Martin and Hazel Frost Our Life in Argentina

I have a problem with clichés Christian phrases like éWhen Christians pray, we tend to throw cliches around. Disclaimer: this is just a photo of people praying, I'm not pointing my finger at...

English is a world language. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that English is a whole bunch of national and regional languages which all have the same name and have a lot of similarity to...

Mercy is, in my opinion, the most dramatically changed child in our care. She is not the same in any regard as the child that moved into our home more than 5 years ago. She is now a young lady full...

The May/June issue of our newsletter, Overseas Field Report, is now available. In this issue, we’ll give you the very latest on our preparations for CMO 2013, including an interesting look at...

It’s a strange cultural dilemma. In the US (and in my family in particular), an extremely important skill is To Make a Plan. Excel spreadsheets on your computer, daily planners tucked into your...

While I was in Edinburgh, there was a tour on offer, where one would apparently ride around and gawk at the famous writer’s houses etc. The writers from Edinburgh who were listed were Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, J.K. Rowling (yes Mrs. Potter herself), and Ian Rankin. The only one on this [...]

After 5 months of no youth group activities we re-started the grupo de jovenes! Getting startedSome people may recall that after leading a youth group for several years I combined our group with a...

As I begin my second year without my Julie and Timothy,  I still look for answers, but I believe, with a new perspective. One Year and One month went by since the accident.  It’s...

During the past few years I have made a commitment to be open, honest and transparent in my relationships. I have made a conscious choice not to hide and to be appropriately honest about myself, my...

Dear Missions Pastor/Church Leader/Generous Supporter, You know that thing we talked about the other day? Where sometimes missionaries use misleading language in their newsletters and updates to...

