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INTRODUCTION
Perspectives and Field of Study
Traditionally, it has been assumed that those who enter foreign missionary service do so because of a sense of having been divinely called. Yet as missionaries put this sense of call into practice, they usually encounter formidable difficulties. LeRoy Johnston Jr., a US psychologist concerned with missionary care, provides a sample list of ‘tangible and visible’ challenges a missionary may have to face:
The selection process, and psychological screening, education preparation and educational needs, women in ministry, single missionary concerns, male and female, national church leadership concerns, short-term versus the career person, language learning and study, political and social unrest, health and physical needs, MK1 education and opportunities, care for older family members in home country, spiritual nurture and growth, multinational team relationships, financial support concerns and concepts, administrative organization and design, dealing with social injustices re-entry problems for the family, pluralism of mission groups, vocational change and redirection.2
Johnston then proposes a model for coping with these ‘tangible and visible’ concerns. These he calls secondary issues—many of which are related to the missionaries’ cultural re-location in a foreign environment. These re-location issues include the challenge of what may be termed ‘reverse culture shock,’ which the missionaries face as they move back home, either when on furlough or at the end of their missionary service. But this is, for the moment, another matter.
According to Johnston’s model, the primary factor in dealing with such missionary challenges is the missionary’s underlying faith perspective. This he divides into the following five core components:
Obeying God’s callWith regard to the correlation between the primary and the secondary factors he maintains:
Persevering with God
Trusting in God
Maintaining God’s perspective, and
Growing through testing.3
The missionary’s relationship with God is the preeminent issue. It is important to be aware of the numerous challenges of missionary life and to make sure that missionaries are supported as they face these. But ultimately, these are secondary issues, which must be understood in light of the missionary’s need for obedience, perseverance, trust, perspective, and testing.4
A global study conducted at the end of the 20th century by the World Evangelical Fellowship Mission Commission (WEF/MC)5 on mission attrition, ReMAP (Reducing Missionary Attrition Project)6 came to a similar conclusion. It indicates that a significant link exists between the missionaries’ sense of divine calling and their ability to avoid a premature return from mission service. In the study, the vast majority of mission agencies surveyed viewed a ‘clear calling to mission work from God’ as ‘the most important reason for preventing loss of career missionaries.’7
Although one might disagree with particular details of the above analyses, they highlight certain phenomena to which I had been alerted independently, based on my personal life experience. Firstly, as an ordained minister married to an ordained minister, and with many minister friends and colleagues, I had long been vaguely aware of the importance of a sense of a divine calling for the clergy. Secondly, over time I had become sensitized to the high prevalence of burn-out among clergy who felt divinely called to full-time ministry, and to the profound effects that such burn-out can have on them and their personal and professional environment. Over time, I began to wonder about a possible correlation between a sense of calling and the phenomenon of attrition among those who felt called by God to serve him in full-time ministry. Various events culminated in me deciding to investigate this in the form of a PhD thesis.
In doing so, I started out with the initial theory that a clear sense of call was likely to act as a significant support factor for those who felt called in their cultural re-location experience.
his theory was inter alia informed by the prominent 20th century Swiss medical doctor and psychologist8 Paul Tournier, who claimed that
… to receive a mandate, to be invested with a function is always a powerful support to a person. How much more so when we are conscious that the mandate comes from God.9This claim provided an initial point of departure for my research, and a succinct summary of what I planned to demonstrate.
My Field of Study
The selected group of people on whom I decided to test this theory eventually turned out to be Mennonite women missionaries in Africa. Specifically, the study is based on North American female missionaries, both single and married, who spent at least part of their service under the auspices of Africa Inter Mennonite Mission (AIMM), or its predecessor The Congo Inland Mission (CIM). CIM/AIMM was/is a traditional mission organization insofar as its core activities consist of conventional missionary concerns such as preaching, church planting, and Bible translation. Within this framework, the women served as full-time or part-time missionary doctors, teachers, bookkeepers, etc.—the mission agency’s policy being that no woman should enter missions simply as a ‘missionary wife.’
With few exceptions, the missionaries were all born and bred Mennonites—the exceptions consisting mainly of women from other denominations such as Lutheran or Methodist, who had joined the Mennonite denomination by marriage.
