Tag: missionary life

Lilias Trotter: Extraordinary Artist, Devoted Missionary—Have You Not Heard of Her Either?

A few months ago, I came across the trailer for the documentary Many Beautiful Things and was introduced to the life of Lilias Trotter. My first thought was “What rock have I been living under to have never heard about her before?” I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad since I’m not the only one who’s been in the dark when it comes to Miss Trotter. Though she’s gained much admiration for her artistic ability and missionary endeavors, hers has certainly not become a household name in either field.

One person who is in the know concerning Trotter is Miriam Rockness, author of the biography A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter and A Blossom in the Desert: Reflections of Faith in the Art and Writings of Lilias Trotter. But she says herself concerning Trotter’s artistry, “If she’s as good as I think she is, why has nobody else heard of her?”

What is there to hear about? Well, Trotter’s is quite a story. Born in London in 1853, she grew up simultaneously developing her devotion to God and practicing her skills in watercolor painting. When her mother sent some of her paintings to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, he recognized her talent and took her under his wing. He was so impressed with her abilities, that he said that with his help (as Trotter wrote to a friend), “she would be the greatest living painter and do things that would be Immortal.”

But in order to reach this greatness, this immortality, said Ruskin, she would need to devote herself fully to her art, as he believed that her work at the YWCA was detracting from her devotion to painting. Unwilling to give up her ministry endeavors, Trotter made her choice—serving the downtrodden women in London.

At the age of 33, she was introduced to the idea of missions in North Africa and felt God’s call to go to Algeria. Then, after being turned down by the North African Mission, she, along with two other single women, traveled to Algeria on their own. In time, she founded and led the Algiers Mission Band. Trotter’s mission work ended a full 40 years later, with her death in Algiers.

It’s quite a story, but one that without the efforts of Rockness would rarely be told. (Most of the information above comes from Rockness’s blog, where she continues to write about Trotter.)

Rockness first heard about Trotter from “two elderly sisters” who were spending the winter in Lake Wales, Florida, where Rockness lived. The sisters told the story of Trotter’s life and shared that they had a collection of devotional books that she had written. Wanting to find a good home for the books, the two ladies sent their library to Rockness over the course of several years, one volume at a time. Much traveling and investigating later, Rockness had become a Trotter expert.

Now, the story is on video with the release of Many Beautiful Things late last year—available on DVD at the movie website. The film features the voice talents of Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey) and John Rhys-Davies (Lord of the Rings) as Trotter and Ruskin, respectively.

In an interview with Christianity Today, the film’s director, Laura Waters Hinson, tells how she was also one of those who had never heard of Trotter . . . until she got an email from Rockness. After learning more about the artist/missionary for the project, Waters Hinson understands why she has stayed so obscure:

Partly because she lived in Algeria for 40 years, until she died. A lot of her work did get smuggled back bit by bit to England by missionaries, so some of it’s preserved. But some of it was lost. The Algiers Mission Band of hers disbanded when things got politically tense in Algeria, and they pushed all the missionaries out. Even though she was a contemporary or an influence like Elisabeth Elliot and Amy Carmichael, she just didn’t gain the prominence of these other famous female missionaries. She had written books, but they didn’t catch on; she also came earlier.

While many Christians don’t know her name, many know a hymn inspired by Trotter’s writings: “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus.” As referenced by Rockness, the prolific hymn writer Helen Howarth Lemmel—who was born in England but moved to the US at the age of 12—penned the song after reading the following passage from “Focussed,” a devotional pamphlet authored by Trotter:

Turn full your soul’s vision to Jesus and look and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him, and the Divine “attrait” by which God’s saints are made, even in this 20th century, will lay hold of you.  For “He is worthy” to have all there is to be had in the heart that He has died to win.

There are plenty of reasons for why Trotter should be famous, and there are reasons for why she has become relatively forgotten, as well. But Waters Hinson states what is probably most responsible for her lack of fame: It’s that “she was really content with full-blown obscurity.”

(The video below is of Pentatonic beatboxer, Kevin “K.O.” Olusola, playing “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus” on the cello. Olusola was born in Kentucky to a father from Nigeria and  a mother from Grenada. He starts out on this hymn playing a fairly straightforward melody, which is impressive in its own right, but at the 1:40 mark, he really starts to get it going.)

