A missionary needs to be well prepared before he or she reaches the mission territory. He or she needs to be ready to have a self-denial spirit. In the book of John 12:24 we read, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit,” (John 12:24, ESV).
Jesus told His disciples how important it is for a kernel of wheat that falls to the ground to die. He said that if it does not die, it will never bear fruit. When Jesus spoke about the kernel of wheat, He was actually referring to the Word of God, and the ground is the people who receive the Word of God. So He was talking about the Word of God, but at the same time talking about the messenger who takes the Word of God to people— that unless the messenger is willing to die in his or her own culture and traditions, he or she will never multiply and produce many new converts. Instead, that missionary will remain alone.
More often than not, missionaries tend to do things the other way round: They enjoy seeing people in their new territory of mission, copying their culture and traditions. They even sometimes define that change as evidence of those people becoming civilized. God never expects people in a new field of mission to change; otherwise Jesus would have never incarnated and become a man. The ground does not die; it is the wheat that dies in order to produce many seeds.
Vincent Donovan concurs by saying, “Evangelization is a process of bringing the gospel to people where they are, not where you would like them to be.”1 Eventually it will be clear that Christian communities belong to the people; indeed, they are the people.2 Therefore, such communities should value even those who have not yet joined those Christian communities. Donovan is emphasizing that the Christian community should value even those who have not yet been converted and joined the Christian community.
It could be for such a reason that God prepares His people, the missionaries, before they reach their new areas of mission. He prepares their hearts to love those people, Christians and non-Christians alike who live in the places they will reach with the gospel. On the other hand, He prepares them to face cultural and environmental challenges in the places they enter with the message. He does it today as He did in the past years. Therefore, it should not appear as a surprise that missionaries do not run away from their missionary fields even when they find themselves in the most challenging situations. Knowing that they are working for the Lord, they work tirelessly without being disappointed for whatever reason.
i people were far more conservative on preserving their culture, more so than today. They were only using meat, milk, and blood for their daily food (today they try other kinds of food like cereals). They were dressed in animal skin (hides) and they did not mingle with other people—especially those who came from outside their locality. They did not like strangers who brought a culture different from theirs. They even gave strange names to strangers; black people strangers were given their name and white people strangers as well. In fact, they were hostile to people who tried to invade their geographical territory and their culture. It was like that in the 1950s when Dave Simonson, a white Westerner, was sent by his denomination to the Maasai people in Arusha, Tanzania. As you would expect, the Maasai people were not happy to receive such a stranger to their homeland. So, they were never kind to him. They did all they could to send a message to him that he was an unwanted guest.
In contrast, Dave Simonson tried to do all he could to show the Maasai people that he really loved and valued them. He gave food to those who did not have anything to eat; he offered clothing to those who desperately needed it. He was always available whenever any needs arose. One day, there was a very serious situation that needed Dave’s intervention. A young Maasai woman who was just about to deliver her first child had serious complications, and she needed to be rushed to hospital. Her husband went to the mission center to request a ride for his sick wife. He was well received by Dave Simonson, who was at the center. Dave took the woman and her husband to the hospital without any delay. After the woman had been received in the hospital and doctors had conducted an early medical examination, it was discovered that in order for her to survive, she needed a blood transfusion. When Dave heard that that young Maasai mother was going to die if she did not receive a blood transfusion, he donated his blood. Jim Klobuchar reports, “He walked into the hospital and met the doctor who was trying to save the mother’s life, ‘I have got type O blood (universal donor),’ Simonson said. ‘Can you use me?’ ‘You give blood?’ the doctor asked. ‘Sure, I live with these people.’ The woman survived.”3 The news spread all over the Maasai territory, in Tanzania, and even in Kenya, that they got their own real brother, a Maasai in a white skin—a white man who was willing to mix his blood with a Maasai woman. They started discussing how even one of their fellow African men could have found that difficult to do. Maasai elders sent a message to wherever Maasai people lived that God had blessed them by providing them with a brother in a white skin. It became the great news among the Maasai people.
As a result of this, Maasai people everywhere started to receive Dave Simonson and his message wherever he visited. They concluded that he was a man of God, sent by God. Today, Maasai people in Tanzania as well as in Kenya have accepted Christianity in their thousands. The blood that Dave donated to the sick woman spoke louder than his words.
1 Vincent J. Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1978), v–vi.
2 Ibid., 39.
3 Jim Klobuchar, The Cross under the Acacia Tree: The Story of David and Eunice Simonson’s Epic Mission in Africa (Minneapolis, MN: Kirk House, 1998), 97.
Godwin Lekundayo, PhD, is the president for the Southern Tanzania Union Mission, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
