The Costs and Rewards of Discipleship in Missions in Belize  (rev)

One way to think of what the Belize experience has meant to us is to look at what it has cost us to follow Christ in his call to serve in Belize and what the rewards have been to follow him here all these years. When I start thinking about it, it seems the costs have been great as well as the rewards practically infinite. This certainly corresponds to the words of Jesus which are usually taken as hyperbole. But to us the words have been almost literally true. I am thinking of the words of Jesus where he said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. Mark 10:29-30.

I suppose we usually don’t lay these verses over our experiences out of modesty and humility. We don’t want to think or cause anyone to think that we have made great sacrifices, or have suffered a lot or heroically, nor that we would be expecting any kind of great reward for what we have done. Yet perhaps it is permissible to recognize that Jesus is calling for great sacrifices and offering tremendous incentives by way of rewards if we are willing to give up a lot in order to receive a whole heap more. Perhaps our modesty and humility blinds us to the overwhelming challenge and promise of Jesus in his words to those who would be followers. Perhaps our Mennoniteism blinds us to some of the most astonishing words of Jesus. It makes me wonder what else we might be missing in his teachings.

The cost of following a sense of call was itself a challenge, with doubts as to the timing and our gifts. We were divided as to the call. Would we follow him into areas uncharted for us before? Was it the right time to leave family then, as we still had a teen girl who was not yet fully established in her life? Would Loretta be challenged to do things she felt no natural talented to do?  I wondered if I was gifted to teach leaders, not considering myself clearly a successful leader. It was so risky I stated publicly that if I would be going on only my own sense of call without the affirmation of many, I would be very foolish. The cost of following the call was a risk, and especially as we did not have an equal sense of calling at that time. The reward however became a meaningful life far exceeding the cost of running so great a risk. It went far beyond our expectations and confidence. We had faith and imagination for only a two-three year term. Yet this pilgrimage has stretched out for 22-23 years, with no clear end in sight. Daily life is a challenge, and daily, if we are not too tired to notice it, there is always one more opportunity, perhaps many, to live around people who love us, are receptive to our love, and who are willing to experience God’s love. If we scrutinized carefully our call originally, we can now ask when our work will be coming to a close. The positive relations make it difficult to leave here, just as it was hard to be sure about leaving the States years ago.

It was also a risk to venture out on a 3,000-mile trip, half of it through a foreign country with our poor facility of the language. In the back of our minds, we had many tragic stories of what has happened to people driving through Mexico. We were not really

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scared, but we were greatly comforted knowing that there were many people praying for us. It felt so good to get through Mexico that I told the first English speaking person at the border how good I felt. Yet the blessing of God was so obvious in our travel. We made every stop over night, for six nights, just where we had projected on a schedule. There were no accidents. police harassments, robbery, auto mishaps, or break downs- until we were a hundred miles inside Belize: here we had a low tire and we repaired it. We were so happy with the tour through Mexico and into Belize that when we reach the promised land of Belize, I stopped the car and got out and kissed the ground. If we had language problems, they were fading, except that once we were over-charged at a filling station because I was not sure of the bill and confident of dealing in pesos. Knowing God was with us all the way with safety was like a promise from the Psalms and many other Scriptures. God was good and watching over us each mile and step.

But looking back, we left brothers, sisters, parents, children and two infant grandchildren, about 3 weeks and 5 months old. These we had to entrust to their young mothers. We hoped we would see our parents again. Each year, when I would say goodbye to my father, he and I probably had the same question in mind: will we see each other again? The mothers in our tribe also had newborns again and again until there were 18. We were there for the births of only about half. Sometimes we could have wondered if we really had to make that sacrifice and be away from our children’s families, watching those little ones coming and growing up throughout the year between our visits. We missed so many winter holidays when the families certainly were together. Our memories of when we were always with them were vivid reminders of what we were missing. We could have asked Jesus with Peter, ”We have left all to follow you. What is in it for us?”