(Miriam Rockness, “About Lilias,” and “About Miriam” Lilias Trotter; Katelyn Beaty, “When God Calls You to Leave the Art World,” Christianity Today, March 9, 2016; Miriam Rockness, “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus,” Lilias Trotter, October 26, 2012)

The Secret Life of Walter, a Missionary [—at A Life Overseas]

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[With apologies to James Thurber and Walter Mitty.]

“I’ll take the kids outside for a while so you can have some uninterrupted time,” says Walter’s wife as she softly closes the door to his office. It’s time to work on their monthly newsletter, and he turns to the keyboard.

Tap, tap, tap, ta-tap tap . . .

“Walter?” she yells back from the living room. “Don’t forget to update the email list before you send it out.”

Dear Friends:

As I start typing this newsletter, the words are already spilling out of my heart to let you know what’s gone on this month, but I’m going to change directions and do something a little different this time.

Because the number of our supporters has recently tripled, we realize that many of you don’t know us very well. Therefore we’d like to take this opportunity to summarize our ministry in this newsletter. (We’ll soon need to decide what to do with all the extra funds, but we’ll leave that topic for a later time.) For those of you who’ve been with us from the beginning, we hope you don’t mind. Here goes. . . .

We’re so glad to be able to serve God overseas. I can tell you that even when Hannah and I were co-CEOs of our own non-profit, recognized by Time magazine on it’s annual “100 to Watch” list, and leading worship at our church on the weekends, there was something missing in our lives. Little did we know at the time that it was mission work. But on that Easter morning, when Hannah and I woke up from the same dream—seeing Jesus beckoning us onto a 737—we both knew what we must do. God’s calling was confirmed when we announced our decision to our church later that day, and the entire congregation blessed us with a raucous standing ovation. Then, after the service, friends and people we’d never met before came up to us and put enough funds in our hands to cover our startup expenses twice over.

Still, we were concerned about sharing the news with our parents, as we knew they would miss being close by to us and their three grandchildren. But our fears were allayed when all four of them, through tears of joy, told us that they had been praying for this since we were in the womb. In fact, they wondered what had taken us so long.

That was four years ago, and we can report that we are absolutely flourishing in our new home. . . .

Finish reading at A Life Overseas.

[photo: “Equipment Trial #3,“” by davidd, used under a Creative Commons license]

Personality Tests Can Be Functional and Fun, or Pass Me the Ball, Cinderella, We’re on the Same Team

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What are you? An ISFJ? Hmm. Me? I’m an INFP. Hmmmmmmmm.

Many people, including current and potential missionaries and other church-worker types, have taken the popular personality test the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MTBI). And many of them have their four-letter label memorized. This gives them the ability to carry on quite a conversation based on their combination of characteristics. It also gives them the ability (or at least some think it does) to announce their letters as a way to say, “Don’t blame me, that’s just the way I am.” Take, for instance, what Sarah Condon, blogging at Mockingbird, has to say about the MBTI:

As a J, I can tell you that it was the fastest way to sort out the weirdos from the weirdest. And also, it was a great way to preemptively excuse your bad behavior. Once I learned my Myers Briggs, I could say whatever I wanted. It was like the “God put it on my heart to tell you . . .” of liberal Christianity. As long as I reminded people that my INFJ plight makes me “decisive and strong-willed” or “easily mistaken for an extrovert,” I could dole out all kinds of insistent and unwanted opinions.

Don’t judge Ms. Condon too harshly. She later repented of her ways.

In the missionary world, agencies and churches often use the MBTI to learn about candidates and to help them learn about themselves. The test can also be a tool for building teams and for giving team members insights on how to deal with each other. In addition to the MBTI, other useful tests include the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, the Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory, and the Color Code.

But is there a better test for looking at team dynamics? I think I may have found one. It’s ESPN’s new-just-last-week Which NBA Team Are You? quiz. Of course, you’ll have to care about professional basketball to get into this one, but what better way could there be to analyze teamshipfulness? Come on, the quiz even has Team in its title! (A word of caution: Before you take the quiz, please understand that we all can’t be Warriors.)

Not a basketball fan? Then try the Major League Baseball Fan Compatibility Test or Which NFL Team Should You Really Be Cheering For?

Obviously I’ve gone from “useful” personaly tests to simply fun (which can be useful in its own way). So, in that spirit, here are some charts for your MBTI type.

