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by Sharon Peters
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T oday , w it h the percentage of mis sionary casualties reaching an all-time high of seventy-two percent, many of these ex-missionaries have found that their one line of college training has been a one-way street ending in the blind alley of Dead Service. Mission boards are dismayed at the number of their staff who resign for one reason or another after their first furlough, and have begun to look ser iously into this grave matter. Their findings have been two-fold: (1) the young person had concentrated on one vocation for the minimum (or some times maximum) number of college years, but when he arrived on the field, became easily discouraged be cause the need was too great and he was not adequate for it, or that there were too many folks better than he doing the job and he was not pre pared to fit into another situation; (2) the young person was doing well in his area of specialized training, but there were so many extra jobs that had to be done about which he knew nothing; that he was wasting unnecessary time on “ just living.” Today, as college students and pros pective missionaries, we need to look at this problem squarely lest we too discover ourselves on a casualty list. EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr. Peters will be grad uated from the Christian Education course of Biola College this year. Mrs. Peters is President of the Biola Students Wives' Club.
Let us begin with the field of home economics and see how sewing, an art that certainly does not take much time to learn, can help you. Nothing will make a mud or grass hut as attractive or liveable (after the per fection of living in the United States) as a few homemade, airy curtains at the pane-less windows, to say nothing of what a few touches on a mission ary-barrel-type dress will do to make it acceptable to wear in public. Baking is another useful trick which will help one to be a more useful missionary. O n e summer a young man obtained a job in a bakery to enable him to finish his Bible training. Fully expecting to work in some isolated village, he was surprised to find that his first alloca tion upon reaching the field was the school of missionaries’ children. There, because of that one summer’s experience, he was able to save the nrission a great deal of money by baking all of the bread — which was a great deal — for some thirty peo ple! Another student of Biola was able to learn the foreign language first hand and do his first witnessing by cutting the natives’ hair — all be cause he knew a little about this sim ple art, and thus was able to get “ close” to natives and hear the dia lect. Carpentry is a very useful know ledge to make a missionary success ful. In many areas, it is impossible
to obtain furniture, and your house will be either a hut or a home, de pending on whether you can make some furnishings. A Wycliffe mission ary had been trained in linguistics, but when he arrived on his field, he found that there were others doing that work much more effectively. Dis mayed at the thought of having to return home, he stayed on to help build a house for one of the mission aries. Because he had spent his week ends home from Bible school helping his carpenter father, he did an ex cellent job on the house. Consequent ly, he did not return to the United States, but is building Bible schools and missionary compounds and ad vancing the cause of the Lord in this way instead of translating. The philosophy of rushing through school and getting right to the field is not enough to make a successful missionary. We who realize this have a task before us of not only filling our minds with doctrines, techniques and facts, but also of using our spare time to gain all types of experience in practical things. Paul, the epitomy of the practical missionary, said the following about his ministry, “ I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” While we have opportun ity, we must gain as "much experience as possible to better serve our Lord. He will use every bit of knowledge, every skill, everything we lay at His blessed feet.
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17
JULY, 1962
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