Looking for a closed door

 

I’m excited to introduce you to my friend, Leanna. Last week I told you we met around a lunch table when she was on her way to Zaire (now called Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC), to teach at a school for missionaries’ kids (MKs).

 

Zaire was not a safe place then. It was in chaos financially—and in every other way, too. It was an un-developing country.

 

“She must be one strong young lady,” I said to myself.

 

I couldn’t imagine what kind of faith she had—faith to leave her home and family and travel alone to a mission school in a remote, challenging place, where she knew no one.

 

I told myself Leanna must have embraced a passion, a faith so intense that it dimmed any thoughts of fear, that it wiped out the pain of leaving home.

 

But I was wrong. 

 

Leanna knew fear. She felt pain. But she left home and moved to Zaire anyway. 

 

And I was right. Leanna was and is one strong lady, a lady with the kind of faith I can barely imagine.

 

Here’s Leanna’s story in her own words.

 

“And what about you?” That was the question I felt the Lord was asking one day during my first year of teaching. It was missions week, and I had just finished showing my second graders a video about children in another part of the world.

 

Following the video, I talked to them about how they could be missionaries as adults, or even to their neighbors while they were still children.

 

That’s when that disturbing question came to my mind, “And what about you?” 

 

The question was immediately followed by the recollection that, as a child, I had often said I was going to be a missionary when I grew up. 

 

I tried to argue. This had to just be my own strange idea, just a childhood memory. 

 

I couldn’t do missions in a far-away land, not timid and shy me! The idea would surely go away! 

 

It didn’t go away. The call to missions seemed to pop up just often enough to prevent me from forgetting, or escaping.

 

Then I remembered a missionary’s message I had heard as a teen. The speaker had said that every Christian young person should move toward missions and allow the Lord to close the doors.

 

While I don’t completely endorse that concept, I decided that it would be a way to settle the issue. 

 

Surely, the Lord would close the door to this silly notion. He didn’t.

 

I talked to my pastor. He thought missions would be a good fit. To my disappointment, he didn’t discourage me. 

 

I explored several missions and finally settled on one to which I would apply. Ah-ha! The application process. Certainly, I would be weeded out in that process. I wasn’t.

 

The time came to indicate an interest in a particular school where I would teach in Africa. It was a school belonging to another mission, one with which my doctrinal beliefs differed in some areas. They could easily say, “No, thank you.” They didn’t. 

 

Maybe I wouldn’t be able to raise enough financial support to go! The Lord provided.

 

Finally, more than four years after having the initial idea, I was on my way to Africa. The doors hadn’t closed! 

 

Now, 30 years after trying to shake off that disturbing question, it seems that there has been a place for me in missions. 

 

It hasn’t been easy,

and I’ve been an imperfect missionary.

Still, God has answered the question. 

 

Maybe He is still asking someone else,

“And what about you?”