A Note to Readers, Foreword, Introduction

A Note to Readers

This is a book of true stories about the experiences of Pioneers missionaries—stories we hear echoed by cross-cultural workers sent by many organizations to and from countries all over the world. The names of people and places and some identifying details have been intentionally altered to protect missionaries, local believers and the communities they serve. Modifying some of the specifics allows us to publicly share stories of God at work in unlikely places. We invite you to join us in celebrating His faithfulness and extending His invitation of blessing to all people.

Foreword

Have you ever asked God to use you, thinking you knew what that would look like, and then had Him do something completely unexpected? Sometimes, when we step out in faith, things seem to go wrong. Plans fail. Opportunities evaporate. Ministries collapse. When that happens, it’s easy to get disoriented or disillusioned. We are confronted again and again with threshold moments, intersections of life where we must decide, How will I respond?

Because global missions—making disciples of all the peoples of the world—is such a vast and complex task, we sometimes assume, Faithful missionaries are the ones who go somewhere and stay for the rest of their lives. Longevity has been a primary goal and remains appropriate and necessary in many contexts, but God is now moving His workforce around the globe with increasing frequency. It’s becoming somewhat rare for a missionary to spend a lifetime in just one location.

Scripture is full of examples of displaced people and unexpected transitions. Think of Abraham, Jonah, Daniel and the Apostle Paul. Joseph was relocated by force. Moses spent 40 years in the desert of Midian learning his way around in preparation for what we now consider a far more fruitful season of ministry leading the people of Israel out of slavery. And think about how devastated the disciples must have been to see Jesus crucified! From their perspective, God’s plan to provide a Messiah had clearly been shattered irreparably. But then God revealed that apparent defeat was an essential part of His greatest victory. Throughout history, mobility and surprise have been built into His redemptive plans. God’s people have always been on the move.

This book presents a rich and multifaceted picture of faithfulness on the mission field. We hear how missionaries have navigated the tension between perseverance in what God called them to do and flexibility when their plans were disrupted. Reflecting on these stories, I realized how much I’ve experienced the same dynamics. My own journey in missions has had its share of surprises. I find it both inspiring and reassuring to recognize that God not only allows us to bear enduring fruit in each season of ministry, however long or short, but He simultaneously transforms our own hearts and prepares us for future stages of fruitfulness in other settings.

Stories of displaced and rerouted missionaries remind us that our sovereign God orchestrates all the threads of our lives. Nothing is wasted in His economy as we prayerfully seek Him even—and maybe especially—in situations beyond our control and understanding. I believe that a certain recognition, and perhaps honor, is due to missionaries who have paid a price to establish a life and ministry in one setting and then are willing to start over, whether in their home country or abroad when circumstances require it.

In some ways, this book is a compilation of stories of shattered dreams that, in retrospect, turned out to be God-glorifying examples of answered prayer. Whether you (or missionaries you care about) are on the move by necessity or by choice, remember that God’s people are called to a flexible, responsive faithfulness, tenaciously clinging to the God of the unexpected.

— Steve Richardson
President, Pioneers-USA

Introduction

On February 24th, 2022, James and Lisa Walker woke to find Central Europe bracing for war. In their town, just an hour from the border with Ukraine, gas stations and ATMs were soon overrun, and fighter jets roared overhead at alarmingly frequent intervals. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees—who would grow to millions in the coming weeks—streamed across the border in the Walkers’ direction.

On February 25th, Lisa dug through their closets for spare linens while James made the first of what would be dozens of trips to the border. That night, 31 refugees stayed in their home, including a family of five with a small dog. The oldest daughter, a teenager, spoke English well and helped her parents share some of their story with James and Lisa. The father pastored a church in Ukraine, but the family was Latvian. They had served as missionaries to a Turkic minority people group in another country in the former Soviet Union since the 1990s. In 2021, the father had been declared a “Danger to the Republic” and deported. They fled to Ukraine and established a new ministry there. Now they were fleeing again.

James and Lisa listened to the story in shock, not just because of what the family had been through but also because they had been through some of the same things. By 2022, the Walkers had worked as missionaries in Central Europe for more than two decades and were deeply rooted in the local community. But James and Lisa didn’t start off in Central Europe. They were rerouted there.

In the mid-90s, the Walkers had set out to be missionaries to the same Turkic minority group in the same former Soviet republic as their Latvian guests. After five years of ministry, James had also been declared a “Danger to the Republic” and deported. The Walkers started over in Central Europe. After hearing their overlapping story, the pastor’s wife told Lisa with mock dismay, “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sleep in your house tonight with all these ‘dangerous’ men around!” Then she gripped both of Lisa’s hands and told her, “We never fully understand why, but I think the Lord sent you to the former Soviet Union all those years ago, if nothing else, to receive our family today.”

This book is a collection of stories of missionaries who, like the Walkers and their Latvian guests, left everything and moved across the world to serve the unreached and then were rerouted to a completely different location. Their experiences illustrate an inherent tension missionaries must maintain in today’s chaotic world: the commitment to go deep in difficult contexts as if it’s forever and the openhandedness to accept that God may disrupt their plans at any moment.

A lot of Christians think of missionaries as people who pack up and move abroad, but we may not realize how many of them do that more than once. Fully half of Pioneers-USA missionaries (those sent out from the US) who have served on the field for 10 years or more have changed countries at least once. And that doesn’t include those who switched locations before they made it to the field in the first place or returned to serve at our sending base.

In orientation and training programs for long-term missionaries, you don’t hear a lot of talk about changing fields, and for good reason. It’s hard to dive deeply into the language and culture of the people you plan to serve if you always have an eye on the exit. But the truth is, a lot of missionaries aren’t able to stay as long as they hope in their fields of service. Some step away from cross-cultural ministry completely. Others start over somewhere else.

A lot of rerouted missionaries find new purposes and fruitful ministries serving displaced people, which there are more of today than ever before. The UN estimates that in 2022, 100 million people were driven from their homes by violence, conflict, corruption and persecution.¹ The largest groups fled from Ukraine, Myanmar, Syria, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Yemen. Displaced missionaries are often able to connect quickly and deeply with refugees because of their shared experience of loss and starting over in an unfamiliar place. A growing number of people are also moving internationally for reasons besides war or famine (like jobs or education). More than 280 million people currently live outside their country of birth, a three-fold increase since 1970.² James and Lisa Walker are part of a tiny subset of people who move cross-culturally to share the gospel.

During the first months of the war in Ukraine, the Walkers hosted more than 150 people and their pets. Amid all that chaos, the conversation with the Latvian family displaced from both a Soviet republic and Ukraine stands out to Lisa. She doesn’t feel she deserves credit for helping them. “I didn’t do anything special. The Lord did it. He allowed us to be at the border and for their family to pass through and have a place to rest.” And God blessed Lisa through that refugee family, whispering to her, This is my purpose. This is what I have for you right now.

God is unchanging in His character and faithful to His promises. He also upends our expectations, plans, lives and entire nations much more often than most of us would prefer. He keeps His people on the move, always with a purpose, but often without much warning or explanation. As Lisa puts it, “I need to hold my plans, my methods, the way I go about ministry very loosely. I don’t understand the big picture, but I have to trust the One who does.” And James agrees, “We have to just say, God, You know what we need. We put ourselves in Your hands. It’s hard, and I don’t know what else to say.”

The Walkers’ perspective echoes an ancient, but still very relevant, prayer: “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). May we continue to show the same humility and faith as we carry good news to a turbulent world.