The second reply

Dear Rachael,

Thanks again for your reply and I have to say – they’re big issues that you’re dealing with – as well as ones that I relate to. I find it very hard. Like you, in Nepal, I’d feel guilty about buying a packet of biscuits for 50 rupees ($1) when I knew there were children living next door who were so hungry they’d eat our leftover mango skins. I’d constantly wonder about whether I was using our resources in good and godly ways. In my dilemmas at the grocery shop though, I think there were two issues at stake. Not only were we surrounded by extreme poverty but we were also reliant on supporters at home for our own wage. So, I think I struggled with two types of guilt – firstly for having inherent wealth amidst poverty – and secondly for being responsible and accountable with other people’s sacrificial giving. And both would plague me and keep me awake at nights. But yes, your questions are good – was it true guilt, that needed dealing with through repentance or was it in fact a heavy burden that we needed to carry (and that God would help us carry)?

And now, years later, I’m not sure I have any more answers. I think serving God in countries without social security systems or government handouts is incredibly challenging. We’re faced with physical need on our doorsteps every single day. If it’s not the hungry children next door, it’s the lady who says a fire destroyed everything or the man handing us a note saying he has no tongue and no income. And every day is the same – the challenge to respond well … so that our words and actions show that we believe in him. It’s so difficult. And even when we feel okay about it ourselves – about the use of our resources and the balance between word and deed, we’re still left with all those complexities that you mention – whether local people are becoming rice Christians for what they think they can get out of it (or us).

For me, I think I would deal with my wealth ‘guilt’ by trying to make good choices. I can only love a few, or help a few, I’d say to myself. We can only train a few. We can only do very little – but trust that God can do very great things – and he’s put us in certain places for a time and a purpose. For us, it was the training and serving and listening that led to all the opportunities to share the gospel. And that was an incredible privilege.

But my supporter guilt? Well, that was years of working through issues within myself. I’d question why I was writing certain stories in the newsletters. Was I trying to prove that we were doing something worthwhile for the gospel – or was I genuinely wanting to share the amazing ways God was at work? And maybe our motives are always mixed, but I think for us, it made a difference when our supporters were genuinely wanting to free us up to please God. They weren’t asking for ‘souls for dollars’ results, and then we were able to enjoy that freedom and stay open to all the ways God might work.

And now of course, I’m back in Australia and seeing that the lessons here are the same – the challenge for us to use our gifts and resources and opportunities in ways that honour him, rather than in ways that draw attention to ourselves. It’s an ongoing issue …

Love Naomi

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EQUIP Ministry Wives 2009 - Beyond Success

Being married to someone in full time ministry is a privilege and a joy. But it is a privilege that comes with difficulties and challenges that are quite specific to the role. As I wrote last year, after the first EQUIP Ministry Wives Conference:

This coming January, it will be 10 years since I married Dave and became a 'ministry wife'. Early on, I was told over and over again that being married to a man in ministry is no different from being married to someone in any other job. He had his work, I had mine, and his job should have no impact on my life. I soon worked out that Dave's work certainly did have an impact on my life in a way that wouldn't have happened if he had still been a high school teacher. But as to what my own role was, and how to be a 'ministry wife' - I had no idea!

The fact that 400 women turned up to the first EQUIP ministry wives conference last Saturday suggests that I haven't been alone in these feelings of confusion and need for encouragement. It was a wonderful day and I wish I'd heard the talks 10 years ago!

I found last year's conference a tremendous encouragement, particularly Carmelina's talk on '10 Ways to Discourage Your Husband in Ministry'. This year, the theme of the day is 'Beyond Success' . The speakers include Phillip Jensen and Cathy Smith. Kent and Barbara Hughes, authors of Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome, are speaking via video and I am especially looking forward to hearing what they have to say.

You can find out more information and register at the EQUIP website.

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The second letter

Hi Naomi,

Thanks for your reply, and just think of me as another friend in your lap-top — and as much as it was necessary for you to write, it was a comfort to me. God truly does comfort “us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (2 Cor 1:3-4).

You mention that as you wrote the book you were still dealing with issues of poverty, even though you had learnt early on to conceal your sense of guilt. That sense of guilt plagues me, to. I feel guilty about nice holidays, about going home to have a baby, even about the amount of food stored in our cupboards. I think guilt should lead to confession of sin, repentance and change. What exactly am I guilty of? What about corporately, as a society? Are we guilty? What can we do? How has dealing with these issues changed you and the way you live now?