The overall time frame of the mission service surveyed is the second half of the twentieth century, while the geographical parameters are determined by the Africa presence of CIM/AIMM. The mission was originally constituted in 1911 by members of the Central Conference of Mennonites (formerly known as Stucky Amish) and the Defenseless Mennonite Church (formerly the Egly Amish), in Meadows, Illinois. It was first called United Mennonite Board before being re-named Congo Inland Mission in 1912. While CIM restricted its mission activities to what was then known as the Belgian Congo (Zaire/ Democratic Republic of Congo), its direct successor AIMM gradually broadened its presence to include Lesotho, Botswana, Burkina Faso, South Africa, and, at the time, Senegal. General Conference (GC) Mennonites, as with most of the missionaries included here, entered African mission service through CIM/AIMM—because, as James Juhnke states in his account of the General Conference foreign mission endeavor,
(t)he General Conference foreign mission board did not have its own separate work in Africa, but became increasingly involved through the CIM, especially after World War II.10
Refining and Reformulating my Position
Some preliminary investigations among female Mennonite missionaries in general, and those which were included in the eventual case study in particular, indicated that they struggled seriously with aspects of missionary life, and that issues related to their cultural re-location did indeed play a significant role. I therefore re-formulated my initial theory on the basis of my actual case study to:
A personal sense of divine calling represents a significant potential support factor for missionaries in their cultural re-location experience.
Here, I borrowed further from Paul Tournier, in assuming that a sense of divine calling might act as a ‘super-centering’ reference point in a cultural relocation experience. To illustrate this concept, Tournier uses the example of someone who crosses the road while at the same time being afraid to do so. At the beginning of their crossing, they use the near side of the road as a safe point of reference. Once they are past half way, they begin to refer to the far side as a place where they will soon be safe again. The critical moment occurs when they find themselves right in the middle of the road, with both sides equally far away. If at that moment they should focus on a third point of reference, e.g. God, the fact that they are far removed from the security of either side of the road becomes largely irrelevant through their super-centering on God who becomes their new source of safety. Similarly, I assumed that super-centering on a sense of call would help missionaries overcome the problem of leaving behind the natural and cultural safety of their community, nationality, and geography, by providing them with a new point of reference.
The great majority of people, both lay persons and academics whom I consulted, agreed with the theory that a personal sense of divine calling is an important potential support factor. Retrospectively, with the benefit of knowing the results of the research, I remember however that one particular professor added an aside. He noted that if, against expectations, the theory should turn out not to be correct, I would really have a thesis on my hands.
So I set out, confident that my findings would bear out my theory, and that the entire investigation would more or less be straightforward—but it turned out differently, as this book reveals.
My New Position
The original position—that a personal sense of a divine call acts as a significant potential support factor for missionaries in their re-location experience—was with the occasional exception borne out by my findings, as far as the missionaries’ short term experience was concerned.
However, in the long run, such a sense of call also had the potential to turn against the missionaries, and become a destructive rather than constructive element in their ability to cope with their cultural re-location. This was so if the sense of a divine call was accompanied by an unrealistic view both of self and God. In examining this further, I have introduced the concept of ‘burden’ to describe various potentially negative and destructive elements of a sense of call, as opposed to the reality of the call itself. Based on my findings, I arrived at the following new position:
In order for a sense of a divine call to act as a long-term support factor for the missionaries’ cultural re-location experience, the sense of call has to be embedded in a realistic, ‘spiritually mature’ understanding of God, self, and the call.In this context, it is important to note that such spiritual realism can never be grasped—it is never static but dynamic, as it goes through ebb and flow phases. Therefore, in order for the sense of call to be a support factor, it has to grow with the challenge.
This book shows how and why my original assumptions had to be modified as inadequate in describing the full range of experience that was uncovered in my case study. Further, my research reinforced the view that a sense of call is highly subjective, yet can be understood in terms of a particular religious and theological tradition and upbringing that provides its substance, symbols, and orientation.
