"What's the best part of your work as a missionary?"

Sometimes missionaries get asked questions something like these:

“What’s the best part of your work?  What do you do that you most enjoy?

I enjoy all the different aspects of my work including translating documents, administrating a Spanish language school, writing publications for SENDAS, and updating webpages and Facebook pages, but here is the best, most lasting part of my work as a missionary…

I get to be part of helping people discover God’s call on their lives.  I say “part of” since this is completely God’s thing, but I’ve got to say, I love watching God lead and guide people in their calling whether it be to serve as a missionary, a pastor, a teacher or a  ____________ (fill in the blank). 

My work with the CALL language school is key in this.  Volunteer missionaries, newly contracted missionaries, and other professionals come to CALL to learn the Spanish language, but it’s really a lot more than that.  Students learn to live in a new culture (How do I get to…? What is that?  Why do they do that?  What does it mean when…?), they discover their strengths and weaknesses, and through a time consuming process (sometimes up to year or more) they begin to see how God would have them serve, whether on the mission field or elsewhere.  Witnessing this process is super fulfilling, sometimes exasperating and always wonderful.

Recently, our Regional Director, Dr. Carlos Saenz, asked me a question I could not answer.  “How many people have studied with CALL?”   I could only answer, “Muchas.”  I really didn’t have any idea, so the next week I began to research by viewing all the monthly reports since CALL started in fall of 2009.  I was amazed to learn that 70 students have studied with CALL during that time.  Wow.

Here is the part that really gets me excited.  Some of these folks have felt a call to continue serving as missionaries.  Here are few of them that are serving as missionaries today:

Lora Wooster, serving with Partnerships for the Mesoamerica Region

Stephen and Anne Sickel, Work and Witness, Costa Rica and Panama

Bub and Rickie Honea, Work and Witness, CA4 Area

Dan and Janet Reinhart, serving with the Eurasia Region

Darin and Tonya Kucey, serving in Haiti

Others are in the process now, taking classes and serving as they study.

Patrick and Kim LeGrand, serving with Work and Witness, Costa Rica and Panama

Luke and Liz Gentry, serving with SENDAS

Gary and Naomi Faucett, currently taking online courses and will arrive in January to continue studying with CALL.

Of course that's not all of the CALL students with a call to missionary service, and there are many others who serve in other ways:  pastoring, teaching, serving children, administrating, etc.  Each of these people used their CALL and Costa Rica experience to build language skills to serve others.  One of our former CALL students now teaches Spanish in an elementary school in Washington D.C. and she does not have a Spanish major, but improved her skills through CALL. Now that’s an awesome ministry!

One last thing…I’ve learned I cannot predict who God will choose for missionary work or how He will have them serve.  Sometimes I think it’s obvious how someone should (or should not) serve.  These four years of CALL experience have shown me that God’s will in a person’s life does not always make human sense.  Actually, it usually doesn’t make sense.  Watching God mold and shape us (that includes me!) into who He wants us to be is an amazing process. 

I ask you, “What could be better than that?”