Risk

Touching a leper, being within coughing distance of someone with presumed TB, drawing blood or doing an LP on a known HIV carrier, traveling the roads in Zambia, walking in snake territory at night – all of these are risks that we have encountered here that we would not ordinarily face in Langley.

Just one week ago, the missionary couple next door to us was subjected to a home invasion and was held with their 3 young children at gunpoint (AK 47) while all their cash and their vehicle was stolen. Thankfully, no one was hurt and they seem to have been spared major psychological trauma.

When Marguerite and I were here 20 years ago we heard stories (some of which we saw first hand) of hardships that the missionaries had undergone for their commitment to their calling. One physician had lost wife and child to illness (cerebral malaria and another illness), 1 couple had lost their 16-year-old son to a crocodile attack. While we were here an American missionary teacher lost his life in a car accident and his wife sustained a spinal cord injury. He left 3 small children behind.

One may argue that similar things can happen in Canada and I would grant you that, but the fact remains that there are many more health and safety perils here than in our part of the world. To say nothing of the “risk” as a missionary of loss of prestige, career advancement, financial security and the like.

Why would people expose themselves to such risk? We live in a world of risk management where one is always trying to minimize potential harm to self and loved ones. To go to Africa with your family seems, on the surface, to be naive at best and foolhardy at worst.

What I have found almost universally about the missionaries I have encountered is a holy recklessness and disregard for self that is motivated by a higher calling – that of pouring out their lives to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the poor and less privileged. They take as their model our missionary God, who, saw us in our poverty and depravity and entered a foreign and unwelcoming world and dimension, our world/human history, to live and die for those in need. They take as their mantras the apparent recklessness of scripture – the calling to be “living sacrifices” and to “find one’s life by losing it”.

It is only by having a clear sense of God’s calling to such a life, and only by clear trust in his ability to ultimately take care of us no matter what happens, that such a self sacrificing lifestyle can be considered. While we are to do all that we can to protect ourselves and our family from adverse outcomes, we also need to realize that our lives and health are in the hands of one much more powerful than us and one that cares for us more deeply than we can imagine. True joy and security comes not in safe roads, or powerful medicine or the size of our RRSP but in being in the center of God’s will. It is only with that knowledge that I can set foot outside my door in the morning whether it is here at Mukinge or at home.

We are not promised a carefree, stress free, danger free life as Christians. In fact, we are assure that ”in the world you will have troubles” but we are also assured of Jesus’ ongoing presence with us and our ultimate hope of eternal life – indeed in this sense, Jesus has overcome the world.