The last excuse that Carey presents is that of “learning their languages” (Smith 179). I hear this excuse a little more sophisticated. People
Daniel trying to communicate in Venezuela
come up and tell me “Daniel, don’t you think that it would be better for me to send money so that a national can win their own? If I go to the mission field, then I will waste a lot of time trying to learn the language and culture. It would be better if I worked in the States and sent money over to people in different countries so that they can reach people with their own language and culture.”
The idea of supporting national missionaries does seem logical. It takes a lifetime to learn a language. So much is involved in communicating. Communication is not just putting words in a certain order in a certain language. That is only part of the communication process. I grew up in Venezuela to American missionary parents. We spoke English at home. Even though I can speak English very well I had trouble communicating with people when I went to Clark Summit, PA and to Winston-Salem, NC for school. There were idiomatic expression, past and current political issues, foods, traditions, and ways of articulating words that I did not know. Oh, I could get my point across and people could tell me things and I understand them; but as to fitting in with the culture, that was a different issue.
Language acquisition is probably one of most discouraging factors on the field. A missionary will spend years on the field trying to learn the language. The nationals always judge a foreigner tougher than they judge themselves. For example, a national makes a mistake in pronouncing a word and his peers say he just got tongue tide. A foreigner makes a mistake, and people blame it on the person being a foreigner. “They don’t know our language” they might say.
Karrah teaching the girls in Venezuela
One could see where the line of logic, it being more advantages to send nationals to reach their own, as to being sound. The fault in the logic is that it puts our reason and logic above that of God’s calling. In this line of logic God is not in the picture. The only thing that is being considered is that the person does not want to seem like an idiot trying to speak another language. What we fail to think about is that God may want to use our weakness to show the world His strength. If God has called a person to go to a certain place to do a certain job, then who better to go than that person?
Using logic, rather than submission to God, is not going to get the nations to worship God. One should put down their pride and logic and follow God where ever He leads him. These excuses that Carey has presented have been very convicting to me. It is amazing to see how we still try to use the old excuses that were in existence way back when Carey lived.
Posted on November 19, 2011
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