Is This Mission Work?

By Rev. James May

In the summer of 2001, I went to Russia as a short-term missionary working in orphanages to build beds for children to sleep on and tables and chairs for their meals. Those three months really changed who I am and caused me to ask, “What is mission work?”

The orphanage was run in conjunction with a drug rehab center. Many of the orphans were addicts and needed help and a home. Many had been abandoned by their mothers because their fathers disappeared—killed by the mafia, committing suicide, or simply abandoning the family. The mothers could not afford to feed their children, or bear to see their children waste away and slowly die before their eyes. Many of these mothers would take their children into a large crowd in the big city of St. Petersburg, and tell them to wait on the curb while they went into the store, and then never come back. Left to starve, these children would steal their daily bread. If they could not feed themselves that way, they would sniff industrial glue to get high and not feel the hunger pains. Other children, both boys and girls, would sell themselves to men in order to get money to eat. Many were so ashamed, they would try and kill themselves.

I was not the only “missionary” helping out. There were many short-term teams sent from the United States. The majority of teams that came out to the orphanage where I was serving performed Christian skits teaching the children how to behave themselves and not sin. The teaching of the Gospel was lacking or overshadowed by instructions for living. It was evident by their actions that the way in which one lives was, in their minds, the most important aspect of Christianity. Team after team came with the same message, “Be good and God will bless you.”

In the evenings I would listen to my fellow Americans talk about the pride they felt. “God is going to be so happy about what we did.” The focus was on what “we do,” on “works-righteousness,” the idea that we become pleasing in God’s eyes by doing good works or by being “good little girls and boys.” Although I was ashamed to hear those words, those teenage American Christians were honest about their reasons for going on a mission trip. The question for me was, “Is this mission work?” Is this the mission of the Church? Is this what Jesus wants us to teach and preach?

Rev. May baptizes an infant in West Africa.

Because I lived in the orphanage for months, I was able to observe and assess the impact of those short-term mission trips. The children did listen and tried their best to be better. They used the toothbrushes they got from their American friends. They helped keep the orphanage clean and they took better care of each other. But being normal kids, sometimes they got frustrated or selfish and fought. They sinned. Sometimes they would try to make up for what they had done but sometimes others would instigate the situation. The others felt they were the good Christian kids because, as they were taught, they did good things. The others were bad kids and were sidelined by the others.

The most significant result of the skits teaching the orphans how to be good kids came to light a few months later. I went back to Finland at the end of the summer to round up more support and returned to Russia in November. When I arrived there was news waiting that crushed me. One of the orphans, who had tried to kill himself, was gone. He had tried his best to be a good Christian like the teams said, but he didn’t feel the love of Jesus or the Holy Spirit in him. So he ran away.

I was crushed, because this boy, more than any other, had been faithful in prayer and Bible study attendance. He wanted more than anything to be “like Jesus.” But he never felt, or more accurately, he never heard the love of Jesus proclaimed to him. He never heard that Jesus loves him and died for all his sins making him a pure and righteous child of God, an heir of the kingdom of heaven. The mission of the Church, the primary work of a missionary, is to deliver the “free entrance tickets” to the kingdom of heaven. Those free tickets are the Gospel, applied in Word and Sacrament.

Rev. May with sixteen newly baptized parishioners

If you do a survey of mission work, the majority of mission work has a social, rather than a Gospel focus. More often one sees missionaries teaching English, taking care of orphans, building houses, or providing medical care. These are all excellent and important works for Christians to do. But by themselves, is that mission work?

Outside America, life is not so easy. In Russia and in Africa, where I am serving now, death and sickness are more prevalent than in the United States. Many times I hear the worries of the people. They don’t worry so much about disease because if they survive one sickness, another is around the corner. Their greatest worry is, “What happens to me when I die?” Jesus Christ has the answer. “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).

Social works are good and pleasing in God’s sight but the mission of the church is found in the command of Christ, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). Buildings and food are worthless if the soul is lost because the Gospel is not proclaimed first. While we’re engaged in such works of mercy, we use the opportunity to proclaim the Gospel. We can help and do good works, but what I have learned is that the proclamation of Jesus’ death for our salvation is more important and necessary than a building. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36)

Rev. James May is currently on furlough to the United States but will continue his mission work in Africa accompanied by his wife and five children. He can be reached at rev.jamesmay@yahoo.com.