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In our pursuit of sartorial excellence, the power of a good example has to be seen to be believed. Did you notice the chairman had a tie on tonight? Because I've made a, a wonderful discovery about a tie tonight. We came back hot and sticky after a long day out, with no time to collect sorts. And you know, when I put my tie on, I felt better. So add that to the list of good reasons why brethren on the platform should wear a tie. Now the commercial.
I am sad to think that I have failed in my task of selling the last set of books. When I was in India, at a little assembly called Walamuru, deep in the forest. Oh, I'm not telling you what I told some of the others the other day about that assembly, but when the breaking of bread was over, they had a collection, and they passed around a basket, and I was horrified to see that they took as much out as they put in. And when it was finished, they totaled it up and entered it in a big account book that they put on the table, all while we were singing a hymn, by the way.
And whereupon a brother goes out and takes the chicken that had been hanging by its feet on the door at the back during the meeting, which had lasted five hours, and he brought the chicken to the front and proceeded to auction it to the assembled congregation, and the proceeds went into the collection. By that time, we'd finished the hymn, and I thought, now we can go home, but not on your life. You see the meeting had gone on so long that the chicken had laid an egg, and so they brought the egg in and auctioned that, and that went into the collection. Now, I'm very tempted tonight to auction that set of books, because, you know, I think I'd get more than we're asking if I did, because it's the last one, last one here, and you really don't want the brethren to carry it all the way back to Spring Lake, do you?
You see, as I said, it's the best investment you can make. That'll be worth a lot more in a few years' time. It's a brethren book, and all brethren books are worth their weight in gold. So first come when the meeting's over, you can have that whole series for seventy five dollars. That isn't twenty percent discount, it's about eighty percent discount, and every home should have one. Now, I want one little personal notice, if I may. A brother here who I failed to identify since, probably because he's wearing a tie, but, uh, he asked me for a copy of Echoes and the prayer guide. I've carried it around with me since.
Would he make himself known to me afterwards, and he can have it. Now, tonight is an extra, not part of the series that I was asked to give. Indeed, I was asked if I would take this extra evening. What are you going to talk about, brother? And I thought very quickly, missionary life and service today. I couldn't tell you at this minute just what I'm going to say, but nevertheless, let's turn to the word of God and read what Paul said about his missionary service. In Acts chapter twenty, part of his address to the elders of Ephesus on the shore, on the seashore.
Acts chapter twenty, I will read from verse 17. And from Melita. Miletus... By the way, you know that man's been busy again, this clock's an hour past. There's a campaign here to get me to stop before I started. And from Miletus, he, Paul sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church. And when they were come to him, he said unto them, ye know from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears and temptations which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews.
And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you and have taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And now behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that that shall befall me there. Say that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I've received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
And now, behold, I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God shall see my face no more. Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole, all the counsel of God. It's If some mission. missionary can, can sum up his service for God in that way.
I wonder how many of us here, who may not claim to be overseas missionaries, but are the recipients of the divine commission to witness to our faith could speak with such confidence as we get to the end of our lives, knowing that we have been faithful witnesses, faithful teachers, and have served the Lord with tears. I fear that we take our service for God all too superficially, and it is but the few who know the pain of being poured out, as Paul described it, poured out in the service of God.
I purpose tonight to talk about some of those things that missionaries can't talk about. Some of the missionaries here might squirm a little. But you see, I have visited missionaries in many countries, and I assure you that none of what I say to you tonight is make-believe. Everything I will talk about comes from the visits that I've made to missionaries in their spheres of service.
None of it is exaggerated, but let me hasten to assure you they didn't all happen to one missionary. We tend to put overseas missionaries, even today, on a pedestal. We tend to treat them a little differently. And when they come to our meeting, we handle them as something special. But one of the things that I want to talk about tonight, you won't often find in missions or in echoes, if you're enlightened enough to take it.
Because missionaries don't write about these things. They may not even see themselves in them. But you see, I want to show you something of the human face of mission. Two things may happen. One, you may say to yourself, I've missed the boat. I thought I understood what missionary service meant. And the other thing is, you may be angry with me.