Who are you? Hermione, or Dumbledore? Superman, or Batman? Or are you a great dane, or a chihuahua?

Which Disney Princess or Heroine Are You?
Which Disney Prince or Hero Are You?
Which Saint Are You?
Which Star Wars Character Are you?
Which Battlestar Galactica Character Are You?
What Dr. Who Character Are You?
Which Harry Potter Character Are You?
Which Downton Abbey Personality Are You?
Which Avengers Character Are You?
What Marvel Characters Are You?
Which Hobbit Character Are You?
Which Lord of the Rings Character Are You?

For some more stand-on-their-own tests, ones that don’t require an MBTI code, here are

Which Superhero Are You?
Which Bible Character Are You?
What Shakespeare Character Are You?
Which Disney Character Are You?
Which Zootropolis Character Are You? (I guess Zootopia is called Zootropolis in the UK.)
Which Force Awakens Character Are You?
Which Hunger Games Character Are You?
Which John Hughes Character Are You?
Which Children’s Book Character Are You?
Which Dessert Are You?
What Kind of Car Are You?
What Cat Are You?
What Dog Breed Are You?
What Tree Are You?
What Instrument Are You?
What Animal Are You?

OK, on those last two. . . . For team building, I know that a complete orchestra needs all kinds of instruments, but when it comes to animals, would you want a pride full of lions, or should there be a couple sheep around for mealtime balance?

(Sarah Condon, “Personality Assesmentss: Grace and Neurosis,” Mockingbird, Marh 24, 2016)

[photo: “Cinderella | Soundsational,” by chris.alcoran, used under a Creative Commons license]

Standing Up Crooked Together [—at A Life Overseas]

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The Crooked Forest outside Gryfino, Poland

Here’s an intro to my post this week at A Life Overseas.

Standing Up Crooked

There’s a tree near Colorado Springs that I admire. It’s a pine tree sitting on the property of The Hideaway Inn and Conference Center, where I and my family attended MTI’s Debriefing and Renewal several years ago.

This tree is surrounded by other pines, but this one’s different. While its trunk starts out on a vertical path, after a several feet, it breaks to the side at a ninety-degree angle. Then, over a few more feet, it makes a slow curve, working again on an upward climb.

Near the end of the retreat, we were told to find a place to be by ourselves, and I knew where I wanted to be, sitting in front of that tree. I must not be the only one who appreciates it, since there’s a bench facing it close by.

I don’t know what trauma caused the tree’s shape. Maybe it was a storm, maybe a disease, maybe the blade of an axe. Or maybe it was more of a heart thing—a promise unkept, a hope deferred, a joy shattered.

Regardless of the cause, the reason I admire this tree is that though having faced trouble, it still reaches upward. It’s “persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed;” wrecked, but not ruined. No, not ruined at all.

Can you identify with this tree?

Have you ever had your feet knocked out from under you because of some tragedy?
Have you ever tried to take hold of something beyond your reach and fallen in the trying?
Have you ever been bent to the point of brokenness?
Have you ever been laid low by the realization that you are the cause of someone else’s pain?
Have you ever wrestled with God, refusing to let go until you get a blessing, and walked away limping?

[photo: “Krzywy Las w Nowym Czarnowie,” by Artur Strzelczyk, used under a Creative Commons license]

Finish reading at A Life Overseas.

Gifts without Bows: Telling and Receiving Stories as They Are

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This is a time of gift giving. It’s a time of buying and making and choosing and wrapping.

In our family, we tend toward minimalism when it comes to wrapping gifts. From my father I inherited the practice of using newspaper. When your package carries the latest headlines, there’s no need for bows or ribbons. And if you’re feeling extra festive, you always have the Sunday comics.

We all know it isn’t the paper on the outside that matters, but we sure do act like it sometimes.

I think that one of the best gifts to give and receive—any time of the year—is the gift of our stories, our feelings, our truths. Sometimes they come in worn-out shoeboxes, in paper bags with the tops folded down, or in cardboard boxes marked “Kitchen” from the last move. They’re offered with trepidation and best received with reverence. They’re precious, authentic gifts, rugged and unedited.

And without a bow.

