Crocodile hunting in the depths of the jungle is a high-contact sport. You go at night, carrying spears (not guns) in tippy canoes and with no hospital for hundreds of miles. It’s a wild mixture of adrenaline and terror. I was sick to my stomach when I had “graduated” in my canoe paddling ability so that I was now able to go with the YembiYembis on a croc hunt.
I would never get near the ability of the apex hunters who stand — yes, stand — at the front of the canoe and throw the pivotal first spear, nor would I ever possess the skill to be in charge of steering the canoe from the back (the safest spot). But I had proved just barely useful enough to be part of the brute-force squad paddling in the middle. We got nothing that first night, but more importantly, nothing got us.
Our missionary team was still a couple months away from being ready to teach the Bible to the YembiYembis, and all three men on the team knew that a swath of the village would listen to us only if we were accomplished enough to hunt with them, even in this most dangerous of hunts. Because we longed to share Christ, we committed ourselves to hunting crocs.
Christ over Comforts
When my wife, Nina, and I were still living in San Diego and thinking of going overseas, we learned a lot from the nineteenth-century missionary Hudson Taylor. Taylor was the rare bird who came from a wealthy background and gave it up to go to China. Counting the cost of what missionary service would mean, he committed to learning Chinese, traded his soft bed for a hard floor, and learned how to administer basic medicine — all before he went overseas.
Taylor stood out as a missionary because of his unwillingness to allow personal comforts to stand in the way of the gospel. He realized that Western clothes and bad accents made missionaries stand out unnaturally and could cause unnecessary affront. So, he shaved the top of his head, grew his hair in a queue — or ponytail — in the fashion of the Chinese, and dyed it black. He adopted Chinese dress and submitted himself and those who joined his missions agency to rigorous language training. As a result, the China Inland Mission became the gold standard in culture and language adaptivity for over fifty years. His leadership in this area led to open doors with the Chinese and thousands hearing of Christ for the first time.
Taylor didn’t come up with all this on his own, however. He was following biblical forerunners.
Missionaries Like the Master
Our Lord became one of us. He ate our food and drank our drink (Luke 7:34), knew the local weather patterns (Matthew 16:2–3), walked our trails (John 7:1), and in all ways lived like us — yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Paul, whom our Lord sent as a missionary to the Gentiles, speaks of becoming “all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22).
Why did our Savior, along with Paul — possibly the greatest missionary in church history — so identify with the people they were sent to that they put off privilege, background, and even their very rights to make the gospel more accessible? Becoming all things to all men means sacrificing anything (clothing, comfort, food, preferred language, living situation) that causes unnecessary offense. If people stumble, let it be over the clear gospel message, not the messenger.
There is a spectrum of views on this topic, and missionaries can make mistakes on either end. Some well-meaning missionaries might shave off gospel offense to make the message more palatable. Others might retain the trappings of their home context to the extent that their message smells more of America than it does of the gospel. I’ve seen missionaries on the field who would not learn to hunt while living among a hunter-gatherer people, who could not leave the house without reeking of bug repellent while the people around them had none, or who would not eat food that would be deemed unsanitary in their home cultures.
Legitimate health issues may sometimes require such decisions, but I worry for missionaries who seem to care more about their feet, skin, and stomach than they do about winning an audience with their people. If shepherds should smell like their sheep; missionaries should smell like their people — figuratively and literally. Yes, you may get chased by a wild animal; yes, you may get dengue fever; yes, you may get stomach ailments. But what glory! What an honor to stand before the King someday and hear him say, “You gave your skin, your stomach, everything you had so that these people might know me.”
Aroma of Life
When we presented the good news to the YembiYembi, there was a serious rift in the village. The gospel, as it often does, tore the village nearly in half. Some believed the message of Christ, the “bridge-man”; others chose the “ancestors’ paths.” But no YembiYembi denied that we loved them. They had listened outside our little house as we, stricken with malaria, vomited over and over till we had nothing left. They had watched as Nina bore up under the boils they regularly had.
Some things cannot be communicated well unless you eat the same food, sleep in the same houses, and walk the same trails of the people God has placed you among. You might tell people you love them and have an incredible message for them, but the seal of authenticity is what you’re willing to lay down.
The believers would never go back. The church grew and matured over the next eight years as we taught, discipled, baptized, and continued to translate the Scriptures. Eventually, having finished translation, we left the church in the hands of the elders and deacons. Nine years later, on a return trip, we were overwhelmed with joy. Our backs may not be as young as they were, and cold turtle soup has lost whatever luster it ever had, but what a great joy it was to see the church still faithful, to talk to the elders in training, to hear the young people being taught the truth, and to gather for an Easter celebration of the good news that has bound Christians together for two thousand years.
Desiring God