What image comes to mind when you think of a “missionary.”  Is it someone in clothes that are ten years out of style?  Maybe it is a person with a wad of gospel tracts in his or her hand.  Perhaps you have the thought of a man standing next to a display board handing out prayer cards accompanied by a homely wife and stair-step children dressed in matching homemade outfits.

When I became a missionary, I had no clue what it was really all about when I “signed on the dotted line” (actually it was a solid line).  Bible colleges and Christian universities do a great job at teaching doctrine and philosophy, but there is a whole other side to the missionary thing.  I had no idea that I would need to be a public relations coordinator, an accountant, a graphics art designer, a mechanic, a construction foreman, and the list goes on and on.  As a missionary I can tell you that I spend less time actually out there “spreading the gospel” than I do on the other activities of being a missionary.  Especially here in a third world country I spend 40 to 50 percent of my time trying to keep me and my family alive.

There have been countless new missionaries that have gone through a lot of time and money to get to the field only to be sucked into the black hole of the mission field and spit back out in their home country never to return again.  Spiritual preparation is paramount, but you cannot discount practical preparation as well.  I encourage all prospective missionaries to take time to sit down with a mechanic friend and learn the basics.  You don’t want to be charged for changing the headlight fluid in your truck. (If you are wondering how to check the headlight fluid – stop reading this and go immediately to a mechanic friend, skip Google.)  Ask for a crash course in accounting procedures from an accountant in your church.  Go to a construction site with a contractor friend and look around and ask questions.

I want to put a plug in here about another article I wrote about being prepared for the ministry and the importance of mentorships.  The problem is that you don’t know what you don’t know.

In conclusion, we can all be an expert in one area or another, and “little sperts” in a lot of other areas.  Thomas Huxley said, (don’t agree with a lot of what he said but he had a point here) “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.”  I quote Benjamin Franklin, “If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.”

Serving Jesus,

HGP3