Media Missionary Focus

Furlough And Knowing A Missionary's Shoe Size

In a few months we will be going on "furlough". This is when we visit churches in the USA to raise support for our ministry here in Cambodia. One of our church leaders back in states is working on an article about what furlough is all about, and asked for some input as to what it means to us. What follows in this post is my response to him.

It can be difficult to put yourself in someone else’s shoes if that person has never been honest with you about what size shoe they wear. My hope is that after reading the article you do for the advance, pastors will be better able to put themselves in the missionary’s shoes when the missionary calls or visits, so this is my attempt to be honest about my shoe size (10 ½ if you are wondering).

Like most words, furlough has some specific connotations. For most people, they think of it in terms of something like an R & R break you get during a period of military service, or like a sabbatical taken from a teaching position. For missionaries with the Assemblies of God it is nothing like that. In fact, Assemblies of God World Missions has changed their terminology in an attempt to avoid these misconceptions. The new word of choice is "deputation." While that might not carry some of the misconceptions that furlough does, it has so little meaning for most people that it is a word that leaves them totally clueless about what actually goes on during that year. Whether you call it furlough or deputation or any other word, it is one of the most difficult times for missionaries.

When first approved for service, AG missionaries spend about 18 months raising their support by visiting churches, sharing their burden and vision for the country, and getting churches and individuals to not only give cash offerings, but to commit to give regular monthly support for their ministry in the country God has called them to. Once they raise the required amount of cash and pledges they receive permission to leave for the field. During that first term they spend a year or more learning the language before they can begin active ministry. Then they spend the next two of three years starting up the ministry that God has called them to, among the people that God has called them to. Although there are many transitions and adjustments they go through during this time, it is still a joy because now your not just talking about these people and this work to church groups, your actually doing it! Like all ministries, results aren't instantaneous, but after a couple years you really start to hit your stride and things start to really happen! Then you have to leave. Your four year term is up and you have to go on "furlough/deputation".

If it is such an interruption, why is it necessary? There are a number of reasons. How about inflation? This term diesel for our car started at about $.28 per litter, but when I filled our tank this week it was $.76 per liter. And that’s just one item. The amount of money set for us to live and work on four years ago doesn't accomplish the same amount it used to. How about your ministry needs? As your ministry becomes more effective and grows, new and different needs and opportunities arise that you haven't figured into your original budget, so things are stalled, not because of a lack of opportunity, but because of a lack of funding. And how about shortfalls in your pledged support? Unfortunately, "out of sight, out of mind," applies all too often to missions support. Typically, over the course of a missionary's four year term, a number of pledges, both from churches and individuals, will just stop coming in. Just looking at this year, 2005, on average, $430.50 less comes in each month than what was actually pledged. Since January of 2003, we have had a total of more than $17,400 less come in than what was pledged. So to meet the needs of increasing costs and needs and the loss of promised funding, missionaries have to return to the USA to raise support again.

So you pack up your home, find a place to store your belongings, try to hand off as many ministry responsibilities as possible to someone else, pack up your family and move back around the world to the states. Once you arrive you have to get a car, find a place to live and furnish it knowing that in 12 months or so you have to get rid of it all again. At the same time you get to deal with culture shock. Life in America is so different from anywhere else that it takes some adjusting, and the America you return to isn’t the same one you left four years before; things have moved on and changed while you were gone.

Now that you are back in the States, you have to start fund raising all over again. First you have to schedule services at churches. If you were just going to your supporting churches, the scheduling part might not be too bad, but you can’t do that; the budget you have to raise for your next term is probably at least $2000 more per month than last time, and the churches that already support you aren’t going to increase their support enough to cover that, so you need to visit new churches to get new pledges. So you pick up the phone and a church directory and start making calls. Despite all of us being “on the same team”, scheduling isn’t so easy. Honestly, missionaries know pastors get lots of calls for services and support from all kinds of people and groups, so we understand that a fair amount of the time we will get a “no” for an answer, so that’s not the problem part of scheduling. Frankly, the problem is that all too often when a missionary calls a church, they are treated worse than if they were a telemarketer trying to sell long distance phone service. But you push through all the unreturned calls, the maze of church secretaries and voice mail systems, and you finally get your services scheduled.