Are we willing to receive such gifts, or do we prefer presents wrapped neatly in shiny paper, with colorful ribbons curled just so? Do we want only the stories that have tidy, happy endings, tied up with a platitude or moral or lesson? Do we carry our own supply of bows in case the gift givers are lacking?

Are we willing to give those gifts as well? Do we hold back the deep realities of our lives, the honest hurts, waiting until we can decorate them with a “that’s when I knew it all happened for a reason,” an “I learned so much,” or a “now I can see it was all part of God’s plan”? In the waiting there is sorrow and pain.

I can’t help but think of my missionary friends, and other cross-cultural workers, too often feeling the need to adorn their stories so that no one will “misunderstand,” too often saying what is expected or what is easier to hear. I can’t help but think of myself when I’ve done the same thing.

Not all gifts are meant to be shared in the open. Some are too personal. Some can only be given in a private, safe, accepting space. Can you create a space like that for your friends, for their parents, for their children? Without such a place, their precious gifts stay hidden away. And hidden gifts are often forgotten and remain ungiven . . . simply for lack of a bow.

The decorations aren’t necessary. Give your gifts without bows, we’re listening. Receive our gifts without bows, we’re talking.

Merry Christmas.

[photo: “Project365-Day21,” by Farouq Taj, used under a Creative Commons license]

That One Safe Friend [—at A Life Overseas]

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Here’s the intro to my post today at A Life Overseas—

Do you have that one safe friend?

When I went overseas, I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know I needed one.

Don’t get me wrong. I had a lot of friends, good friends, but I didn’t have one particular person who was committed to the role of being that one safe friend. Since then I’ve come to the conclusion that all missionaries—and other cross-cultural workers—need someone whom they trust to be devoted to them because of who they are, not because of what they do, someone who will reach out to them consistently, someone who will encourage them, comfort them, laugh with them, and weep with them.

It’s not that there won’t be several people who could do this for you, but without someone specific to take on that responsibility, you may find yourself with no one. When you have your home church, your sending agency, your family, your coworkers, and your supporters behind you, it’s easy for each individual to think that you’re more than taken care of. At a Parents of Missionaries gathering I recently attended, Dr. Dorris Schulz, director for missionary care for Missions Resource Network, said that if she’s ever drowning, she hopes there’s only one person around. That’s because people in a crowd too often do nothing, assuming that someone else will step in.

Being that one safe friend, doesn’t take an exotic skill set. It’s not someone who has all the answers. And it doesn’t need to be someone with experience living abroad. But it does need to be someone who is a good listener, someone who is caring and empathetic, someone who understands you and understands the core challenges of life, regardless of the setting. It’s not an exotic skill set, but neither is it common to everyone.

You’ll need to be proactive in asking someone to be that friend. Don’t assume that people will come knocking, maybe because they doubt your need or their ability. So if you’re looking, what should you look for? What should you expect from that friend? Here are some suggestions:

Continue reading at A Life Overseas.

[Photo by Magnus Wrenninge, used under a Creative Commons license]

Harmonizing Sadness and Joy [—at A Life Overseas]

5389355486_8ae3459399_oIn 2012 I wrote “Can Grief and Joy Coexist?” In light of our own recent sadness, I’ve adapted it and posted it at A Life Overseas. Go there to read it all (and to hear the song at the end.)

Let me add my voice to those who are praising Pixar’s Inside Out as a great movie for the cross-cultural community. I think we’ll be showing clips of it to expats, repats, and TCKs for a long time to come. (If you’ve not seen it and don’t know what it’s about, I suggest you read Kay Bruner’s discussion of the movie, from a counselor’s point of view.)

I hope that someday Inside Out is made into a Broadway musical. I’d like to hear Sadness and Joy sing a duet at the end.

Dealing with Loss

My wife and son and I saw the film in the theater a few weeks ago. It was rather cathartic, as the past several months have been a time for us, like Riley in the movie, to deal with our emotions—while our emotions learn how to deal with each other. It’s been an especially difficult time for my wife. Her father died in March, and then a brother died last month.

Those events have brought back memories of difficulties we faced while we lived overseas. During our time outside our passport country, we experienced the deaths of my wife’s mother and another brother and of my father.

When you lose loved ones, it can trigger so much emotional confusion. When you live far away from them, a whole other set of complications come into play.

It’s not just losing someone we love, it’s often losing the opportunity to say Goodbye or the ability to grieve together when traveling with the whole family isn’t possible.

