Reflections and resources for lifelong learning for missionaries

Tag: waiting

deadlines
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

Dealing with Deadlines

As we approach the end of a year, we face approaching deadlines, often coming more quickly than we had hoped. Many of our goals in our Annual Ministry Plan Season are due at the end of this year. Back in January, we identified some projects we wanted to complete in 2022, and now we just have a few more weeks to do so. I already know that my team and I will not complete some of these goals this year. Hopefully next year, we can finish them.

We also face deadlines in more personal areas. Christmas is just two weeks away, and we still have gifts to purchase and wrap before then. The deadline set by Canada Post for sending Christmas cards within Canada is December 16. To send cards to the USA, our deadline is even earlier – December 12. For sending to most of the rest of the world, the deadline has already passed.

Why do we call it a “deadline”?

The word “deadline” is a strange and sobering word, is it not? Our deadlines may have consequences for failing to meet them. But thankfully, none of my deadlines have ever threatened me with execution! Apparently the word “deadline” comes from the American Civil War. A Confederate prison in Georgia was notorious for shooting POWs who crossed a line within or around the prison. So this “deadline” was a literal line with deadly consequences for those who dared cross it. Since the Civil War, the figurative meaning of the word has totally overshadowed the original meaning. But the word still implies how important it is to stay within the set time limits, although most of us do not think about deadlines in this way.

Missionaries and deadlines

Maybe I am wrong but I think that we as missionaries are less concerned about deadlines than most people. Those of us who have lived and worked in cultures without a strong time-orientation have seen ample proof that the world works quite well even if events do not start on time.

refugee
Photo by a colleague from the Ukraine-Poland border. February 26, 2022

I am a refugee: reflections of a missionary leaving Ukraine

I am a missionary who is also a war refugee. I came to that realization a couple of days ago. My wife and I are Canadian citizens but residents of Ukraine. Or at least we were until about a month ago. We have our Ukraine temporary residency cards, recently renewed. Our home for the past 12 and a half years has been in the city of Kyiv. This has been the longest we have lived in any country or in any home since we got married and left for the Philippines almost 35 years ago. Now we are “back” in Canada. Because of the current war in Ukraine, we do not know for how long.

In the past week, I have experienced many different and sometimes conflicting emotions. I am thankful to God that we were given sufficient warning and were able to leave Ukraine before the fighting began. But I am also shocked and deeply saddened by the devastation and death that the war in Ukraine has caused. I feel a great sense of loss as I think about the possibility that we may never return to our home, friends and ministry base in Ukraine. At the same time, I am proud of and admire the courage, resilience and resourcefulness of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters. Fervently and continually, I pray for peace in Ukraine – and wonder what this all means for us.

What is a refugee?

But am I really a refugee? After all, we were born and raised in Canada. This is where our parents, brothers and sisters, our daughter and son-in-law, and three of our grandchildren make their home.

Refugees are people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and have crossed an international border to find safety in another country.

UNHCR – What is a refugee?

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