As one sister once said to me, when I dare to talk on a similar subject, she said, if you talk like that, there won't be anybody who'll go to the mission field. I make no apology. For the only people we want on the mission field are those who are under such a compulsion from the Holy Spirit that nothing is going to put them off. And if young people or older people come to you with the idea that they're called to the mission field, and they're full of doubts and full of demands, and argue with you as to their qualification.
You may take it for granted they are not called of God to serve him overseas. Let us think of our missionary couple. They have arrived overseas. In the old days, they might have had a uh six months on a boat, getting used to the changed situation from the home country. Today it is different. There are not many places in the world where you can't arrive within twenty four hours.
And new missionaries will arrive with a determination that they're going to serve God faithfully. They put their young lives on the altar. They've told God they'll do whatever he wants them to do. And because they've been taught it, even if they've not experienced it, they have the conviction that God will equip them and enable them to fulfill his will. Tragically, today, so many young Christians are brought up in a kid glove atmosphere, and they haven't really tested God for themselves.
I have a conscientious objection to talking down to young people. But I'm going to do it for half a minute tonight. Young people here in the front, and I'm thrilled to have you near me, holding my hand in this difficult task. But I know that most of you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want you to ask yourselves a question now. Is your God real to you? Do you know he is there?
And can you trust him? Think about it, and talk to me afterwards if you can't find the answer. Because our young missionary couple has determined they're going to serve God with all their hearts and soul and mind and strength, and that resolve will be tested directly they arrive overseas. You see, what I'm talking about is the other face of mission, the human face of mission. Because for many missionaries, going overseas will mean being uprooted from the culture in which they were born and brought up, and which many have not previously left.
And very, very quickly, they're going to find that they are not a special race of beings called missionaries. They haven't got blood of a special color flowing through their veins. They're still the same as the rest of us. But they have this added pressure, and that is the scrutiny of everybody at home. A more special scrutiny, a more intense scrutiny than any of you or I know, just because they're missionaries.
And tragically, that scrutiny extends to the children, if there are any. And we have a strange feeling that the children of missionaries should be little angels. Nelly and I have had many in our home. That twin sister that created such an illogical, a logistical problem to me when I was seeking a wife, she spent her life looking after missionaries' children, so we know something about them. And it's tragic when a missionary's calling means that their children live under a scrutiny that is unnatural and unreal.
Of course, in some cultures, life will be very, not very different from what missionaries knew, knew at home. This applies in countries like Europe and some of the big cities in South America. But it's been a strange pattern of assembly missionary life that most of our missionaries serve God in rural areas where conditions are often extremely primitive. There will be no running water, and in times of drought, you may be limited to one bucket a day for every possible use.
That doesn't sound too bad to you? I remember getting to Sankeshwar when there was a drought on, and I looked at that little plastic bucket, and I thought, everything? I was afraid to wash. I even used my washing water to shave in. Terrible for a British man. But, you know, I believe in miracles now because, shall I tell you something? That bucket was always full, however much I used. Because out of love, the missionaries were filling it up from their bucket.
That's the kind of thing that happens on the mission field. There is very likely not to be drainage of any kind. Your washing up water will be directed to the roots of the banana tree, which needs water as much as you do, and other waste will be cleared up by the pigs, who certainly in some houses in India have a back door entrance to that little room where we hide from time to time. You understand why they don't eat pigs, don't you? And of course, there will not be electricity, or if there is, you don't know when it'll be on and when it'll be off.
So you have to, uh, read by the light of an oil lamp. Just like they did in the tabernacle. Just letting you know what we learned this afternoon. And you have to trim the wick and get your hands dirty cleaning it. Oh yes, there may be servants. But there are some things that servants never do well, so you do it yourself. In some countries, there won't even be a toilet. But if there is a toilet, it'll be a hole in the ground. It may be enclosed by a few sheets of corrugated, but you will be confronted from the outset with the fact that the nationals can't understand why Western people want to hide in a little building at the end of the garden, and they hang around to see what you're up to.
Don't forget you haven't been long away from your home country, and these are the things that you face. As you pray for missionaries, do you pray for missionaries? I've come to the conclusion that if I were to ask you individually whether you pray for missionaries, and if I added the word daily, some of you might be dare to say that you do. But would it be true? We have a reputation in assemblies that we pray and pray for missionaries.
