Stories: Mission Reunion 1999
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| [Note: I wrote this piece, just for myself, after the mission reunion during April Conference in 1999 – so, it’s obviously a bit dated, and I’ve since moved to a ward just south of the Yankee Capital. But it still captures my feelings of that time, and the feelings I have whenever I meet one of my old compatriots from the mission field.]
I really love my ward, but (and I may simply be revealing one of my weaknesses) my “familial” feelings with most members of my ward family are fairly limited. Surely, I sustain my bishop, I do my utmost to sustain all other leaders, and I strive to emulate some wonderful home teaching examples. But it’s still difficult to be truly collegial with my neighbors, and ward parties leave me a bit cold. Suppose I’d better work on that.
But then, my “church life” hasn’t always been like that. Friday last, I went to the first mission reunion organized for my mission in 16 years. Last time I saw any of these people, we were college students, some of us looking at graduation soon. Today, we’re all well-embarked on our lives, ensconced in a variety of careers. In point of fact, I actually have less in common, presently, with my former missionary associates. We vary much more widely in career, education, degree of prosperity, in just about any earthly standard of measurement.
But when we arrived at the reunion, it was as if we’d only been apart a few months … you know, maybe a year.
We are as far from our mission experience today as we were from birth when we served as missionaries. But for a few hours on that Friday night, we were nineteen again, perhaps twenty or twenty-one, a few a bit older, and at zone conference.
Our mission president was there, too. I discovered that he was younger when he came to us as mission president than any of us are today. Wow. The “mantle of leadership” was surely evident in President Baker.
Actually, I’ve revealed another of my weaknesses, that of multiplying words when I could state the concept much more concisely. In truth, I’m fully cognizant of the reason I feel much closer to former missionary associates that I haven’t seen in sixteen years than with any given member of my current ward. Anybody who has worn the uniform of his country and been shoved into close proximity with comrades who haven’t bathed any more recently than oneself knows what I’m talking about.
You see, “for one brief shining moment” as missionaries, we were all soldiers. We may be doctors and lawyers and engineers and technical writers and backhoe operators today, but there was a time when we were all young men and women in a strange culture preaching a gospel that few were willing to hear. We ate strange food, lived in concrete block houses without climate control, boiled our water before drinking it, and spoke a language that bore no relation to anything that either we or our ancestors spoke. We stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, attracting a crowd of children wherever we went, and simply became accustomed to the fact that we could not understand the language spoken by children not yet in first grade.
We came together at zone and mission conferences, where we shared our experiences with each other, made new friendships and renewed old ones, and sat at the feet and were instructed of mighty men of God. We endured “crises of confidence” in our individual abilities to a greater or lesser degree, found ourselves sometimes speaking more Chinese than we knew as we preached the gospel, and other times were humbled by our lack of knowledge of the language.
We encountered opposition from people much more literate in the scripture than ourselves, much more mature and knowledgeable in the ways of the world, and determined to beat us into silence. Yet we, “the weak things of the world,” had the opportunity to bear simple testimony, affirmed by the Holy Ghost, available to any who would listen with a sincere heart and with real intent.
In those days, it didn’t matter who you were, where you came from, what your daddy did for a living, whether you had a car at college. The only distinction between us was related to our desire and ability to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some of us “feared men” more than others … others of us struggled with a language that seemed always elusive … others of us fought homesickness virtually our entire stay on that tropical island. Still others of us feared nothing (I was not one of these), spoke what language we knew with great confidence, and quickly gained control of our natural desires for home. Most of us fell somewhere in between.
We ate pork and rice at the ballpark in Kaohsiung, in spite (perhaps because of) the prohibition from the “welfare sisters.” We swigged passion fruit slush wherever we could find it. McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, KFC … these all apparently inhabit Taiwan today, but were far in the future for us, so we ate what the locals ate. We became so accustomed to “the smell” that we seldom noticed it – unless we happened to cross the Love River. We hoped that if we got hurt we could get to the Adventist doctor. And, personally, I was never so happy to see a dentist as when I visited the Adventist dentist.
Few people joined the church, for reasons that we’re all abundantly familiar with. “How strongly riveted were they on the creeds of their fathers” gained a special meaning for us. But we also had much opportunity to preach the gospel, for while few joined the church, many listened respectfully. Whatever grip the Adversary had on the culture of the Chinese people, the Chinese had (and still have) a tradition of treating the itinerant preacher with respect, and at least listening. In fact, few people closed a door in our faces – it was a uniquely “un-Chinese” thing to do. If someone did shut a door on your face, you could safely bet he was a Christian. We thought it strange that in a “pagan” land it was the Christians who acted the least Christian.
Nearly twenty years after our missions, there are those among us who rate the title “Doctor.” Others have master’s degrees, others bachelor’s degrees, others no degrees at all. Our relative prosperity also ranges, and most of us definitely look twenty years older (and balder and fatter) than we did as missionaries. Sadly, some of us weren’t at the reunion … some simply couldn’t make the time and the distance to attend, some had departed this life a bit earlier than expected, while others had decided to depart from the fellowship of the Saints. They were all remembered.
But for a few brief hours at our mission reunion, we were back at Hsi Tou, or Tsengwen Reservoir, or Ali Shan. |
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