And then I also struggle with the balance between wanting to help deal with poverty and sickness — a task that would be all consuming on its own — and proclaiming the gospel (or training others to do so), which is why we are here. It’s not a new problem … the miracle-working-healer Jesus left the sick to go and preach the kingdom of God ... the apostles appointed others to do work of helping the widows so they could preach the word. There just seems to be so much shallow Christianity here, and it seems to be promoted by wrapping the gospel in humanitarian aid … hey, you guys let us build a church and we’ll also give you a water tank, or we’ll pay school fees for your children … or here’s some scabies cream. I just want to hold out the gospel and nothing else and see who bites … but then I feel guilty because I have something else. It's got to be about love, hasn’t it? Gospel love; word and deed. So I loved that your work did point people to Christ. I loved the stories of Mukti and Maili and of Chandra reading Revelation 21.

And yes, learning a new language and culture is completely humbling. A friend said to me, after I had given a devotional talk that I had spent hours preparing, “Don’t worry, God knew what you were saying!” It really feels, as you said, like being a little child ... unable to dress, cook, walk or talk. You brought into focus this verse for me:

I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. (Luke 18:17)

Little children cannot do anything. It helped me realize my complete inadequacy to come before a holy and righteous God. I can do nothing. He must do it for me. He only is adequate.

As I write this I ought also to be writing to our supporters, and I only chuckle to myself as I remember what you say about wanting to please the supporters. A good lesson for anyone to learn is to live for that audience of one … ‘make it our goal to please Him’ as Resham would say. But I can’t just ignore our supporters. What does a good relationship between supporters and missionaries look like?

Looking forward to hearing from you!
Love,

Rachael.

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The first reply

Dear Rachael,

It’s so nice of you to write, especially from Vanuatu … Not only was your letter encouraging but it also made me realise that there are real people out there in real places and in challenging seasons, reading my books. So, thank you. And I’m not sure that ‘baring my soul’ was as brave as it was somehow ‘necessary’. I once heard a writer say that, ‘some people become writers because the circumstances of their lives make writing possible or necessary for them’. And I thought to myself, I must be in the second category. During our seventh monsoon, writing became necessary for me – it became the way that I could reflect and pray and begin to look back on my life and see God’s sovereignty in clearer ways. At the time, I was dealing with issues of war and poverty in Nepal, I was home schooling our three sons and I was struggling with the rain and isolation. So, to help me with all of that, I wrote my way through the monsoon – often from 9pm till midnight while the rain poured down and with two candles on either side of the laptop, but mostly because it was a helpful thing for me to do – rather than thinking so much about ‘the readers’.

And maybe that’s why it comes across as being so ordinary – quite apart from the fact that that’s exactly what I am! I was just having a nice long chat with my friend inside the laptop! And the friend stayed quiet and listened to me for ages … But the most helpful thing for me was seeing God’s faithfulness and sovereignty through all the seasons of my life. I think there’s something about trying to put your life onto the page that removes it a step – it takes it from inside your head (or memory) – and puts it out there on the page, and that somehow shows us more of God’s perspective. And maybe we don’t take enough time to look back on our lives and do that ordinarily.

And you’re absolutely right. I avoided the term missionary – mainly because I thought there was too much confusion associated with it. I didn’t want it to be a stumbling block, especially for non-Christian readers. So I referred to us as cross-cultural workers and I think that’s okay. Wherever we are, we’re missionaries because of our attitudes. The reason we wake up and get out of bed in the morning is because we want to share the love of God with those we meet. We want to use our opportunities to point to what he has one for us through his Son. And for some of us, I believe that God challenges us and equips us to do that cross-culturally – in places of great physical and spiritual need. But even more important than the places we do that, are the reasons we do that. We want to serve him. And that’s just as much a challenge for me here, now living in the Blue Mountains, as it ever was in Nepal. Perhaps it’s more so!

But thank you for your letter. It was so encouraging.

With love in him,

Naomi

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The first letter

Dear Naomi,

I have been itching to write to you for so long and now, at last, have put pen to paper. When I first read your book I found someone with whom I shared so many struggles … someone who would understand. You were so brave to bare your soul like that and I found the lessons you shared about God’s sovereignty and provision so encouraging. I so wanted to talk to you. And yet I was afraid to write.

I was afraid to write because you are a missionary. Missionaries are so spiritual, they walk so closely with God, they are so amazing. Not me. But this is ridiculous — I am a missionary. But I don’t feel like one and I definitely don’t refer to myself as one.

