Being a Missionary in the Jungle Was Not What I Prayed For

Photo by Allyson Holland

Reflecting back over those ten days, I knew staying home alone with our five small children had been the right decision. I had encouraged him to go. He had needed to go. Even now, I knew it would change his life forever. 

It had been his first trip to the Amazon region of Brazil and his first experience doing jungle medicine. 

Now back home a few days, he was still in the midst of processing all he had experienced. He hadn’t shared much yet about the medical mission work he had done in the villages along the Amazon River. I figured he would eke out bits and pieces of his trip when he was ready.

This particular morning, he was in a hurry. I was soaking peacefully in a hot bath filled with bubbles, but on his way out the door, he kissed me good-bye and asked, “What would you think about being missionaries in the Amazon jungle?”

What?!

I felt like an unexpected bomb had been suddenly plopped in my swirl of happy bubbles. It was a “Would you like to be a missionary in the jungle with five small children, homeschool those children in a hut, while I save all the people with medical needs” kind of missile that was sure to detonate right there in the tub.

In some strange way I knew it was coming … he had taken too long to tell me about his experiences. And I suddenly realized: He was changed all right. Not exactly the way I had been expecting. Certainly not in the way I had been praying.

And how could he just walk out the door and go to work? My entire day was spent in emotional turmoil. What about the kids’ college fund? Music lessons? Team sports? Braces? Then there’s my health, and so many other things …

By the time he got home, I was calmer. I did give him an earful about dropping the missionary bomb on me on the way out the door. “Don’t you ever do that to me again!”

He chuckled, “Okay.”

More importantly, as the evening progressed and we talked more, the state of my heart became painfully obvious to me: closed as tight as a steel drum.

I was barely willing to listen to my husband and his “what if” thinking. There was no way I was willing to live in the jungle to share the Gospel with the spiritually lost.

The hard truth was, I wasn’t willing to listen to God either. This fact rocked my spiritual world. I had given my life to Christ. I thought I was committed to His will. In this area, foreign missions, my answer to God was “no.” I felt like He was testing my heart, and I had failed the test.

As it turned out, my husband, the adventurous soul that he was and is, was not really interested in full-time life-long foreign missions. What interested him was short-term, third-world country, medical missions. And as a result he has traveled to several countries over the years, serving God by sharing the love of Christ by helping the poor, the needy, and the sick.

It’s so true:

“How beautiful are the feet of the messengers who bring good news!” —Romans 10:15, NLT 

My part in all of this was to keep things calm and in order on the home front so that he was free to do what he loved and what God had called him to do.

I have learned that God’s assignment for me is nothing I need to fear. He will equip me to do whatever He wills, and He will allow me to use my spiritual gifts to serve Him by serving others.

-Ally

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