Ashley and I are Maryknoll Lay Missioners living and working in Tanzania. If you have followed this blog for more than a couple weeks, that much should be obvious (I hope). Over the past two and half years, we have waxed philosophic about what it means to be a missioner.
We said Hallmark card-worthy things like, a missioner is "one who deliberately chooses to enter into the reality of life of another person, a reality that is quite foreign to the missioner, be it culturally, economically, etc., in order to mutually learn from one another and strive towards a more just and compassionate world." And we also questioned ourselves, wondering if we are even legit missioners, asking things like, "Are you a missioner if you don't like going to church?" (Clearly we are not the ones constructing church buildings, distributing bibles or “saving” people.)
We said Hallmark card-worthy things like, a missioner is "one who deliberately chooses to enter into the reality of life of another person, a reality that is quite foreign to the missioner, be it culturally, economically, etc., in order to mutually learn from one another and strive towards a more just and compassionate world." And we also questioned ourselves, wondering if we are even legit missioners, asking things like, "Are you a missioner if you don't like going to church?" (Clearly we are not the ones constructing church buildings, distributing bibles or “saving” people.)