have developed into problems. For the Dumovics, my associate and his wife, Todd and Mikki, made the pastoral care trip. Todd had been one of CBC’s missionaries. He knows Asian context/culture and would be better able to hear stories of challenges.
Jake: A turning point for us was in January of 2018 when CBC sent Todd and Mikki for the standard first-term checkup. The timing couldn’t have been better. Naturally we were nervous to host them but still excited for this process. They jumped right in – Mikki did cooking, taking care of Wren, washing dishes. They got to know our team leader and visited our church.
Todd asked lots of questions, challenged us in our marriage, admonished us in other areas. Their visit was a big turning point in our adjusting to Japan. Our marriage was kind of dry, Wren was not sleeping through the night, and Jessie was experiencing frequent headaches. Within a couple of months, it felt like we were starting to hit our stride. I transitioned to just a morning language class. I started exercising and lost a good bit of weight. We discovered part of Jessie’s poor health was due to stress; she was internalizing the daily tensions. Todd and Mikki also helped us think through team dynamics. In some ways I’d call it heart surgery for a week.
A Few in the Win Column
Jake: Wren was born during my second semester in language school. That was a rough point in our transition, and I failed the class, meaning I had to retake the same material. When I passed the class the following December, it gave me a sense of accomplishment, like being empowered. I learned about myself in that process.
We were having Bible study with a neighbor, which was a breakthrough. She was curious about an American family moving next door. From the beginning we shared our desire to start a church. We invited her to a Christmas Eve service and followed up with an offer of a Bible study. She gave us a polite no. Later, back at our house, we watched White Christmas. Once it was over, she said she had changed her mind and said yes to a Bible study. The study continued until we left for home assignment. She has become a great family friend, like a grandmother to our kids, and mother to Jessie and me.
Jessie, through her regular involvement with the kindergarten, met a number of moms, some who have lived in the States and are now believers. None of the husbands are yet. Jessie meets with the moms every 4–6 weeks. At first, they just wanted to develop a friendship, but fairly quickly the women began to share their hearts with Jessie. Eventually she felt God telling her that now is the time to start a Bible study. One of the moms responded that her heart is so thirsty. God had brought them together first as friends. Meeting once a month, they study Ephesians, using the Discovery Bible Study.[7]
The View from First Home Assignment
Jake: We are going back much healthier. Home assignment has been chaotic; a natural rhythm is almost impossible. Pastor Todd has been helpful in coaching us toward a catalytic mission’s strategy.
Jessie: I remember the comment made by friends who had already been through this; we never have to do the first time again. There will be other issues, but we’ll never have to be new again. We have friends, a way of life, contacts in the neighborhood, a certain level of competency. Life won’t be as chaotic, nothing like the first three months in country when it was very dark and depressing.
At one of our MTI training sessions, one of the instructors made the statement that we think we are going into missions for the people, but that God is going to get ahold of our heart first. That didn’t initially register, but yes, we’ve found this to be true. There has been a tremendous work in our own hearts. It’s been a time of growth; it is hard and there are dark days. But we can look back at how God is shaping us, and that has become an overall important theme.
Jake: I remember a John Piper quote: “God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.”[8] God is teaching us, and He is kind and gracious.
Greg Carter has served more than thirty years in two churches (EFCA) directing global outreach. He leads Future Missionaries, an organization that trains local church missions leadership in equipping the next generation of global Kingdom workers.
[1] Names of individuals and the church have been changed to allow greater levels of transparency and security.
[2] https://www.mti.org/.
[3] It has been the author’s privilege to know the Dumovics (pseudonym) from the beginning of their process, visit them on-site, and interview them during their first home assignment.
[4] A copy can be requested from the author.
[5] A copy can be requested from the author.
[6] The current senior pastor had also previously served as a pastoral intern in missions.
[7] https://www.dbsguide.org.
[8] https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/god-is-always-doing-10000-things-in-your-life.
EMQ, Volume 57, Issue 1. Copyright © 2021 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