Theological-Historical and Mission-Historical Study
In order to test the original theory—that a sense of divine calling may act as a significant support factor to missionaries in their cultural relocation experience—this book traces the following structural approach:
A first theological-historical section investigates, in three chapters, important distinctives of Anabaptist/Mennonite faith and practice. It should be noted that I refer on occasion to the Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition. When I do, I affirm the theological and historical connection between the 16th century Anabaptist movement and contemporary Mennonite churches. This continuity was the central focal point of an influential mid-20th century US Mennonite movement, originally led by H.S. Bender, that sought a ‘Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision.’
The connection between 16th century Anabaptism and modern Mennonitism is traced in order to provide some in-depth background information for a better understanding of important aspects of the women’s socio-religious profile and the phenomenology of their sense of calling. Where I simply refer to the Mennonite tradition, I have contemporary Mennonites in mind.
Two of the theological-historical and mission-historical chapters deal with what may be considered, in Anabaptist/Mennonite theology, as the two-fold archetypal divine call—namely the call to discipleship, and the call to be in the world but not of it—while the third concerns itself with the role of Anabaptist/Mennonite women.
The theological-historical and mission-historical chapters largely deal with subjects that are well documented in Mennonite theology and historiography. They therefore rely on secondary literature. This includes relevant books, articles, treatises, etc., which deal with the Anabaptist/Mennonite concept of discipleship, with their ecclesiological emphasis on being in the world but not of the world, and on the role of Anabaptist/ Mennonite women. These sources are listed in the Bibliography.
Case Study
This book represents a case study, as opposed to a comparative study. This implies that, although the findings are based on Mennonite women in missions, this does not necessarily mean that missionaries from other denominations will not have similar experiences. However, certain phenomena are directly linked, by the missionaries themselves, to the fact that they are Mennonites. These Mennonite-specific phenomena serve as a special focal point of this study. It would be very interesting to compare the findings of this particular case study to similar studies conducted on missionary women of other denominations.
The decision to base the study on Mennonite missionaries was partly due to details of my personal autobiography. Coming from a Mennonite background, I had a certain amount of insider knowledge of Mennonite faith and practice, which I expected would stand me in good stead in such an investigation. Also, certain distinctives of Mennonite theology seemed particularly suited to this study.
Among these distinctives, I had in mind the traditional concept of Christ’s call to discipleship. This understanding of the call incorporates such elements as a high degree of preparedness to suffer for the sake of Christ, and a strong emphasis on selfless service, which I assumed would equip Mennonites with a particularly helpful faith framework for the challenges of missionary life. In addition, their typical ecclesiological emphasis on being in the world but not of the world seemed, potentially, to provide them with Mennonite-specific coping mechanisms in the cultural re-location and alienation they would experience in the course of their life in foreign mission service—all the more so as their history as a people is characterized by frequent migration for the sake of their faith.
This section is based on the women’s personal evidence—both oral and written. These primary sources are dealt with further in Part Two of this book, which describes the case study in more detail. They are also listed in the Bibliography.
Ethical Considerations: Confidentiality
My field of enquiry is Mennonite women missionaries in Africa—and my research questions have three interrelated parts:
How do they understand their calling?The information for the case study was gathered from archival and oral material in the form of interviews. The details of the information-gathering process are described at the beginning of the case study in Part Two of this book.
How is it related to the Anabaptist/Mennonite theological-historical and mission-historical distinctives? and
To what extent is it a support factor in their cultural re-location experience?
In both the archival and oral material, the names of the missionaries have been omitted. Instead, the women are listed as Missionary 1, 2, 3, etc. The archival documents (AD) are listed as AD 1, 2, 3, etc. Permission to use the archival material was obtained through Professor James C. Juhnke. In order to help protect the confidentiality of those missionaries who are still serving on the mission field, I was only given access to material dated 1980 and older.
Everybody who contributed orally was asked at the end of the interview if in principle they consented to the publication of their testimonies, or if there were any sections they would prefer to remain unpublished. All consented in principle. Where there were sections they preferred not to appear in this work, I honored their wishes. Where necessary, I have minimized references to specific locations and names that might reveal identity. Ethics approval for this work was granted by the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Cape Town.
Pastoral Concern
At the center of my investigation lies a pastoral concern. This concern is based on various considerations.