Actually I noticed that you didn’t use the word “missionary” often either, preferring instead “cross-cultural worker”. Why don’t we like the term missionary? Are we ashamed? There’s a lot of confusion about missionaries. Either we idolise them as spiritual super-heroes and think we couldn’t be one or we are ashamed of them because they are so politically incorrect and we don’t want to be one.

One of the best things about your book is that it gently corrects those mistakes. It’s not a hagiography about someone far-removed in time and place. It’s about someone so — please don’t be offended — so ordinary! We read about you and we know you. We know about suburbs and school dances and sports-mad-young-men. We know about anxiety, confusion, longing and grief. And it dawns upon us that missionaries really are ordinary Christians who, compelled by the love of Christ and for the love of Christ, are sent to go and serve him somewhere else, living and speaking the gospel in a different culture.

In your little spiel to the mission agencies, you basically said, “here we are, this is what we can do, can you use us?” I think if we all stood humbly before God like this he would work powerfully through each of us in building his kingdom, overseas or at home — because being a missionary isn’t the only or even the ultimate way to serve God, is it?

I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

With love from your sister in Christ in Vanuatu,
Rachael.

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Meeting Naomi Reed

Naomi Reed is married to Darren and they live with their three sons in the Blue Mountains. Both Naomi and Darren trained as physiotherapists and they spent six years serving in Nepal with the International Nepal Fellowship. Since returning to Australia, Naomi has written four books including the award-winning My Seventh Monsoon. She now can’t imagine not writing and enjoys the flexibility of the writing and speaking life, particularly when it fits seamlessly into a busy family life. But that’s not to say that it always does! – Or that she has figured out how to maintain that sense of a balanced life … It’s what she’s working on at the moment.

How did you come to faith in Christ?

I came to faith in Christ in 1980. I was a struggling, insecure twelve-year-old from a non-churched background – and I was acutely aware of my unacceptability to almost everybody. Then, a close Christian friend invited me to the high school Christian group and I heard for the first time that God loved me, that he’d made me and that he’d sent his own Son to redeem my life and to make me acceptable to Him. It was utterly amazing and I remember staying on in the music room that day, completely still and silently praying – and at the same time knowing that nothing was ever going to be the same again. And it hasn’t been! I’ve been overwhelmed by the mercy and love of God every day since then.

What do you most love about reading?

Well, that all depends on what I’m reading and what mood I’m in. Primarily, I want to be inspired and I want to connect with someone (real or fictional) at an emotional level. When that happens, I love reading and I find it almost impossible to put the book down. Actually, it all began when I was a child. I grew up in a wonderful home without a television, so we would always have our books with us – at the dinner table, under the sheets after lights out, even walking to school. So, reading became a bit of an obsession and even now, as an adult, I’m still really easily absorbed in a book… sometimes to the detriment of other, more pressing considerations.

And writing?

I love the surprise of it all. I love the way I can be writing something and the mere act of putting pen to paper sparks off another thought. One set of words and phrases fires off another and I end up somewhere I didn’t expect at all. I love the way that when I’m in the middle of writing something, almost everything I see and hear contributes to it. Right now, I’m at the end of my fourth manuscript and when I finished the last word of this one, the tears were streaming down my face. It was that sense of having poured out everything onto the page. With this manuscript, I’ve tried to capture the whole message of the Bible (the whole sweep of God’s plans and promises, culminating in Jesus) through the voices of women. It’s been a completely ambitious project! But I love story telling (and dramatic monologue as a genre) so I’ve enjoyed the challenge of trying to capture Biblical female voices and then ground them in the tactile reality of another time and place. More than anything, I suppose I want to inspire the reader with God’s promises and perspective – and then hope that they’ll be able to see beyond their present circumstances. And I love the way writing forces me to reach into my own memory and experience in such a way that I see and think and pray more clearly than before. But most of all I love the way that God can use the printed word. I feel like what I can offer him is so small – it’s yesterday’s bread and some manky fish. But if he chooses, he can take my tiny offering and then do with it what he wants. If he chooses, he can even feed 5,000. I love that.

What is your favourite novel?

