Wide-Eyed In February

It’s easy to miss it.

The thing you know to be absolutely true, and the thing that makes your heart fill with wonder, awe, and purpose.

At least for me, it’s simple to set it aside for the task at hand.

I do this often in ministry.

Like a revolving door, I find myself again at the same place, sheepishly accepting that yes, I fell for the trick again, I got lost in the busy and the need and the overwhelming desire to succeed.

I set down the thing that matters most in order to hold all the things that fill and rush and crush God’s plans right out from under my nose.

Today in the heap of work and the deadlines, the video making, the ticking off to-do items from the list, the phone calls, and our annual fundraiser globe40 preparations… I saw it again…the thing I never meant to allow to slip away, and it made me weep.

In the chaos of my day, I happened to hear a story. I heard the story as background noise to fill my already full afternoon. It was an audio book because when I get to forgetting, a good sign that I’m there is I no longer have a moment to hold a real book in hand. This generates guilt for not reading enough so I listen, only it’s not really listening. I hear it all at half attention, retaining at least half the information, growing from a portion of the knowledge, a little must be better than none…I convince myself.

Rising above my mind’s noise was the story of John and Betty Stam, as told in the book by Ellen Vaughn, Becoming Elizabeth Elliot.

My mind must have connected when the Narrator spoke, “John and Betty met at Moody Bible College.” I know Moody. One of my favorite future missionaries studies there now, Katie Schupp, my fellow CCWM missions coworker, a young beautiful person full of tomorrow’s plans. My easily distracted mind began to wander to who Katie may meet and marry at Moody Bible College but it was quickly pulled back by China.

The Narrator told me that John and Betty didn’t fully fall in love at Moody, they were distracted deeply by God’s call on their life. Each to missions and nothing pulled them away from that call.

That struck me because as a Missions Mobilizer I’ve discovered the gut-punching truth that this is a rare and almost nonexistent thing. In the last four years, I have watched young, promising, hopeful, called and spirit-filled future missionaries fall silently into their various distractions. Wide-eyed in February they may enter my office telling me they are called, they may even have a beautiful story about that call and it’s not hard to convince me. I can sense it too. I hear it in their words, I see it in their lifestyle. However, many more times than not, these same individuals are quickly “uncalled” in the months to come. Uncalled by parent’s disapproval, uncalled by job opportunities, even ministry opportunities, uncalled by love, by fear, doubt, and selfish desires.

It’s bothered me like a pebble in my shoe. I keep trying to pretend it’s not there. It’s not really that bad, I can still walk, missions can still move forward, it’s just a little pebble.

But it’s not.

Last year, I read through the entire Barna Report, The Future of Missions. It wasn’t available on Audio so I held the paper and read it, and marked the living life out of it and cried over it, real tears hitting the pages because what it said to me stung me awake. It told me that missions, as in the Great Commission, is widely misunderstood by the Church, especially by the students and the youth. Missions is confused and worn out. It’s not making sense anymore because somewhere, somehow we who were supposed to lead the way in teaching it, missed the point. Missions is starting to miss the point. As a result, when we turn to pass the baton we may have very few people to pass it to.

John and Betty Stam met up with one another again in China. I imagined it, (distracted again) 1932, what they may have been wearing. But then the Narrator tells me that John had already learned to speak fluent Chinese. The guy was on fire!

Betty was all in as well. She penned these words in her journal.

"Lord, I give up my own plans and purposes, all my own desires, hopes, and ambitions, and I accept Thy will for my life. I give up myself, my life, my all, utterly to Thee, to be Thine forever. I hand over to Thy keeping all of my friendships; all the people whom I love are to take second place in my heart. Fill me now and seal me with Thy Spirit. Work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, for to me to live is Christ. Amen.”

They married one year later and by the end of that year, little baby Helen was born. The two of them became the first missionary family to settle in Tsingteh in South Anhwei, China. They were fulfilling the Great Commission, fulfilling it past Moody and language school, past dreaming and planning. They were fulfilling it in the hard choice to not get distracted by all the obvious shiny objects in life. I imagine they were having a great time of it as well. John was already translating Christian literature, the two were already making disciples, it’s amazing what focused ministry can look like.

Three months after Helen was born, the rumors came through that the Communist were taking over…but who would believe that…and they discussed the rumors with neighbors and friends not fully convinced until the word came that these Communists were but four miles away and they were not taking prisoners…they were ending lives. John and Betty had no time to run and their arrests came swiftly as did their final hours of humiliation. Several Christians in the town, new Christians, John, and Betty’s disciples, had pleaded for the life of the Missionaries, especially or the life of baby Helen. These new converts were asked to give their lives for that pleading and they did so.

At this point in the audio, I have now left my desk. I’m standing in the middle of the office. I’m standing quiet and a little shaky. For whatever reason, of all the mission stories I have heard, all the gore and awful, John and Betty seem more severe than anything and my heart is catching up with the plot twist. The pebble in my shoe feels bigger than ever.

The Narrator goes on to share that a shopkeeper begged for the release of John a Betty and he was about to be killed himself when John stepped in and took the decapitation instead. Right there, in front of Betty. The Communist soldiers took Betty’s head soon after but no one knew where baby Helen was.

Betty had hidden Helen in a pile of blankets. Another Christian had found her twenty-three hours after the soldiers left. Betty had pinned two five-dollar bills to Helen’s diaper and a note quickly penned by John to their mission board,

“My wife, baby, and myself are today in the hands of communist bandits. Whether we will be released or not no one knows. May God be magnified in our bodies, whether by life or by death. Philippians 1:20”

I hit pause on the audio book, pulling my Bible off the bookshelf open it to Philippians 1:20.

“For I live in eager expectation and hope that I will never do anything that will cause me to be ashamed of myself but that I will always be ready to speak out boldly for Christ while I am going through all these trials here, just as I have in the past; and that I will always be an honor to Christ, whether I live or whether I must die.”

Turning back to my desk I see an artsy sign. The sign greets all those who first come into our office.

It says,

“Your Missions Adventure Starts Here”.

I feel my stomach turn.

It’s not right.

That’s not the message.

That’s what’s wrong with this whole thing, that’s why missions has missed the point.

Back at my desk my fingers quickly type, John and Betty Stam into the search engine and their picture is suddenly before me. A picture of un-distracted missionaries. I feel like I know them, I weep for them but mostly I am weeping for us, for missions today.

I hit print and reach over to the artsy photo on my desk, opening the back of the frame I remove the slogan that takes the absolutely true real purpose, the thing that makes my heart fill with wonder and awe right out from under my nose. I wad it up and throw it in the trash, carefully replacing it with John and Betty Stam’s photo.


Perhaps for me, this is the answer to the future of missions.

I’m reminded of another quote from Becoming Elizabeth Elliot,

“Alas, I am ridiculous…God help me.”

• Little Helen was safely carried to her freedom by loving Chinese Christians. She was raised by her extended family in the USA