Living the Village’s Lifestyle

By; Alejandro Cardeinte

“He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” Isaiah 53: 2

By nature, people are materially possessive. They crave to possess worldly wealth and things. So let me ask straightforward, what kind of picture the villagers are seeing in us? Often unconsciously, missionaries’ possession they have brought into the mission field makes the gospel blurred. In which people think that missionaries are the savior of their poor economic status.
The kind of food we eat, the kind of house we built, the kind of car we park in, the kind of clothes we wear, the amount and kind of technology we depend on and most important the kind of equipment you use in your evangelistic meeting will determine whether what kind of missionary they are seeing and what kind of disciples a missionary is producing in his ministry.
It is not wise to live the same abundant lifestyle a missionary had at home. One of the ways to really spiritualize people we are trying to reach is that missionaries need to live the same way the villagers do, living a contented life rather than a confusing and complicated one. This is important to be seen by the people who have influenced by the Buddhism doctrine of contentment, simplicity and humility as the mark of true religion. It is a sad fact to note that many missionaries bring much possession in their mission station, things that are so strange to the eyes of the isolated poor villagers, things that for them can be seen as the mark the worldly wealth. It seems the missionary is trying to establish his own physical kingdom in the community he is in, building a big and fully furnished palace like house.
Many times I heard mission reports that missionaries’ expensive equipments were get stolen. Missionaries’ extravagance appearance attracts some bad people. And in some instances might endanger his life. Besides, the people you are working, in some cases, will no longer expect you to provide spiritual food for them but their basic need for survival rather than the saving gospel of Christ.
Sometimes missionary choose to wear expensive clothes too different from that of local people. Jesus our master missionary lived simple life while he did His missionary work on earth. “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” Isaiah 53:2 He lived an earthly life as the same level as the others in the village whom He seeks to reach for His kingdom.
It is hard to give a sermon, “do not love the world or anything in the world,” 1 John 2:15 when it is actually cannot be seen in our parsonage. Missionaries living like a wealthy person with a lots of servants in his parsonage is not truly effective when he is working among the Buddhist. To the Buddhist, truly religious person means you are living the humblest life. A missionary’s lifestyle must reflect contentment and simplicity. This is the real Biblical. Having the kind of simple living will help our people to understand that this world is not our home.
Unnecessary belongings for display purposes should be avoided. What a missionary need to display is simplicity that promote the pure gospel of the scripture.
Often times in the hilltribe mission station, missionaries are considered rich people because they saw unused expensive things in our parsonage. There are lots of unnecessary things that they could observe. It is hard to believe our preaching, “do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal,” Matthew 6:19, to separate from the worldly craving when they have been seeing their missionaries still attached to it.
Instead of promoting Jesus, it seems a missionary wanting to promote the latest branded stuffs. Which almost all of the poor locals don’t even know the most outdated one. Sometimes those unimportant things we have bought in can be interpreted as extravagance. The villagers often see us buying things we want and can only use very occasionally. Which contrary to the normal life of each villager, in which they buy things they need not because they wanted it.
You will only know what is being a poor if you have tried to be one with them. Now is the time live up the life Jesus had set. Now is the time to live up and preach “do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal,” and now is the time to sing “ this world is not my home.” God bless…