When should we go back? Who should make the trip? How long should we stay? What if we don’t meet others’ expectations? What are the rules?

And when sadness comes into the life of the missionary, it is so easy to ask, “Where is my joy?”

Read the rest at A Life Overseas.

[photo: “Golden Hearts on Blue,” by Lea Wiertel, used under a Creative Commons license]

 

“As Soon as I Fell”: Tumbling off the Missionary Pedestal

41FnzYpGVPLI have two new friends I’d like to introduce you to. Their names are Andy and Kay Bruner.

I first met up with Andy not long ago through email when he helped me with some of the technical details of writing for A Life Overseas. Then, a few weeks later, I got to know his wife, Kay—and got to know Andy better—by reading her memoir As Soon as I Fell.

I’m not usually a fast reader, but I started her book in the afternoon after work, kept going until I fell asleep that night, and grabbed it off my nightstand and finished it when I woke up in the morning.

It’s a fun read, as Kay tells how her family of four (in time, growing to six) moved to Papua New Guinea to learn about village life. Then they relocated to the Solomon Islands, where she and Andy worked to translate the Bible.

On their first trip to their new home in the Solomon Islands, Andy went ahead on a cargo ship, while Kay and their young daughter and son made their way on the torpedo-shaped Ocean Express, a boat that rolled violently in rough seas. After someone gave the children hard-boiled eggs to eat, and the waves grew larger in open water, Kay writes that she made her “first ship-travel resolution.”

Never, ever let anyone eat boiled eggs on a ship.  I’ve heard that there are two stages of seasickness. First, you are afraid you will die. Then you are afraid you won’t. When you are on the receiving end of egg vomit from two small children, both stages pretty much hit simultaneously.

This was not the only stomach-churning adventure that they had. In fact, throwing up is something of a common theme in Kay’s writing. As I read through the book, I thought of playing a drinking game, taking a swig (of Maalox, of course) every time someone lost her lunch. The nausea seemed to reach its apex when Kay was pregnant with their third child. While describing the intricacies of prenatal care in an island town, she says that she “was sick as [she] never knew it was possible to be sick.” “The smell of the kitchen cabinets made me throw up,” she writes. “For the next four months, I threw up. Throwing up was my life.”

As Soon as I Fell is also a challenging read. Kay writes candidly about the times when the difficulties were no longer humorous, when reaching a breaking point was not a concern but a reality. She tells how her upbringing had led her to strive for perfection, and when that wasn’t possible, to “perform at any cost.” This was part of what led her to mission work, but it was also what led her to a place where she couldn’t continue any more.

In the middle section of the book, she shares journal entries, giving more day-to-day details of their lives as Bible translators.

Then, returning to a more reflective style of writing, she introduces the book’s third section with

How do you write about something so horrible, so disgusting, that it makes you feel like you’ve been vomited on? Something that makes you feel like a bag of garbage, thrown on the side of the road?

This time, the nausea was worse than seasickness. Kay had already written about the strains on her marriage with Andy, fueled by the unhealthy ways each dealt with stress. Now she had discovered that her husband was addicted to pornography.

My heart breaks for what the two of them went through.

There were the struggles that caused them to leave the field. There was the leaving itself. And there was the difficult task of returning to the leadership of their mission organization and life in the States.

While you can read Kay’s perspective of their experiences in As Soon as I Fell, Andy is open to sharing about it as well. In his blog post “Want to See What a Porn-Addicted Missionary Looks Like?” he tells of the prevalence of pornography among Christians and discusses ways to confront the issue. One is to open up conversations about pornography so that those who need help will be willing to ask for it.

Of his addiction, I would have to paraphrase the English chaplain John Bradford: “But for the grace of God, there goes Craig Thompson.”

After returning to the States, the Bruners began attending a new church. Kay spoke to a pastor there whom she’d not met before. “I wanted to tell him a little of my story,” she writes, “but all I could say was, ‘I’m a missionary,’ before I started sobbing.” That brought tears to my eyes, too.

I am so glad that Kay was able to tell more of her story in As Soon as I Fell. I’m so glad for her honesty and that of her husband. I’m so glad I have two new friends.

Now I hope to meet them some day.

(Kay Bruner, As Soon as I Fell: A Memoir, CreateSpace, 2014)