I am increasingly convinced in UK, and I have a persuasion it's not much different here, that we pay lip service to prayer. And if we pray for missionaries, God bless the missionaries. Lord, watch over the missionaries. But we've not the slightest idea what we should be laying before God in prayer. And I want to lead us into intelligent, focused prayer for the Lord's servants overseas.
I've already said enough. When you see a new missionary is going out, you will know what they may face in their first twenty four hours. And I pray that you will intercede with understanding. Lord, help them to get settled. Because that time of settling in may go on for weeks and months and years. You know, I've been sitting with missionaries who've just arrived when letters have come from home.
You will tell us of those you win for Christ? They can't speak a word of the language. You will tell us this, you will give us news for the prayer meeting. But they've nothing to write home about except the dirt and the flies and the stress. You know, to be on the receiving end from letters from home is to show, is to learn how little we know at home about missionary service overseas. Of course, if you never write, you won't make that mistake, will you?
I wonder, can I address you personally? When did you last write a letter to a missionary? I've had missionaries tell me with tears that they've been overseas for twenty years and never had a letter, a personal letter from the elders of the assembly that commended them. Elders here, as a body, in your position as a leader of the assembly, do you write regularly to all those you've commended and a few more?
Or don't you think it matters? But the emotional stress of adjusting is great for one simple reason, there's no getting away from the situation in which you are found. You've gone overseas often with a fanfare of trumpets, and you can't pack up and go home at the end of your first week. And often there's nowhere to go to get away from the situation. You go to the market to buy some sugar. You don't get a nice little packet, hygienically sealed.
You see a lump of sugar about the size of your wardrobe, one big block of molasses, and in order to cut you off a piece, they'll take off an inch of black flies that have been there for days. No wonder you don't feel very comfortable in your first few days. And of course, you can't talk to anybody unless you're on a station with other missionaries. And life is a babel of sounds that you don't understand. If it's a Muslim country, there'll be the call of the mullah from the mosque, from the minaret, five times a day, starting at four or five in the morning.
And if it's a hallowed time of Ramadan, they'll be reading the Quran over the tannoy all night long. And it's hot, and it's sticky, and there are flies, and there are mosquitoes, and you can't get rest. Within a day or two, if you took your family with you, those placid, delightful children become whining brats, and you feel like strangling them.
I know it, I've heard that said to me, and I've seen it. What is even more tragic, and I wonder whether you have ever prayed for a young married couple going overseas. You remind them, like we all are old people in true Shakespearean style, all the world loves the lover, and when we see them so in love, we feel so much for them, almost envious. But soon after they arrive ho- overseas, one event after another puts even their marriage in jeopardy, and often they both reach breaking.
Have I said enough to cause some of you with a heart that burns to look out for those who've gone overseas in the last six months and get up a minute or two earlier in order to lay their needs before God with understanding. You see, in those first six months of adjustment, what can they write home about? Who's going to admit failure at the beginning of their missionary service? Because we have a strange idea in assemblies that only successful missionary work is worth supporting.
And we put missionaries, unwittingly, I know, we put them under pressure to report success, whether it's true or not. And who's to blame? The missionaries? No, we are to blame. Let us approach our missionary involvement with understanding and reality. There isn't much to write about in the early days, but you've plenty to write about. They want news of the home country.
They want to know what you're doing, even if they haven't got much to tell you. And I hope, brethren and sisters, you won't write out for them your most precious sermon. Nor will you start the letter with a host of scriptures that they know by heart. And if you send a magazine, don't send them the choice ministry magazine of your particular country. Send them a few fashion magazines so that they can keep abreast, and do-it-yourself magazines for the husband, so that you can keep abreast of what's going on at home.
Let me illustrate, shall I? How easily missionaries get the wrong idea of us people at home. I arrived in South Laos, having supposed to have been met on the way by an American missionary. But my problem was this, my French was a bit poor. There were two planes going from Vientiane to Paxet. One stopped at a place called Savannakhet, where the missionary was to join me. The other went direct to Paxet. And the French officials couldn't understand why the mad, bald-headed Englishman insisted on going on the stopping plane.