Dear Missions Pastor/Church Leader/Generous Supporter,
You know that thing we talked about the other day? Where sometimes missionaries use misleading language in their newsletters and updates to sound more productive then, perhaps, they actually are? Remember that?
Ok. Well. Sometimes, you're the problem.
xoxo, ~jamie ...          .....         ....
In 2006, U2 frontman, Bono, (literally wearing rose-colored glasses) called the Church to action in Africa during an interview for the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. I was there. It was kinda awesome. It was a bold and honest interview and it created a fervor for justice and aid for Africa's poor and marginalized nations. It lit a fire. And that fire launched Africa Missions to the top of the missionary food chain.
Africa became a rockstar. Everybody wanted in.
Six months later, El Chupacabra and I found ourselves sitting across the table from a pastor as he explained that he wouldn't support our effort to get to Costa Rica because, “You guys are great. You're good communicators, you've got vision, and I really believe in what you're doing... but... I just can't sell Costa Rica... Are you sure you're not called to Africa? Our people want Africa.”
As we left, reality sunk in; Our mission wasn't sexy enough.
Honestly, we could totally understand why. I mean, really, sending a family to a largely Christian, tropical, vacation destination to do missions should be a tough sell. But, we were going to help launch Latino missionaries into the world, and “the world” includes Africa - so we hitched our wagon to the “Save Africa” train and had all of our support raised in 7 months. The end.
Just kidding. That wasn't the end.
Sometimes, the message from church leaders and individual supporters is that a paycheck is directly linked to a missionary's ability to come up with a good story. That's how the “Missionary Code” is unwittingly pushed on hard-working missionaries with boring but important jobs... like, I dunno... maintenance. (It's hard to write home about plunging the same toilet twenty six times in three days for Jesus. It's not sexy, but I know missionaries who do it.)
Sexy enough?  Everybody knows that “building relationships” is a Sunday bulletin snooze-fest, but the people in the pews go wild over Wham-Bam-Raise-Your-Hand evangelism. (Oh, sexy street-evangelism, you sly dog.) So “building relationships” morphs into something more palatable, like “planting seeds of Faith” (nobody ever argues with “planting seeds”- it's, like, Holy Spirit approved). Then, five hours of office filing becomes “praying over every detail of our ministry”, and having a beer with another missionary to engage in the messy but necessary act of commiseration, makes the newsletter cut as “fellowship, planning, and development”.
The point is that, while, yes, there are crappy missionaries who take advantage of this creative language to get by doing little or nothing – and we cannot ignore that problem – there are others, invested, engaged, hard-working men and women in the field, who sometimes feel roped in to this word play because the Church insists on overly spiritualized reports from missionaries whose work they don't entirely understand.
A good missionary needs more than your money. They need your sincere interest in what they are doing and how they are doing it. They need you to cheer them on through the rare exciting moments in missions, and also, the dragging, boring, everyday, “why the hell am I here?!” times. They need your f-r-i-e-n-d-ship. They need your prayers to stave off the very drama that so many crave hearing about.
Sadly, when sex sells, crime and illness become a missionary's bread and butter. When your house is burglarized, or your car is stolen, or you blow out your knee, or you give your kid a concussion by accidentally hitting him in the brain with a surfboard... *ahem* I mean, like, for example... that's when supporters perk up. They want to know more, they connect with your 'suffering', they feel bad and they want to help – and all of that is sweet, and kind, and caring (and, truly, missionaries need extra $$ during those times!) -  but, ironically, when a missionary is dealing with junk like that, they are the least engaged in their work. Drama steals a missionary away from the good and important things they ought to be doing. But drama is sexy, and the sexiest missionary wins the prize.
Sexy missions doesn't equal healthy missions. We are remiss when we simply assume that, because a missionary's reports are filled with spiritual fireworks, they must be thriving. Every missionary's well-being depends on a trustworthy relationship with their supporters, and the ability to express their struggles, defeats, and failures without fear of losing their resources. (Oh, and here's a tip: A missionary who never seems to have struggles, defeats, or failures should raise some red-flags.)
Healthy, real, legit missional work begins with a heavily invested church and a fully understood missionary. Pastors, leaders, and supporters need to make the time to connect with and be available to the missionaries they're in bed with. Only through loads of regular two-way communication will a missionary be able to share the true ways God is working in and through them. In the same way, by taking a keen interest in what our missionaries are really up to, the Church will be able to wisely discern the truth about a missionary's effectiveness and/or appropriate fit in the field.
We'll have to take off our rose-colored glasses and bring our expectations of missionaries down to Earth, but when we finally throw off that trendy neglige, we'll be left with the actual body of Christ, doing good work in the world. 
And that is just...um... titillating?
....       ....      ....
Thoughts? 

After 3 weeks in Oz, we have returned to Timor Leste.  For some reason, I found this place to be so stinking hot that I wondered what the heck we’re doing here.  One of those...

When do we get to the age where our identity becomes tangled up in our to do list and our self worth is defined by the amount of items crossed off our paper lists? When do the thoughtful doodles of...

After our picnic on Tuesday, we headed home for dessert. The majority of my recipes can be found over at the Baptist Missionary Women's Blog, but this one was just so quick, easy, and tasty that I...

slowly, slowly.... mpola mpola... we're finding our way.  we're settling in to a routine.  we are assessing our needs and finding solutions. i've felt like we were drowning in mess. ...

It's been two weeks since my last post . . . not because I lack content, but rather it's a time issue.  My Honey-Do lists are quite long . . . and considering the absence of a 'honey', I'm on my...

Eden's birthday was the day we left for Guatemala City (March 13th). This was Eden the morning of her birthday:It was a long day on the road. Once we made it to the capital we stopped at a mall with...

Victor is back with us after a few days in Ciudad Azteca with the Topp family. While there he was able to go to a semifinals game between two soccer giants, America and Monterrey, in Mexico City's...

Hey all, Bendiciones a todos en el bendito nombre de Jesús!  I am so very excited to share with you this update and all that God has been doing in our midst as of recent. As I wrote last time, we...