The Missionary's Daughter | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: The Missionary's Daughter | Previous Challenge Entry
By Debbie Sanders
10/23/06
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The Missionary’s Daughter

From the first day that I met her I was impressed, but the more I learned about her the more that impression grew. Sara had spent most of her life in the Ivory Coast with her parents. They were missionaries. It was my daughter’s second year at the Christian school and Sara was one of her best friends. When school started that semester, my Becca and Sara were room mates. I had never really known anyone on a personal basis that had spent their life on the mission field. The experiences that she shared with my daughter have forever made an impact on how I feel about our missionaries and the things they give up every day of their lives, just to serve.
To begin with, she was a beautiful young lady, both inside and out. Her face was very angelic and there was a kindness that could be felt in her voice as she spoke. She was very timid and did not want to be the center of attraction. She told of us the difference in the lifestyles here at home versus those that she shared in Africa. She told us about monkey bites, and how far they had to travel to civilization. They told of us about how the natives looked at her and how they wanted to buy her from her father. All these things were so foreign to me. I don’t think that I ever took the time to really consider how much our missionaries give up. I have never really thought of myself as someone, who takes things for granted. But, after being in her presence for just a little while, I knew how guilty I was. Sara started college the same time my daughter did. We lived some 400 miles away from the college. I cried for four hundred miles the day I left her there. I was so selfish. I know that I had promised God, that I would dedicate her life to him. But this was the hardest thing I had ever done. Then as I came to know Sara and her story, I realized that my sacrifice of moving my daughter 400 miles away was nothing to compare the sacrifice that Sara’s parents were giving. You see, the same time I left Becca at the school, Sara’s parent had to leave her and travel back to the Ivory Coast. Sara’s parents were half way around the world. They didn’t get to see her at Christmas break or Thanksgiving.
The year after our daughters graduated, there was a terrible siege that took place in the Ivory Coast, buy rebel forces. The very school where Sara had attended while on the mission field had been attacked and the children there were taken hostage. Sara called Becca and asked her to start praying. She told her that all the children there were basically missionary children, and that they were all in danger. What made it worse for Sara is, she knew many of the children there. We all began to pray and God showed his mighty hand of mercy once more and delivered the children all safely, not one lost their life.
This was another awakening for me. Many of our missionaries risk not only their lives, but those of their families. A question we should all ask ourselves is, are we as faithful? We should each be a missionary every day that we wake. I heard a preacher say once. “When you walk out the church house door, You are now entering your mission field.

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