By Missionary Calvin Gardner, Missionary to Brazil

06/2003

Most brethren in the churches meet the missionary only in church. This is when they hear the missionary's presentation from the pulpit and see his slides of the work of the past term with projections and goals for the next term. It is in the church service the average church member is informed as to their answered prayers in the past concerning that missionary and brought up to par with his present and future prayer needs. During the missionary presentation the brethren listen to the missionary sing and then often get to examine the objects he's brought to display. It is in these visits by the missionary the average church member gets to hear the missionary preach, and as the Lord blesses, will consider seriously the possibility of his own participation in local and foreign missions. When the missionary comes to the church this is a time when challenges of growing in the grace of giving are given. Sometimes, when there is a church fellowship, the average church member gets to see the missionary out of the pulpit, intermingle with his family, ask them personal questions and see them in a new light. Yes, the time that the missionary visits your church is an important time for all including the missionary, pastor and the church member.

But what does the furloughing missionary do when he is NOT traveling and visiting the churches? This part of the missionary's life is unknown to most people. Some may wonder which Caribbean Island it is that furloughing missionaries vacation on between church visits. To let you know what goes on between church visits and in the weeks when this missionary is not traveling is the purpose of this report.

First of all, we missionaries are a part of a local church work. There are responsibilities to this work we exercise just as any church member should. We make it to all the church services, visitation programs and special activities that the church has. Since church buildings need to be cleaned and maintained and since the Wooster Baptist Temple does not have a paid maintenance man to do so, we pitch in with the other members to do the work necessary. This work includes scrubbing floors, cleaning bathrooms, and vacuuming carpets, mowing lawns and doing varied maintenance around the place if our knowledge of the matter is of any use. This is one area of labor the average church member does not think the missionary and his family are active in when they are not in their church giving a presentation.

Another area of occupation of this missionary family between visits to churches is our need to school our children. Furlough is not a vacation from school! Our particular situation means that home-schooling is a part of our weeks when we are not traveling. During the thirty-six weeks of the school year there are reports for the scholars to research and write, daily lesson plans to achieve (we use the ACE program), books to read and maps to draw among varied other duties. We parents need to organize the day for school, tutor as necessary and give tests as well as monitor progress and furnish solutions as problems come up. With the regular local church duties as members upon us and these home-schooling duties to accomplish, most days are filled with plenty to do.

But that is not all that is done by this missionary when we are not traveling to churches. We, after all, must plan the schedules to visit the churches. This visiting of the churches, as explained above, is a very important part of furlough. To get this schedule prepared we have to consider an array of factors. Church conferences, camps, and family reunions have definite dates and places. As we tries to plan a trip to one or more of these scheduled places we try to visit individual supporting and prospective churches along the way. Major family functions also have to be built in to these visits. To get an appointment with churches it is necessary to phone those churches that are on the planned route and see if the time we are traveling through is a convenient time to visit these individual churches. If it is not, we need to find a time when it is convenient. We will need to settle the times of services and accommodations for each visit and we have to make sure we have the right directions too. Since pastors are busy men and are not always sitting around the office awaiting the missionary to call for an appointment, follow-up calls are often necessary. Sometimes it takes weeks to get in touch with a pastor to make the needed schedule. Once the five to ten churches for a trip have been scheduled months in advance, we like to send confirmation letters by snail mail a few weeks before the visit to make sure we got the facts right with each church. This is all necessary for each trip the missionary makes. We may make seven or more extended trips while on furlough. Even the close weekend trips require the needed phone calls, arrangements and correspondence. So, even though this missionary is not in the pulpit ministering, we are staying busy through the week with needed duties of the work.

Although this furloughing missionary is participating in our church where we are members and taking care of the schooling needs for the children as well as scheduling the needed trips, we are also often still very active in the work on the field. The local church the Lord used us to organize has her own pastor so we thankfully do not need to be active from a distance in the pastoring of that work. However, the national pastor is our friend and often contacts us by email for counseling. Often he needs encouragement as well. Therefore, in between church visits, we email one another. Also, there are ten to fifteen email letters to read and resolve each day that come from those people who visit the website of the Wooster Baptist Temple. Two or three of these each week ask for specific studies in Portuguese so we try to prepare and send these out as well. We must also mention the continuing work with our translators even though we are on furlough. We gather material as we travel around to the churches finding tracts, books and outlines that will need to be translated. We then distribute these to the various men in Brazil who are trying to fit translating into their busy schedules as well. Once the translation is done, the payment needs to be relayed to the translators through international bank channels. This leaves us then to edit the work the translators have done. Once this process has been done, we post these studies on the Internet so the 35-50 people who visit the site of the Wooster Baptist Temple each day can benefit from them. Verily, while this missionary and family is not in your pulpit, we are busy both at our home church and on our field of labor in varied activities.

The Missionary's family needs to be attended to as well. They need to have family time together, and time to shop to stay in clothes and shoes. Grocery shopping has to be fit in every week they are not traveling as well. Also there are doctor appointments that need to be fit in. And since their family doctors, who have their family's health records, are in Wooster it is best to visit them when the family is not on the road. Since all work and no play makes for dullness, recreational time and time off have to be worked in for a healthy state of mind. This is part of the life of the furloughing missionary and his family when they are not in your church preaching nor on their field of labour.

Even with all these activities there is also the need of basic office work. Checkbooks have to be balanced, prayer letters written, expense reports prepared and personal correspondence need to be taken care of. They also have computer programs to learn and update besides the preparation of messages for the services we will be visiting. You can see that when the missionary is not in your pulpit he has very real work to do on many different fronts.

Besides the ministering in the local and foreign work and besides of taking care of home-schooling and scheduling of meetings or getting ready for those meetings, the missionary and each family member must have his quiet time with the His Lord as well. He must, as all Christians, find time daily to nurture his faith through private Bible reading and study and prayer. Alas, what would it be like to have the missionary fill your pulpit, write his letters, counsel God's man on the field or do the other myriad activities he must do without wisdom from above? There are no short cuts to this communion with the Lord. Sufficient time must be spent to have the heart examined from above by the Word and instructed in the way he should go.

So now, as you face that missionary in the pulpit you know he is a person with a family with needs much like your own. You know he is also different than your own family as he has a different work to do than you.

I trust this report has been helpful to edify you in the life of this missionary. You really know better now what this missionary and family is doing when he is not on the field nor in your pulpit do you not? I have not tried to tell you about every missionary's challenges of furlough as each missionary family has varied needs. However, perhaps knowing how our lives are on furlough, you can better relate to other missionary's lives on furlough too. Having this knowledge I trust the Lord's work is better understood and supported in prayer.

In Our Lord,

Bro. Calvin G. Gardner

wbtbrazil@usa.net

Missionary to Brazil through

Wooster Baptist Temple

PO Box 433

Wooster, OH 44691

Pastor Floyd Koenig

fkoenig@bright.net

-   You can not take the Gospel to the wrong address   -