Why I’m not a recruiter

There’s a reason I do not work in mission recruitment. While I think I have outgrown my middle school awkwardness (for the most part), I am, as my husband would say, very French. By that, he means that I have been shaped to be brutally honest because of my upbringing in France. If I worked as a recruiter, I would tell potential candidates way too much.

If you were one of those poor unsuspecting souls who shows some interest in working internationally, I would tell you that this work is hard and slow. That learning to speak coherently in a new language takes way longer than you ever thought it would. That you will make a fool of yourself over and over again. That you WILL be misunderstood. That you will lose large pieces of your identity, all the things that you thought made you, you.

I would tell you that if you join me in my location, you will sweat in ways you did not think were humanly possible. That the sweat will stain your clothes and your sheets until everything you wear or sleep on looks and smells of sweat, until you no longer think this is abnormal or gross.

If you have kids, I would tell you that you will watch your kids cry, grieve, and say goodbye. It will break your heart. But actually, you will worry most when they do not cry and walk away without a word, telling themselves they don’t really need friends anyway.

I would tell you that you will feel inadequate about skills you did not even know you were supposed to have. Not only will you speak like a toddler but you won’t even know how to switch the wheels on your car into four-wheel drive. Nor will you know that cars sink quicker in the mud on the side of a canyon-sized pothole than straight through the deep waters of it. You will be mumbling like a toddler, knee-deep in mud trying to figure out what this stranger is doing with your car wheels.

But what you won’t know is that the stranger is actually helping you lock your wheels into four-wheel drive. He will call more strangers to help push — with crowds of laughing teenagers, pushing the car through the mud, all while sweat and rain running down their faces.

See, I would also tell you that there will be more strangers — strangers all along the way, who get down in the mud to push your car, walk you down the block to the right office, take the money from your hand in the market — not to steal from you — to show you exactly which coins add up to the right amount, and that you nearly overpaid … by a lot. Some strangers will be indifferent, and some will be hostile, but most will be kind, friendly, and welcoming.

I would tell you that some of those strangers will become acquaintances and then friends, neighbors, guests, hosts, and colleagues. You will feel safe making a fool of yourself because they will laugh with you over steaming cups of tea. And slowly, you will pick up the pieces of who you are, the new you, received one cup of tea at a time and you will finally understand God’s unconditional love for you, the real you with all the layers peeled off.

I would tell you that you will see Jesus in new ways and new faces. That I have seen the crucified Christ in flesh and bone: people loving, serving, and forgiving despite incredible odds.

I would describe to you how I have been led closer to Jesus by people who love and worship Him, and even by those here who don’t — even by those whom I long to see follow Jesus.

I would try to explain how incredibly paralyzed we can become by our Western comfort and security — the perfect recipe for crippling anxiety. How holding my toddler, burning and limp with malaria, has changed how I trust God.

I would tell you how aware I am of my own privilege in every detail of my life. How it is impossible to escape it here or to delude myself into thinking that I could ever do enough to change my place in this equation. I would tell you of how my heart breaks in the face of extreme suffering, so common and yet so up-close-and-personal for my strangers-turned-friends. How my scrubs get stained with blood, and not just sweat, in my meager attempts to alleviate some of that suffering.

But … I would also tell you of the most outstanding resilience, trust, entrepreneurship, and hope in the faces that surround me. I would tell you that this is the answer to our rampant anxiety in the West. That in the end, we need to be taught and led by our strangers-turned-friends on the other side of the globe. That there are certain lessons you only learn by making a fool of yourself. That speaking like a toddler and not being able to count the coins in your hand changes you in ways that a vacation abroad or receiving a foreign exchange student never will. That it will change your kids too and you will be grateful. That at the end of the day being a guest in a foreign land just might be one of the best ways to know and understand our incarnate and crucified Lord.

As you can see, I am not a recruiter. But that’s okay with me. I am not looking for another job.