And they put me against my will on the plane that didn't stop, so I never met the missionary. And I arrived down there in Paxi, and I sat on my bag like John Ewan until the sun went down. And then I noticed two attractive young ladies in the corner of the mission field, in somewhat short modern dresses, summer dresses, and they kept giving me a little sly look. And in the end, one of them came up to me and in beautiful French asked me if I was Sam Warren.
Oh yes, I said, that's me. Well, she said, we've been told to come in case no one was here to meet you. You're going to spend the night with us. That seemed good enough to me. And they sent for a taxi. Now you see the Lao people are wee. They're wee not only in height, but in width. And when the taxi came and I saw the seats for two, I thought, now how do we manage this? She says, you get in first, and whereupon she sat on my knee. Now I like that too. And when we got to the house, I had a missionary daughter, and so I was given strict instructions as to how I was to behave when I was with single sisters.
She said, Dad, you will dress up for the evening meal. You will put on your tie and your jacket, and if you've taken a little gift, that's when you will present it to them. She said, you know, we girls on the mission field, we just long to be able to talk to a man. Anything in trousers will do. So I did what I was told, and I sat down to the meal with these two lovely girls, just me, and behind them was a bookcase. Now, you've never seen a bookcase like it.
Every book was in a dead straight line, and I looked, you know, there was J. N. Darby's synopsis. There were books by C. A. Coates and C. H. McIntosh, row after row of them. And I looked at these two modern misses, and I looked at those books, and there was something so incongruous that I couldn't keep it in. And in my faltering French, I asked them, will you tell me where you've put the women's magazines? And they roared with laughter. They got up from the table, they took me behind a curtain where they put them all out of sight because I was going.
You see, there's a human face of mission. Let's be realistic. They are human, and let us write to them on the human level and maintain a human level of contact. Now, what about priority? Have you had enough? I can stop anytime. What about priority when you arrive overseas? What comes first? Well, the first thing you find out, whatever your good resolves were, they go by the board because it takes so much of your day just to live.
You see, you may have to draw your water. You have to try and explain your ways to those who do service for you of one kind and another. Everything takes longer. You go to the government office to get a stamp on your visa, and you will sit there all day long. There's no way of jumping the queue. The nationals know the ropes better than you, and they always seem to be in front of you in the queue. And you will sit, and three o'clock or four o'clock will come, and the official will go home, come back tomorrow, and the next day come back.
You haven't done much at the end of three days. That's typical of life in primitive countries. You want to buy some provisions, so you go down to the market. When we were in Pakistan, Nelly and I went down to the market, and we sat in the bazaar, and we were offered a seat. We were given tea. You have to have an hour's small talk before you begin on business. And when you've decided what you want, you spend an equal time in haggling over the price, because if you don't haggle, they don't think much of you.
One thing you always have to have in your mind is they're not going to let you have it less than what it cost them. So you go on pushing the price down. How important it is that we realize what missionaries face. But of course, while this is going on, their home is not their own. A new white couple has come from overseas. The neighbors all want to see what you look like, how you handle your husband, and how you handle your children. And so they'll walk in the door without being announced, and out the back door, and they will chatter away a lot of language you don't understand.
And furthermore, because you're new, the dropouts and the scroungers will come after what they can get, and you don't know what they're talking about. They soon let you understand what they want, and you don't like to refuse them. My, you're a missionary, you've got to win their confidence. And so you're taken for a ride day after day. And all these interruptions begin to wear you down, and you begin to pray, Lord, deliver me from these interruptions. I don't know what they're getting at.
I don't know what they're after. And then you get that letter from the home church. We haven't had much news from you. What are you doing for the Lord? You see the need for understanding and patience. You see, the danger is when you're a missionary in that situation, that you write home what you think they want to know at home, and it's not always exactly what's happening overseas. That can touch the conscience, but who's to blame?
The missionary or us? I was in Laos for a time, as I told you, but one morning the missionary husband went off on a medical round, and I was left to have breakfast with the wife. Now, she was an outstanding missionary, dynamic. She had taken adjustment to the field in her stride. She had what we would call rude health and unflagging energy. She was some woman.
