'Why Foreign Missions?'
From time to time, I’ve heard
someone ask, ‘Why go overseas to minister to people when there are so many
needs right here?’ This question is well
worth considering, and I propose to do so in several parts.
1. The Needs at Our Gate
"There was a rich man who was dressed in
purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus,
covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even
the dogs came and licked his sores…. (Lk. 16.19-21, NRSV).
When I lived in Addis Ababa, the
capital city of Ethiopia, I asked myself a version of the same question: ‘Why
go anywhere else to help people when the needs are so great right where I am?’ A sanitary engineer told me that over 70% of
the population had no access to toilets and running water. People lived and slept in the streets,
huddling under shelters made from scraps of plastic, metal, or wood whenever it
rained or the sun beat down relentlessly.
We had seven shelters right outside of our gate, and many more on the
adjoining street. Down the street, two
women begged for a little money each day to feed their children. A couple of streets over, I met a leper with
only stubs for fingers and part of his face missing. The nearly daily wails coming from the
hospital across the street told me when someone died. I didn’t hear the screams inside, where
surgeries were carried out without anesthesia.
One day, I watched a fight break out over bread that someone was handing
out to the hungry.
I was simply overwhelmed in
Ethiopia with the extent of human needs.
We would buy meal tickets to hand out to the needy so that they used
them on food, not something else. An
eleven year old girl with a bright smile and her little brother lived just
outside the wall of my compound. When
she would see me on the street, she would come skipping over and gratefully
received a few meal tickets. My heart
broke for this little girl, knowing that others like her regularly gave
themselves to prostitution so that they could feed their stomachs for just one
more day.
I asked myself how we could minister
to a city with so many needs. How could
we feed the widows and orphans, the cripples, and the sick? No matter where I walked—and I took long
walks—I would see the same human suffering.
A cripple using a pole as a crutch as he walked to cars idling at one of
the still running stoplights, someone suffering from elephantiasis lying
outside the church yard, someone scooting along on his fists because he had no
legs…. Where does one start to meet such
needs?
I decided that I would try to
help the little girl with a bright smile and her brother. They lived right outside of my compound, like
Lazarus begging outside the rich man’s gate in Lk. 16. While we cannot help everybody, we might at the very least try to help those sitting at our gate.
Foreign mission work is not an excuse to ignore the needs right where
we are. Even if needs are greater far
away, we need to realize that the needs outside our gate are ones that we can
address. The first answer to our
question, ‘Why foreign missions?’
is simply this: Let us not ignore the
needs at our own gate.
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