Does this sound familiar: “The doors are opening wider and more workers are needed”? The cry is current, but it differs in meaning from the missionary appeal of forty years ago. Today the doors are those of Christian homes, and the field is the vast throng of internationals in our midst.
The missionary-minded saint of today is being asked not only for his financial contribution but also for himself—and the use of his home. What visitors from overseas desire more than anything else is to be invited into the American home, to see family life as it is. Here is the God-given opportunity of the mission-field-come-to-us. Representatives are here from every nation under heaven. When they return to their native lands, their opinions of America will be nearly unchangeable.
To make an international friend for the sake of Christ can be both simple and difficult. Opportunities for witness often come quickly; but conversions come slowly, just as on most mission fields. Those who are called to this task often feel frustrated in presenting their work because others do not understand it. These workers are not “home” or “foreign” missionaries. Would it not be wise for the Church to establish in its thinking the new category, “international missions”?
With many doors closed or closing to traditional foreign missionary work, and with thousands of students from these closed lands here among us, the Church should recognize and promote that which befits the apocalyptic nature of our era—eleventh-hour missions. This kind of endeavor has two features: it serves as middleman between the large number of international visitors and the American Christian home, and it promotes person-to-person contact between missionary and overseas visitor. Staff members of an agency administering such a program should have at least one term’s experience in resident, foreign missionary service. The constant demands of multiracial contacts can be staggering to one’s intellect, schedule, and spiritual stamina, and adequate preparation is of great importance.
A disarming feature of work among people from abroad is their appearance. Many seem awkward and bashful. They hardly look like leaders. Their English and their immediate financial position may both be poor. Yet most internationals actually come from the upper levels of their societies—the levels from which arise diplomats, governors, and top-flight businessmen. The high official who in 1980 will decide whether to allow missionaries to enter his country may well be the political science major now resident—and lonely—at an American university.
The Christian governor of a province in one of the closed Muslim lands is secretly witnessing for Christ. He found the Saviour while studying in the United States. A Japanese diet (parliament) member who faithfully testifies on behalf of his Redeemer in high places readily attributes his conversion to his days at Harvard fifty years ago. On the other hand, Prime Minister Nkrumah of Ghana was once a student in America, as was the man who triggered Red China’s first atomic blast. The testimony of lay Christians in the United States, therefore, can have worldwide consequences and can be effective in high places.
When an international returns home, his American experience will stay with him. Will he remember an effectual witness? Will he think of the love of Christ each time he recalls his sojourn abroad? One thing is certain: What he gained or lost he will not forget. His spiritual attitudes will develop accordingly.
Another unusual facet of eleventh-hour missions is the duration of contact. Follow-up correspondence from one who has gained the visitor’s confidence allows continuing opportunities for spiritual witness and encouragement from the Word of God. Why terminate a valuable friendship over so small a matter as a few hours’ flight or the sailing of a ship? In other lands people do not throw away old letters so quickly as we; they read and reread them. Quote the Scriptures and the witness lives on.
To show such loving concern is to plant a testimony, and perhaps ultimately a church, in foreign soil. For example, a tract enclosed in a letter in 1946 led to one established church and two related Bible-study groups near Manila. This is foreign missionary work by remote control. And visible results like these are probably only a small part of the total fruitfulness of international seed-sowing, as is true of most missionary work.
Here is personal evangelism that differs somewhat from the usual American idea of it. By and large the international has at best a vague notion of what Christianity is. In addition, his ideas of religion are usually set in a pattern totally foreign to the American. To get through to his heart, therefore, usually takes time. A former Hindu says that his countrymen require an average of two years of thorough, consistent witness before they will seriously consider Christ as personal Saviour.
A family in Iowa received a Muslim student into their home and hearts, gained his confidence, and began an effective ministry of sharing their faith with him. This went on not for weeks or months but for years. Just when all seemed hopeless, the Muslim came through gloriously for Christ. Was this struggle unusual? Hardly. Missionaries everywhere accept such struggles as part of their mandate. Here, then, was a total effort involving a farm family, the local church, the work among international students, one Muslim student—and much patience. The Master of time and tactic bids his servants, “Be not weary in well doing.”
Methods are not permanent; neither are mission boards nor the finest traditions of service, whether “home,” “foreign,” or “international.” Workers must still go to the hills of Kentucky and to all other parts of our world to reach the unevangelized. But the American Christian home must be recognized also as a vital point of international outreach.
Whether a decision for Christ is made in the blackest jungle of the Amazon by a primitive Indian or on a Kansas farm by a Persian Muslim, the end result is the same—the eternal salvation of a priceless soul. While many go abroad seeking distant converts, we should not forget eleventh-hour missions—international lifelines—right on our own doorsteps.