Her life was ordered and disciplined. And as we sat over brex- breakfast, she told me what brought her back to stocks and readjusted her service for God. She told me one day the elders of that lovely assembly there sent for her, and they said this to her: Tell us, why do you not have any time for the Lao? She'd gone as a missionary.
She was running classes for this and classes for that. Her home was ordered and, uh, spotless. But she hadn't left time for the people to whom God had sent her. Do we pray about these things? Do we understand what missionary service is about so that we can get it right? What about accommodation? Of course, when you go overseas, you've got to live somewhere. Missionaries don't always tell the new candidates what the situation is.
I don't know why, but they don't. Perhaps they're afraid they wouldn't come. Everybody needs a home. But sometimes it's not until a missionary arrives that they realize what the rent is going to cost them. And they don't always realize that they may have to pay key money, which in proportion is as much as buying the house, in order to get in. I wonder if our assemblies realize that when they give the missionary fifty dollars as they leave to go overseas. But it may not be as easy as that.
If it's a single sister, certainly, and maybe a single brother. They can't live on their own, they can't speak a word of the language, and so the dear sister, with her enthusiasm to win souls for Christ, is taken in by an elderly married couple. Of course, at first, their kindness itself. They're a mum and dad, they help you over all the problems and show you how to deal with things. But that kindness consumed Paul, particularly if they've been on the mission field fifty years. They're tiring, they're overworked, and the Lord sends a lovely young missionary.
What for? Just to help them in their old age. And the missionary who can't speak the language, and the old couple are too busy to teach them a language, finds that she's no more than a skivvy in the home of a couple of old missionaries. I know one missionary who, for fourteen years, was in that position, and when she tried to get out of it, they said, but the Lord sent you here to look after us. And unfortunately, lived a bit too long. What does she write home about? Or there are other problems.
You see, how what's it like to live in a home where you've no freedom? Your life is ordered by somebody else all the time. You can't make your own program. You can't ever even decide when you wash your hair, if you've got any. When you take a bath because you have to fit in with all the others. And those wonderful bits of equipment your friends gave you, a new hairdryer, a new, um, tape recorder, and this and that, you go out fully equipped today. They, everybody else's is long since broken, so yours becomes a communal property and joins the pile of worn out things all too quickly.
Nothing is your own. And the tragedy is, in some countries, you can't get away from them because in some countries, certainly a single sister can't go out by herself, and even a brother might not be able to because there's nowhere to go. And missionaries want to pay their way, but nobody told them before they went that they'll have to pay three months rent in advance for an empty room. But you do need a bed and the minimum of furniture. But of course, there are no furniture shops in Pakistan.
You go to the bazaar, you have to design it and get it made. I wonder how you'd like to do that. What do you sleep on mid- meanwhile? It's not easy to get adjusted. They need prayer. Have you ever thought to pray in detail like that before those who've gone overseas? Am I speaking in vain, or are you going to get up in the morning and say, Lord, God bless the missionaries, amen? Or are you going to say, look, Ruth's over there, it's hot, it's sticky.
Lord, give her patience, give her wisdom, keep her zeal from flagging. Lord, you know how much we love her. Show us what to do to help. And then you're, having done it, you're over your coffee, you write a little note, not a long letter, just a little note. We were praying for you this morning, and knowing about that three months rent in advance, you'll send a little gift via CMML to help pay for it. But of course, after you got to bed, the next thing you've got to do is to learn the language. Everybody's told you before you go that there are two kinds of missionaries.
They're the ones who know the language and can preach the gospel and express scriptural ideas freely in the language. And there's the other kind of missionary who tells everybody they know the language, but the best they can do is to buy the essential goods in the market. They have the market language and no more. I soon found that out when I traveled. I found the missionaries who so knew the language that they could interpret what I wanted to say, but I found so many of them could only say what they wanted to say, and that was difficult. But they arrive at a hospital.
There's half a dozen missionaries there, missionary nurses and doctors, with five hundred outpatients at the gate every morning. You're rearing to learn the language, but nobody's got any time to teach you. There are no language schools. In some African languages, there's no grammar printed or written down. I think in Bemba, I was told once there's only one copy of a grammar, and that's handed down from generation to generation. What it's like, I fear to think. And then one of the nurses says, well, now I'll give you a day a week.
