When we left the U.S, I never thought I’d be teaching again. I still remember almost five years ago when I turned off the lights to room 269 for the last time, walked down the steps, handed my keys in and hugged my principal. I still remember climbing into the driver’s seat of my car and tweeting something C.S. Lewis said: “There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” I instantly missed it. I’ve always missed it. And I can guarantee you if I hadn’t heard in my twenties that almost 40% of the world is still unreached with the gospel of Jesus Christ after 2,000 years (what have we been doing, Church?!) I’d still be in America, and I’d be teaching in the public school system for the rest of my life. And I’d have the husband and the kids and take the family vacations to the beach and make the memories.
I love teaching. I love common core (yes, common core is good). I love the public school system because it always takes on way more problems than it can solve. And the system gets bashed because it fails a lot (and it does) but you have no idea how much the majority of its employees heap on their plates. Even though the public school system isn’t in pristine shape, America wouldn’t still exist if it weren’t for the majority of principals and teachers who put in way more than they ever get back.
While we’re in Papua New Guinea waiting to get matched to an unreached people group and form a team to go in and learn an unwritten language – teach through the Bible chronologically, teach literacy, teach HOPE, teach about the God of the universe who calls you to be reconciled with him, creature to creator – we’re helping out other missionaries.
Everyone oohs and aahs over the troops on the ground in the military. But for every boot on the ground, there are a lot more soldiers behind the scenes who have planned and coordinated and who help things play out as they should.
It works the same way in missions in unreached places. There are so many people behind the scenes who work to keep the front-line missionaries in the tribe on the ground. They’re called support missionaries. Right now, Nate and I are playing a supporting role to help the missionaries out on the front. I’m using my teaching background to teach English at a school here for missionary kids. Nate’s using his previous web-development career to keep everyone’s computers working for translation and literacy.
We hope to be matched and ready to move into the bush to work with an unreached tribe in a year. But we don’t know how long it will take; we’ll work here as long as we need to. But what I do know after starting teaching again, is that I love it and it makes me happy. And I could be happy going back to America and teaching again for a long time. But that doesn’t fill me up. As much as I may want it to, it doesn’t. Do you know what I mean? I love teaching, but at the end of the day, my soul is half full. English will burn up when the world does. But souls don’t. What’s the health of your soul at? What percentage of your life or career is dedicated to things that won’t burn up?
Do you guys know that 40% of the world is unreached with the gospel. Still? Some of these people groups have millions of people. That’s ridiculous. Nobody talks about it in the Bible Belt because let’s be honest, who really wants to go. (I don’t.) We talk a lot about missions in the Bible Belt. I’m talking about unreached people groups. Sure, we’ll go on the mission trip and swim with the turtles, but one month tops, and we’re coming back. But what if you went to one of those places where the Bible didn’t exist? And what if you just stayed? What if you just let all the good years of your life play out where nobody would see it?
A tempurpedic pillow is nice, but a soul resting on Jesus is better.
myloreley 