There’s no standout novel, but probably lots of authors on my journey. I grew up on Noel Streatfield, L.M Montgomery, Louisa Alcott and Jane Austen. Then I enjoyed Maeve Binchy and Rosamund Pilcher. Right at the moment, it’s Ian McEwen. I think the link with all of these is the way they take me into a world of relationships and draw on the subtleties and complexities of human nature. That’s the most important thing for me. When I sit down to read, I want to be taken to new places and new people – but the words and thoughts have to be subtle and complex and beautiful.

What book(s) has helped you most in growing in your knowledge of God?

What I want more than anything is to grow in my daily walk with God – the way I talk with him and live with him and honour him and serve him. So, Helen Roseveare's books have been very challenging. They’ve forced me to ask the questions about what I’m willing to do for God and where I’m willing to go. It was those sorts of questions that led to our six years in Nepal. And I’ve loved Christian biographies. There’s always something to relate to or to apply in my own life through reading other people’s stories. And it’s never as if I have to walk their road to identify with them – it’s all about a shared life. So, as a new Christian reading Corrie ten Boom or Joni Eareckson or David Wilkerson, I didn’t need to be in a concentration camp or a wheelchair or a drug gang to learn those lessons of grace and forgiveness and the love of God in powerful ways. I suppose I’m really passionate about the way God uses our stories (and testimonies) to draw others into a life-changing relationship with him.

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Meeting Rachael Connor

We already know a little about how you came to faith in Christ, can you tell us where you are serving God at the moment, and how you came to be there?

We live on the island of Santo (Espiritu Santo, actually, can you guess what that means?) in Vanuatu. I am here because my husband teaches at Talua Ministry Training Centre which trains leaders for the Presbyterian, Anglican and Church of Christ denominations in Vanuatu. We came here under the hand of God. It felt like we just kept walking through open doors. Sometimes it felt like we shut certain doors, sometimes it felt like some were shut and locked in our face. Looking back it was all under God's hand.

Both of us had grown up in Christian homes and had understood and responded to the gospel as children. As we grew older we were challenged to use our lives to serve God and his people, though unsure for many years what form this would take. We undertook practical and theological training convinced that this would be a great help to us either in lay or ordained ministry, but even as we began our final year of theological training the road beyond was very hazy. This was when I began praying in earnest.

While at University my husband had become friends with a Tongan man. We had heard and continued to hear from him about the great need for the faithful proclamation of Christ in the Pacific islands. Other friends urged us to think beyond the land girt by sea. Eventually we were able to say to God, "Well, we are willing to go, Lord. We'll start knocking on doors. You open them or you close them."

In following through on our interest in the Pacific we became aware of Talua Ministry Training Centre in Vanuatu. There was a need for someone to teach Bible and Theology for one year. This suited us well, particularly as we had no particular training in cross-cultural work, and the teaching would be in English. So we applied, were appointed and we came. The year extended to two, then four and will be six at the end of this appointment (end of 2010).

What are the hardest things about being a cross-cultural missionary?

The answer, or answers, to this question form the basis for a lot of the discussion between Naomi and myself in our letters. Perhaps we could put this question on hold?

What is one of the biggest challenges you find in being a Christian woman in Vanuatu?

The biggest challenge for me is to make sure I keep growing and thriving spiritually. I think this is difficult for most people in formal Christian leadership for while they are responsible for teaching and nurturing others, sometimes there is no-one to teach and nurture them. It is easy for people to assume everything is OK, when we have the same struggles as anybody else. This problem is magnified in our case for three reasons. First, for historical reasons, missionaries in Vanuatu are highly respected so while we are formally 'under' the care of others, this never happens in practice. Second, it is difficult just to make friends who will keep me on my toes and ask the difficult questions. Differences in language, culture and education all strive to make this difficult, as well as pride. Three, formal worship is all in a language I am still learning. This makes it difficult to concentrate on and follow what is being said, especially when also looking after small children. In short, I feel isolated from all the usual helps associated with being part of the body of Christ.

How can we pray for you and your work in Vanuatu?

Please pray that I would grow and thrive spiritually.

Pray that I would be a faithful and loving wife, a patient and kind mother and a cheerful and firm teacher (my two eldest children are doing correspondence school).

Pray that I would continue to make the effort to look out of the home to see how I can be encouraging the staff wives and the student wives towards love and good deeds.

Pray for the staff here at Talua that they would teach faithfully, training godly leaders for the church who are well equipped to teach and apply God's word.

Pray for my husband, Glen, who as well as having an almost full teaching load is Acting Bursar at the college. This is a consuming task. Pray that he would not lose sight of great joy and privilege it is to be teaching the word of God day by day!

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