I met veteran Belize Missionary Paul Martin the year before we first went to Belize. When he heard where we were headed, he extended his arms toward us and said, “They will walk into your arms” His prophecy has been fulfilled hundreds of times. From the youth who called us from WYAM as we arrived, just wanting to talk with the new missionary, to the 4 year old whose mother has sickle cell anemia, who walked toward me today and put his arms around my legs and looked up at me with a heart of love, we have found a family that out-numbers the close family we left back home by a significant ratio. Olga, mother of that YWAMer was a sister to us. Many others became brothers and sisters, and youths and children have been our grandchildren, and their parents, the age of our children, and many of them also close friends. A customs official on the Guatemala border and a lady worker at the international airport made themselves known as having met us or known us well years ago. I meet many who I faintly recognize at all, who felt a relationship in their growing up years. We have enough family here to make our children and grandchildren wonder where they fit in. Yes, they are still there in growing numbers and maturity as we devote several months each summer to be with them. But our international family has also grown well beyond our ability to remember them all and continues to grow. Presently, 4-5 fellows and a teen girl no doubt wish they could be fully incorporated into our Belizean family household. Many have wished they could travel to the States to meet our other family. Four little pre-school children who were our children for some months were privileged to go to the States and be joined to families

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there in our back-home church family. They are like grandchildren every summer when we visit them. The list could go on and on, of persons who became our family in Belize.

We left a few to go to Belize. But the family has multiplied, just like the words of Jesus’ promise while the back-home family also grows.

However, one of the ever-repeating occurrences in Belize is the loss of things that we value and consider a part of our valued environment. There is no way we can guarantee that people will not steal from us. How many cameras, tools, and electronic music equipment items we have lost, I have no way of recalling. If it doesn’t happen for a while, we only need to wait until we are shocked again by the painful discoveries of things missing. CD players have lasted less than a month; a video camera we bought last summer disappeared several weeks ago from our bedroom. Is no space in our house respected or sacred to us? When youth borrow an “adjustable” to repair a bike, after so many times, it simply vanishes. Every summer when we return from the States we replenish things lost. We wonder if it is even worth buying any cameras or tools of quality and value. The video camera we lost recently I had bought because it was on an outrageous sale, but even then without consulting my wife as she probably would have discouraged me from investing in one more camera. We have no working camera presently to record something of our exciting life. In a few weeks we will have to decide if we will buy another, and how much we will pay for it, considering the short life of such objects.

Perhaps if we are wise we will recall the words of Jesus about not laying up treasure on earth where thieves break into and steal, but rather lay them up in heaven where they will be safe forever. Thus we have shared with many who were in destitute poverty, whose children needed medicine and medical tests, school books, uniforms and supplies, and of course, food for their daily lives. We have liquidated some of our real estate back home [well, it isn’t sold yet, but just in a credit line] and invested it in the Bank of Heaven where thieves do not break into and steal. If we have not had many talents to invest, at least we have placed some in the Bank where it will draw eternal interest for the Master. We know he will supply all our needs and our investments are secure. Because of these safe investments some dozens of kids and their mothers have had more secure lives in an economy where there was hardly any safety net to catch them. They have experienced the love of God and have reasons to turn to him in gratitude. They are teaching their children of God’s grace in our giving, we hope. So while the treasures are laid “UP” the benefits are abounding to many here and now. Of that we are deeply gratified.

