The Half-Built Missionaries
Our culture loves entrepreneurs; visionaries who can see a desired future and against all odds, without all the answers, take the leap to make that vision a reality. In the ministry world, we call these people pioneers and heroes of faith. After all, Hebrews 11:1-2 says:
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
The author of Hebrews seems to encourage us to put our trust in God and take the ride, even when we don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. But the tunnel is dark, oftentimes it’s long. What happens when you’ve taken a risk, and it seems that you’ll run out of gas before you run out of tunnel? Jesus describes that story here:
28 “But don’t begin until you count the cost. For, who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? 29 Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. 30 They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’
Luke 14: 28-30
This passage has become very special for missionaries, as we refer to the process of considering the hardships of the mission field as counting the cost. Many consider it too difficult and walk away before getting started, and I’m not judging. The missionary life is a hard one, and if you’ll abandon it early (before learning a language and becoming an effective missionary, for example), you may save yourself a world of pain by properly assessing your resolve at the beginning.
But what about those that start the building, full of faith and then realize that even though they’re giving their all, it’s not enough? Sadly, this is a far too common story in Latin America.
Valentina shared her story with me once. God had called her to Pakistan when she was 8 years old. She received that call and as she grew into adulthood began doing everything in her power to pursue it. She went to a missions´ school, planted churches in her country and even spent 8 years as a missionary in the Amazon, all in hopes of finding that open door to Pakistan. But that open door didn’t come. And, like in Luke 14:30, people laughed at her. Friends, relatives, other Christians. By the time we met her, she was in her early 30’s and had spent years searching for someone to help her fulfill her calling. Reflejo didn’t exist yet.
Another example is Hannah. Hannah received a call to Central Asia in 1994. She also did all she could to prepare for her calling. Her church and denomination invested in her training, theological studies and even contributed towards her taking short-term trips to gain experience. She had her own Luke 14:30 experience with people encouraging her to abandon her calling, but she never gave up. We met Hannah in 2021 and today, she is serving with Reflejo in Central Asia.
Just like Valentina and Hannah, there are many other “half-built missionaries” in Latin America. Those that have received a calling, counted the cost, sacrificed all they had and realized that the half missing is an organization that can help them fulfill their calling. Their building is incomplete and thus, not-lived in. But their investment is too precious, their willingness to lean in to God’s calling in sacrificial obedience too valuable to be lost.
We’ve sat across too many people, saying: “I am willing to drop everything and go serve in (insert UPG here) if someone would simply show me the way.”
These people: the entrepreneurs, the visionaries, the pioneers, the apostolic, the heroes of faith, the ones that are “half-built” because they dreamt twice as big as everyone else dared to…
…these are the people Reflejo was created for.