It lasts two weeks, and then they have a, an urgent medical case, and it ceases. Our best Lunda speaker, British Lunda speaker in Zambia, found himself with an old couple who had no time to teach him a language, and he's a man of some resource. He took a tape recorder, and he went and lived out in the bush for months, learning the language syllable by syllable, writing down his vocabulary. But he fell out with the senior missionaries because he dared not to take their advice.
Not easy to get adjusted. Of course, if you're in Japan, you can go to a university or a language school. It might cost you over a thousand pounds, sorry, I should convert that to dollars, uh, to a couple of thousand dollars, perhaps, to pay the tuition fee. And you may have to travel a hundred miles or more to get there, and traveling can be expensive. And if funds are short, who gets the funds to learn the language, the husband or the wife? Inevitably the husband.
And the wife loses out in the language study. Remember, I'm telling you what I have found. So the wife never catches up. And Nelly and I stayed with a missionary once, where the wife had never got to grips with the language. What did that mean? Her husband who did well at the end of the morning meeting, will be chatting with all the beautiful young Japanese ladies as they had fellowship together after the meeting, and the wife stood there not knowing what they were saying. Her children went to a Japanese school, and they quickly learned the vernacular.
But what happened? Those kids soon learnt that they could talk to one another, and mother didn't know what they were saying. They're the seeds of an emotional situation, which can be crippling and overwhelming. And when you get down to learning a language, why did no one tell you, uh, to take a course in English grammar before you went? I don't mind American grammar, if you like, or even Gaelic or some other adulteration. But the thing is, you need to know what grammar's about. Would you know what a noun is, a verb, a subjunctive?
Or how do you begin to learn a language? And how would you like to learn a language with two hundred characters in the alphabet, or four thousand little pretty pictures that mean nothing to you, as in Japanese? And you have to form sounds that not only you've never heard in your language, but your mouth is not designed to make. Learning a language can be agony, and Japanese will take you seven years. You know, as we moved amongst most of the missionaries in Japan, I was horrified to find out something I didn't know.
I was traveling on one of their tube trains, and in the tube trains they hang on a couple of hooks an advertisement, just hooked on the hooks. And, you know, after my experience in London, I couldn't understand why they were still on the hooks. Our hooligans would have torn them down and and trampled on them. So I wanted to take a picture to show my British friends how well disciplined the Japanese were. But I didn't want to be, I wanted to be sure that I didn't take something I shouldn't, because there's a lot of pornography on Japanese advertisements. So I said to the missionary, which one is it safe for me to take a picture of?
And she said to me, I can't tell you, I can't read it. And I found out that some of our best Japanese speakers and writers can't read a Japanese newspaper. So complicated is the language. Language learning isn't quite as simple as we make it out. I remember one young missionary from South America writing to us about language learning. He said, we've got to the stage now where every day we feel like throwing all our books out of the window.
And he said sometimes the wife and children as well. Do you think to pray? I- on our prayer guide, and I think you have something, you have a means of identifying those who are learning a language. Do you single them out? Have you ever singled them out and asked God specially to help them? Have you taken the trouble to find out something about what it means in that language so you can ask God to help? It's eight o'clock. Do you want me to stop? Are you comfortable? Because I go on a little bit longer.
I wanted to say one or two more things. What about funds? Most missionaries today go overseas with a certain amount of savings. They've got a generous assembly at the valedictory meeting, they'll take a collection, and they get overseas with a little in their pocket. But it soon wears thin because people at home think, well, we gave them a good send-off gift, they're all right for the moment. And others don't talk about money. Missionaries don't talk to one another much about money.
They have a simple answer, the Lord will provide. And those letters that you got in abundant measure when you first went out begin to dwindle. It's only one in a hundred who write to a new missionary who keep it up year after year. You never hear, as I said, from the elders of your church, and you might hear from a dear old saint in the meeting who's got an old pen- old age pension, and she'll send you a few pounds or dollars, no, not realizing she shouldn't send it direct. And you may find that you spend a third of the gift in the postage to say thank you.
