Ch'airo For The Soul: What Do Missionaries Do, Anyway?

Years ago I visited Bolivia when I was in college. After seven weeks of following the footsteps of Mark Frink and Duane Erickson I felt like I had a pretty good introduction into what a missionary does. During the first month of my stay, there was also a family visiting. While at the airport to see them off back to the States, one of them turned around and asked, What does a missionary do, anyway? Hmmm. Good question. Had they not caught anything that went on during their visit? In this post I want to give a partial answer to that question. I say partial because there are many things that I do as a missionary and it would be too long of a post to mention them all.

One aspect about missionary life that is often overlooked is just the time and energy needed to live in a culture that is not your own and having to deal with many things that we in the US do not have to deal with. Paper work is number one on that list. Just a couple of examples. We are in the process of renewing Mark's Bolivian passport. As a Bolivian/US citizen he travels with two passports: a Bolivian one to leave and enter Bolivia and an American one to leave and enter the US. When we went to immigration to renew his passport (everything must be done in person, nothing is done through the mails) we brought with us all the documents required on the list that I had picked up from immigration some days before. But there was a glitch that I had not thought about. While examining Mark's birth certificate they noted that Niki's name was listed as her maiden name, which is true Bolivian format. But all her other identification has her listed with her married name in true US format. So, how to prove that the two Niki's were indeed the same person. I had anticipated that there could be a question as to whether or not we were Mark's parents so I had brought along a copy of his adoption decree. So helpfully I suggested that that document might help. WRONG THING TO DO! "What? He's adopted? Well that requires a whole other list of documents that must be supplied. Here bring these back in." OK. One big problem in this list. There is a document that we don't have and upon investigating with a lawyer, we discovered that there was good reason. The required document did not exist when we adopted Mark. Only newer adoptions are issued that document. But that doesn't matter. "Yes, of course it is illogical that we are asking for a document that does not exist! But you must present it."

Two lawyers, a trip to La Paz, a document sent back and forth by courier and a lot of frustration later we still have not received the passport (a process that is supposed to only take 48 hours, by the way). What do missionaries do? PAPERWORK. (I realize now that I dealt somewhat with this issue in my last entry from a bit of a different slant. Oh well. The passport still isn't issued and I am still trying to learn patience.)

Another more recent example occurred yesterday. Easter Sunday was also municipal and departmental elections in Bolivia. We, as foreigners, were required to vote under the risk of severe penalties for not voting. So Niki and I had registered some weeks ago in order to be able to vote yesterday. but when we got to the polling place we discovered that Niki's name was not on the list. Upon further investigation we were told that the issue is that she only has one last name on her document and so was ineligible to vote. Our Canadian neighbor lady was told the same. So, in order to protect herself from the consequences of not voting Niki will have to go to the electoral court in this next week and explain what happened and, hopefully, receive a document rescuing her from whatever dastardly things that happen to those who don't vote.

On the lighter side, what do missionaries do, anyway? Sometimes I prepare to preach sermons that will never be given because I thought I was being invited to preach somewhere but the pastor only meant for me to make an appearance (which is quite alright with me, by the way). Recently I prepared a set of stick puppets to use in a message on John 9 only to arrive and discover that I was not going to preach I hope that perhaps they will be useful in another setting. Below you will find my artwork so enjoy the story!

One day Jesus saw a blind man begging.

The disciples wanted to know who sinned that he was born blind but Jesus said that was not the case. But in order to show the glory of God he must keep doing the works of God. So Jesus put mud on the man's eyes and told him to go wash.