Firstly, as a Swiss immigrant to my adopted country of South Africa, and as an ordained minister, I had some first hand experience of what might loosely be viewed as the life of a missionary. My own experience of re-locating from Switzerland into what I experienced as a very foreign South African culture was neither smooth nor swift. This led me to suspect that other missionaries, too, might be struggling with their re-location process—to the extent that, for many, it might prove to be not only a re-location but a dis-location experience.
Secondly, the missionary vocation, like that of the ministry, is traditionally linked to a sense of a personal divine calling. I speak of ‘sense,’ because such callings are inevitably subjective and difficult to evaluate.
Thirdly, Christian marriages are to various degrees, traditionally, patriarchal and hierarchical. In the mission context, this may result in a tendency to assume that the husband’s sense of call automatically extends to the wife. This provides potentially fertile ground for a pastoral enquiry on the effects of a personal sense of call or a lack thereof—something which is powerfully illustrated by the missionary wife’s lack of call, and its dramatic consequences, in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible11. I shall refer again to this novel in my closing remarks, where I distinguish between the missionary call as an obligation or law, as contrasted with the call as God’s gracious invitation to follow in trust. This, in many respects, takes us to the heart of the problem that lies at the center of this work—the contrast between the call as burden on the one hand, or as a support factor on the other, and therefore as a blessing.
An initial, cursory glance over relevant literature confirmed the premise that underlies this book—namely that missionaries are struggling with a significant problem of attrition. The ReMAP Research Report,12 for example, quotes an average figure of 5,1 percent of workers of each mission society per year, or one missionary in twenty per year who prematurely left mission service between 1992 and 1994. This figure is based on a sample of mission agencies of various sizes from fourteen different countries.13 In addition, the above-mentioned list of missionary challenges confirmed that issues related to their cultural relocation indeed played a prominent role in the missionaries’ struggles.
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1 Abbreviation for ‘Missionary Kids’ (footnote mine).
2 JOHNSTON LeRoy, Jr, ‘Core Issues in Missionary Life,’ in Missionary Care, Counting the Cost of World Evangelization, Kelly O’Donnell, (ed.), William Carey Library, Pasadena, California, third ed. 1999, p.40.
3Ibid. pp.40-44.
4Ibid. p.44
5Renamed World Evangelical Alliance in 2001.
6The findings of the study are recorded and discussed in Too Valuable to Lose, Exploring the Causes and Cures of Missionary Attrition, William D.Taylor, (ed.), William Carey Library, Pasadena, California, 1997. The study is based on missionaries and mission agencies from fourteen nations. They include among the ‘newer’ sending countries: Brazil, Nigeria, Korea, the Philippines, India, a representative from Spanish Latin America, Costa Rica, Ghana and Singapore, and among the ‘older’ sending countries the UK, Australia, Germany, Denmark, the USA and Canada.
7BRIERLEY, Peter W. ‘Mission Attrition: The ReMAP Research Report, in Too Valuable to Lose, Exploring the Causes and Cures of Missionary Attrition, p.99. Other important ‘positive’ factors listed were, in order of priority, a supportive family 74%; a healthy spirituality 70%; cultural adaptation 65%; good relationships 54%; pastoral care 49% and financial provision 47%.
8Tournier was a self-taught psychologist, having originally qualified as a medical doctor. This unorthodox background gave him a certain originality in his approach to the field of psychology, as well as leaving him with a constant, latent suspicion that he was not fully accepted by his peers.
9TOURNIER Paul, A Place for You, Psychology and Religion, SCM Press, Ltd, London, 1975, p.204.
10JUHNKE James, A People of Mission, A History of General Conference Mennonite Overseas Mission, Faith and Life Press, Newton, Kansas, 1979, p.68.
11KINGSOLVER Barbara, The Poisonwood Bible, Faber and Faber, 2000, First published in the USA by Harper Collins 1998.
12‘Missionary Attrition: The ReMAP Research Report,’ pp.85-103.
13The countries included were six ‘old sending countries,’ (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, the UK and USA) and eight from ‘new sending countries,’ (Brazil, Costa Rica, Ghana, India, South Korea, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Singapore.)
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