When the Missionary is the Mission Field

I've heard several testimonies from missionaries during and after their mission trips, and the striking thread that stands out in the fabric of their experiences is this:

they themselves are the ones who are transformed - not so much the people group they were sent to transform

they themselves are the ones who learn about Christ from the people they were sent to teach

they themselves observe a freedom that can come only through the power of Christ - rather than demonstrate it

We send our missionaries as teachers, so that they can spread the gospel of Christ to all nations.  And we all feel so accomplished that we  - the big western Christian nation - are sending 'real' Christian's to small unbelieving pagans (missionaries may well deny this, but it has been my observation that this is the unsaid narrative behind mission trips).  And we use things like medical aide, farming trade, water wells, and hunger aide as our tools to engage another unchurched culture. 

Our vehicle for delivering the gospel is our good works.  That's why you will see Christian's responding first and in more numbers than any other faith in nations all over the globe.  Because we want to do good works for the sake of demonstrating the gospel.  We want all people of every tongue to know Jesus.  There is no one who can argue with the numbers of Christians who at work in foreign and third-world countries.  We are there. Period.

But the amazing thing that happens is that missionaries come back saying things like:

"I learned so much about Jesus from these people who hardly know him" and

"They worshipped without abandon" and

"I thought I was supposed to teach them, but I was the one who learned"

Our missionaries actually become the mission field when they leave.  Like they have to go to a different location in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit...Like they go to a Third World or a nation in crisis and they get a little deposit of Jesus and bring him back...Back to this community where they are so consumed with spreading the word of God in other nations, that they somehow lose Him or are vacant of Him while they are here at home, then, find Him again when they leave and go to a place where they think they are bringing Him.  But they are not.  In reality, they are experiencing Jesus only when they see Him at work in others....they are not bringing him to others, they in fact collect him from others.  Our missionaries are the ones who 'get saved'.  Like those bumper stickers for adopting pets that say, "Who adopted who?", our missionaries seem to always be astounded at the role reversal in the mission field.