And sometimes it'll cost you more to negotiate the money than it's worth. We had a letter the other day from a family in France, of all places. A grandma had sent five pounds for the g- the grandchild's birthday. And on the birthday, and they thought it was wonderful, grandma's letter arrived on the day, and they opened it. And there was a an official statement from the bank to remittance five pounds, only it was in francs. Bank charges five pounds, and at the bottom a nought. No wonder CMMO keeps saying don't send direct.
The cost of negotiating money in a foreign currency can be more than the money is worth, unless it's a large gift. And what happens when the new married couple find that little Johnny is on the way? Where are they going to have the baby? Oh, there might be a mission hospital nearby, but they're not all free. I know some of them that charge an exorbitant price, other than their own missionaries, to have the baby. Have you ever thought, when you get the good news, what it's going to mean?
Perhaps in a generous spirit you say, ah, I will send her a little pair of booties for the coming baby. And when the booties arrive, the customs charges are infinitely more than the booties are worth. Because you didn't stop to think. Your purpose was good, but your knowledge was thin. And then you have to educate your children. And this can bring some of the most traumatic experience for a mum and dad.
I have sat with a couple who's wet because they couldn't make up their mind. Do they send them to a local American school with fees of four thousand, five thousand dollars a term? Or do they send them home to the home country, whether it's England or USA, knowing that they're going to be six thousand miles away, and you'll still have some fees to pay. Or do you send them to the local school in the vernacular? Now, you can do that in France.
You can do it in Spain and Italy. But what happens? The children begin to live in the vernacular. And however disciplined the parents are in speaking to them in English at home, the children soon learn to get round it, and the parents get tired of trying. I stayed in a, in a whole French home, and they said, well, we always talk to our children in English. We expect them to use English at home, and I listened to mother telling their child, now go and get this, Johnny, and Johnny said, oui, mama. They hadn't even noticed that the child only spoke in French.
But when the child gets to teen years or post-college years and wants to return to their own culture, they have no communication. They can't speak in their own language. And when they come home on furlough, grandma and grandpa can't talk to the kids in a language they understand. They don't know English. The issues that missionaries have to face are immense, and they can bring an agony. I remember one couple keeping me up late at night as they said, my, our Johnny is going off to the mission school.
It'll take us a week to get there, and we won't see him for three months, boo, boo, boo. And I looked them in the eye, I said, "Five minutes after you leave little Johnny there, he'll have forgotten you. Oh, they couldn't bear that. But I was going up there afterwards, and after I left them, and I made inquiries, how did little Johnny get on? Before they were out of the gate, he was playing with all the other kids and had forgotten them. That doesn't ease the agony of the parents. Do you pray about that issue? Or do you just note it in the missionary letter and ignore it?
What I'm trying to show you is what missionary life is really like, so that our prayers can be worthwhile and directed. How do you relax when you're on the mission field? How do you take a break? In a country like Pakistan, there's nowhere a single lady could go on her own. That happens in India too. So you find missionaries doing a little bit of pottery or sculpture or even painting, anything to break the monotony. I stayed for three days at the women's hospital in Sankraninuk, no, sorry, in uh, oh, the name's gone, Vattamalapuram in the desert of South India.
There was old Rhoda Oliver. She was seventy odd then, running a huge women's hospital with only one, uh... Oh, I learned a trick or two there. Day I arrived, they'd had triplets. So they had to have a picture of me holding the triplet. And when a baby's born there, they wash it under the tap and they hang it in a cloth on the wall on a nail. But when the day was over, Rhoda said to me, come on, Stan, we'll go for a swim. Now, I thought that was good, it was hot. And she dressed herself up in a Victorian swimming costume with legs below the knees and everything else completely covered, and then she put a dress over the top.
I wondered about my swimming trunks, but I took them. She got on her bicycle, one of those with a hoop, you know, frame, and I ran behind her to have a swim. And we got to the well, fifteen, twenty foot across, twenty foot deep, and she stood on the edge and she dived straight down the well. I turned round and went back. What else can you do to relax? Ah, but let's come to the serious matter as I get near the end of what I wanted to say.