 We might almost over look Jesus mentioning of lands to leave and a promise if we are willing to do so. In that little town plot of about an acre that we left in Indiana, we enjoyed the landscaping and gardening. It wasn’t a park, but it was a beautiful spot where our home was situated. There were always things to do to make it beautiful and the work was energizing and rewarded by the beauty and the crops we reaped each year in our garden. While it was hardly noticeable as something that we were giving up to follow in the call to Belize, it was home and a comfortable place to live

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But in Belize when we were helping farmers get into farming, we were drawn to land ourselves. We got a government lease of ten acres, planted orange trees, hundred of pineapple, many plantain and some mango trees. We labeled one spot “Wilderness Island” and another “Wilderness Paradise.” We built a small house on an island in the middle of the creek. The reward was not only in what fruit we carried home but also in the joy of working out there and developing it. A few years later we had the opportunity to buy ten acres of orange trees nearer our town. It was at a bargain price and much closer than the first farm. We learn to reap and sell oranges and supplied many to our friends. We planted many banana and plantain between the young orange trees. Where trees failed, we planted other kinds of fruit trees, many exotic and only occasionally found in Belize. It is a hobby to collect fruit trees, numbering over 40 at this point with more than half bearing fruit. Once when I was walking along to find more fruit, I suddenly exclaimed, “God, are you enjoying this as much as I am!?” It seems such a gift of God that I have drawn a map marking every tree, well almost every tree- and calling the map, “The Garden of God”. It is also a gift to us to keep up the spirit and maintain the body healthily. Many in our Belizean family have also enjoyed going out there to reap and work with us. Children and youth frequently ask when we are going out there again. Who said missionary work has to be all labor?

Probably the most ambiguous part of our life in Belize is that many people suppose we could just drop everything and go “act our age” back home. Not that I have heard those actual words, but the idea has come from our children, a few from our home church, and even between us the question arises. In Belize, there seem to be close friends who have little enthusiasm of what we are doing and our commitment to the poorest for the sake of Christ. Several projects that could have changed the lives of persons long after we are gone were dropped for ambiguous reasons. We could so easily have led in those visions had we wanted to do it as foreigners. But we felt they should be developed by others and locals. Few youth have been drawn into the church and some in “our family” have said they don’t feel welcome. We stand somewhat alone in our work, though perhaps more with schools and social agencies than with the church in helping youth who are otherwise headed for school drop-out, crime, poverty and drugs, without parental guidance. Youth without fathers, or mothers, or with no effective parenting may be socially and spiritually retarded, that is, years behind where they should be in development. We labor day by day, not always knowing when one such youth might explode violently when he does not get his way. Others have so little hunger or awareness of Spiritual realities. One could easily feel, “Why go on?”

Well, why? I suppose near the center of our motivation is a sense of stewardship of our calling. We have been gifted with love, experience, and some financial resources that we can continue usefully. Keith Green said that soldiers are to obey the last order they got, and so we are waiting for a different call to our lives. We also believe the Scriptures that “in due season. We shall reap if we do not faint.” And great is the reward for faithfulness. Also surrounding us are a host of supportive affirmations: The people we are working with for a better life, the tropical climate, even the farm mentioned above, the lack of

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Joneses to keep up with; and the lack of the temptation of living for ourselves. There is also no compelling call, spiritually or other wise, to go back north and fiddle around with lesser ministries, or scouring around for a life anything meaningful and rewarding like the present life in Belize. Certainly God could or might call us to leave at any time, and we need to be as ready to go back as we were to come there. But again, the call needs to be equally clear, not something we think up or reason by our selves.

We have never been preoccupied with the cost of faithfulness or the great rewards that will follow. We have always known that there are such challenges and motivations in the Bible, but we have always considered that it would be presumptive to catalog them. If we need any excuse to do so here, may it be to inspire others to do the same; to challenge them that nothing may be lost of eternal value to pay any cost to follow Christ obediently. It should be obvious, though not easy for many to realize and envision that God certainly is a good and great rewarder of those who serve him. The wages are not skimpy, but a windfall for the challenge accepted, and the devotion with which obedience is expressed. One may well hope as I do, that the costs productively expended so that the will and purpose of God would be fulfilled in us. Certainly the rewards are generous and far beyond that which we assumed we accomplished for His service. He is truly worthy of all we are and can do for Him, and infinitely more. Only in eternity can we continue to express our gratitude for his kindness to us for our meager service to him.

                                                                                            

                                    Written while in Belize,  Rev. May, 2008