Kids are Missionaries, too
How can a baby or a child be a missionary? It seems kind of
silly but it is so possible. Kids actually make the best missionaries. I became
pregnant about a month after leaving everything behind to become a full-time
missionary. As soon as my baby bump was evident, this caused lots of attention.
So before my first was even born, he was attracting people to talk to me
about missions, what it means to be a missionary family, and about the faith in
general. The fact that I was pregnant opened up countless opportunities to
share my testimony of the many wonders God has worked in my life simply due to
the fact that people are caught off guard by seeing a pregnant missionary.
If that was the effect before Nathaniel made an appearance, imagine when he was actually born. Not only did he bring lots of people to Paul and I that gave us the chance to evangelize people and get to know them, but he brought joy to people, as babies do. When Nathaniel was 2 months old we moved from our mission base in Georgia to Haiti, to start a mission base. In order to enter into a town in a foreign land, with a different language, we would need a way to get through to the people and connect with them. Though Paul spoke Creole, I didn't.
People love babies. Teens who might otherwise be intimidated
to talk to me, were comforted by the presence of a baby who could connect us
when we could barely communicate verbally. Letting a group of young girls take
Nathaniel from my arms within the first days of living in Haiti, let them see
that I trusted them and was willing to let them be a part of my life in a real
way. After a few weeks, everywhere we would walk or drive, people who I don't
remember ever meeting or even seeing, knew Nathaniel's name. The first young
girl to take Nathaniel from me, Taina, actually gave Nathaniel the nickname that has stuck
with him until today: Natou. I call him Natou more than I call him
Nathaniel.
Not only did Nathaniel help us to get to know the people but
it helped the dynamics of our mission community, mixed of Haitian and American
missionaries. We didn't always have much to talk about and weren't very
comfortable around each other right away, but being able to enjoy Nathaniel was
something we could do together. After all, he didn't speak English or Creole at
the time.
Nathaniel will be 3 next month and now he runs around
playing with all the other kids, speaking Creole, eating his rice and beans,
wearing no shoes and often no shirt, sweating, making toys out of trash, playing
the drum, singing Haitian worship songs. He is just one of the kids and it
doesn’t phase him that he is living in a poor country, that’s 100 degrees, that
we don’t have water and electricity sometimes. Nathaniel doesn’t think not to
touch someone because they have a contagious illness or are living in filth.
And now Thérèse can walk and is joining in on the fun, making people smile when
they’re having a hard day. This is exactly what we are supposed to do. What a
model for us as adult missionaries.
In “Joy of the Gospel” Pope Francis writes:
An evangelizing community gets
involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives; it bridges distances and it
embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others.
Evangelizers thus take on the “smell of the sheep” and the sheep are willing to
hear their voice. (Evangelii Gaudium, 24)
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