Because if you're young, you will want friends. How do you do your courting in a country where it's not permissible for a young man and a young woman to be alone together, unchaperoned? That cramps your style a bit, doesn't it? How does love grow? If you're seen alone together, you are dubbed immoral. And you know, in some parts of the mission field, there are immense, intense emotional problems. Do you know once, on the prayer guide, we had one single brother on one place with forty single sisters.
Can you imagine what kind of emotional problem that was? Especially if he didn't marry any of them. Have you ever thought about this? How does love grow when you can't be alone together? Of course, they find ways of doing it, but it's not easy. And relationships. You know, at home we can choose our friends. We can decide who we're going to live with. Sometimes you can't overseas, and you might find yourself sharing a room or a home with somebody who is wide awake at night when you want to go to sleep and is fast asleep when you want to get up.
They may be tidy, you may be untidy, and tensions arise. Jealousies arise in the work. You're not going to write home and talk about that, are you? What am I asking you to do? Read between the lines of letters and let missionaries know that you understand. Draw them out. If they trust you, they may get great relief in letting you know the problems that they face. And missionaries tempted? Missionaries not tempted. Surely not.
They're missionaries. They live on a, a higher level than the rest of us. They're never tempted to sin, aren't they? Aren't they? Do you know those two French girls down at Paxi? You know what they said to me the day I left? They said, up there on the hill is the French embassy. They've no women there, only French men. They're the only white men in this town, and we're the only white women. And every now and now and again, they have a party or a dance, and they invite us to go. We always say no, of course, until one of them whispered in my ear, but I'd very much like to go.
Temptation. What would you do, and I address myself to responsible brethren, what would you do if you're going round a hospital, a leprosy hospital, where everything is sordid and dirty and putrefying sores, and this lovely missionary dressed in a white sari suddenly says to you behind the alto- autoclave, brother, I hope you won't be shocked, but I must tell you, I've had an affair with a married missionary. What would you do? I listened.
And I judged that she was more sinned against than sinning because she'd been taken advantage by a ma- a mi- a missionary whose wife was in parturition with another baby. What do you do? Tempt it. Do you ever look at your prayer handbook and see the mixture of missionaries and wonder whether that one or that one has special temptations and turn it to real prayer? And tell me, how does a missionary maintain the keen edge of their devotional life amid the multitude of pressures?
How do they keep the sanctuary in business, daily in prayer and with the word of God open? How do they do it? Do young people do it? Or have you given up on prayer, given up on your Bible? Or perhaps I shouldn't have addressed to the young people. I judge there are families here who twenty years ago, thirty years ago, when they were married, they were going to have a family altar, but it's been thrown down, and they never pray together and may not pray individually.
If that happens with us, what about the missionary on the field? Do you pray that God will keep the keen edge of their spiritual life? And do you share it with them in making time to pray? You see, we have what missionaries often don't have. We have privacy. We can always get away from other people. We can always go where we can be on our own with God. We always have much fellowship from others with whom we're compatible because we choose our friends.
What we fail to realize is that so many of our brethren and sisters depend on our prayer, depend on our interest, and we fail them. We are broken reeds. We talk missionary, we buy missionary magazines, and there I see them again and again in pristine unuse on the lounge table. It's a sort of badge of respectability to have echoes or missions on the lounge table, and when they're out of the room, I have a look, and I know the creases are still there because they've never been open.
Brethren and sisters, I be severe with you. I'm going home next week, or the end of next week, so you won't have to face me again, but I want to be severe with you. We expect so much of our missionary friends and sisters, but many of us are shams. We're all talk and no do, and if anything comes out of this week, might we, each of us, get alone with God and confess our sin of ceasing to pray and begin a new life on a new level for God.
And then we would have a part in the great work God is doing worldwide in building his church. Millions are coming to Christ, and we've no part of it. But we could, if we put it right with God. Shall we pray? Father, in the quietness of this sanctuary with thyself, we stand condemned.
Thou hast shown us things we not even thought about. Thou hast shown us what missionary service can cost. We plead with thee that thou wilt rekindle our devotion to thee and our involvement with them. So may it be that we'll be new people for thee when we leave this conference. Give us a good night's rest, and grant that our lives shall glorify thee, for we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.