In a 12 month period most missionaries will have between 150 and 200 services. That means you are in 3 or four different churches each week. When you aren’t in the actual services, you are in the car. The last time I was on deputation I logged 36,040 miles; that’s equal to driving completely around the world more than 9 times! If you figure between highway and city driving you averaged about 50 miles per hour, that means you spent 720 hours in the car. That’s more than 30 complete days! One entire month spent driving! And often, that is time away from your family. With kids in school, it is difficult for a wife and kids to travel along to various services.

Within a month or so of starting to do services you have to start following up on the services you already had. So now you may be on the phone scheduling services at the same time you are calling other churches you already had services with trying to get them to make a monthly pledge to your ministry. Now again, you might think this shouldn’t be that hard, but it really is. During our last deputation less than 50% of our services resulted in pledges, and that percentage is pretty high compared to other missionaries.

Now you start watching to see where you are in terms of your budget, and what you need still before you can return to the field. This is where some surprises sometimes pop up. For example, some churches feel they have committed to support you, but only while you are on the field, so they stop sending in their pledge during furlough/deputation. So now you have to raise that much more cash to make up for what they are no longer sending in, and in effect they end up helping to keep you in the States longer! But as the months go by, and new pledges trickle in, it can become very discouraging, and even desperate at times. All the while you continue to leave your family home, travel to various churches, pour your heart out sharing about the people God has called you to and what He is doing there, and as you leave the pastor / church members say ”God bless you, we believe God is going to do great things”, etc, and then tell you that they can’t help you with a pledge.

Please understand, as I said before, I know the pressures that pastors are under and the number of missionaries and ministries that are looking for support, but I also want you to understand the struggles that missionaries face in their own hearts during furlough/deputation. Even spending time with pastors and church members can be draining and frustrating at times; you go out to lunch or stay overnight in someone’s house and they start to tell you about the “problems” they are having in the church. But the problems are things like the style of music used in worship, hymns vs. choruses, the big fight among the board member’s wives over the color for the new carpet in the sanctuary, the in-fighting in some ministry department over who should be in charge and why. And all the while you are thinking about the problems the church in your country of ministry are facing; persecution from the government, people who become Christians facing death threats from family members because of their decision to follow Jesus, trying to live a life of integrity in a country that is ranked as one of the most corrupt governments on the planet, etc. Not to mention the extreme difference in life in general; in the States you suddenly hear news reports of the “healthcare crisis in America”, or the soaring unemployment, or whatever the media’s crisis of the week is, while back in your country of ministry people are lucky if they get $50 per month, don’t have access to ANY qualified doctors or hospitals, and struggle to literally survive. You miss the people in the country God has called you to, and your heart aches for the opportunities you may be missing there while you are “stuck” in the States trying to get pastors to return your phone calls and maybe even give you a monthly pledge. It can be a real struggle to keep from becoming cynical. All of these pressures and feelings are going on in the midst of everything else.

To be clear, I also consider it a privilege and an honor to be invited into churches to share about the country I work in and about missions in general. I am glad that I am able to help pastors or church members in some small way just by listening to their problems and struggles. I am thankful for the opportunity to raise people’s awareness of missions. My last furlough/deputation time was the best one I have had.

What it comes down to is this; Furlough/deputation isn’t a vacation by any stretch of the imagination, but I view it as an opportunity to speak into the lives of churches across the state, and across the USA. We have seen people saved and called into missions in our services during furlough/deputation, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. It is a necessary inconvenience in some respects, but it is also a wonderful opportunity that I don’t take lightly. And although I mention some of the cynical attitudes that we struggle with at times, there are also those times when you connect with a pastor or a church in a way that builds a relationship that lasts for many years.

posted by Troy In Cambodia @ 5:05 PM