Incarnation is Identification

I recently spoke with a man who had been a missionary in Brazil. While he was there he made a great effort to learn Portuguese well, taking as his models the Brazilian Portuguese speakers around him. His goal was to sound just like them them--or as much like them as possible--when he spoke.

To this day, twenty years after leaving Brazil, he speaks excellent, idiomatic Brazilian Portuguese. The hard work that he did many years ago continues to yield dividends in the way he speaks the language.

He told me about a time he traveled with a fellow missionary in Brazil. After an interaction with a Brazilian man, his colleague turned to him and asked in an annoyed way, "Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" my friend replied.

"Why do you try talk like the Brazilians, instead of like an American?"

"Because they talk right, and I want to talk right."

"Well," his friend concluded, "don't do it around me."

I thought about that story again a couple of weeks ago when I was listening to a radio program about language learning. The man being interviewed said something to the effect that the greatest compliment you can pay a language learner is to mistake him/her for a native speaker.

I realized that this was exactly what my friend's colleague had wanted to avoid. There was something in his self-identity that resisted identifying with Brazilians and he didn't want to risk ever being taken for anything but an American.

Now I realize that for most of us it is very unlikely that we would ever learn a language so well as an adult that we would be taken for a native speaker. But putting that aside for the moment, one of the reasons that my language students tend to be the most motivated language learners in the world is that they don't only want to communicate information with Paraguayans; they want to identify with them in the language that defines them as Paraguayans--Guarani. By learning Guarani, we affirm, value, and make part of us something that most Paraguayans hold in very high esteem--the language that is uniquely theirs.

Dr. Gailyn Van Rheenen, in his book Missions: Biblical Foundations and Contemporary Strategies, talks about this identification: "Such identification is not an external façade designed to create some kind of artificial congeniality; it is the heart of God incarnate in the missionary." (p. 66) The heart of God was demonstrated in Jesus, the Word who took on human form and had to learn words--human language--as a baby. His identification with us, his creation, sets the pattern for missionary identification.

That's why language learning for missionaries is not an onerous task to be endured so that the real missions work can begin. It is an indispensable step in the process of incarnation that every missionary must engage in completely in order to be effective ministers in the context they've been called to. For this reason, people who go to minister in contexts where they "don't need to learn the language" find themselves at a distinct disadvantage, because they lack one of the most fundamental tools of identification.

AMSLA Paraguay 2008

We've been planning for over a year for the AMSLA congress. AMSLA is Agencia Misionera de Santidad Latino Americana, or the Latin American Holiness Mission Agency. The churches WGM works with in Latin America have united to form a mission sending agency. Every two years we all meet together to celebrate and promote missions and to encourage and get to know each other. This year it was Paraguay's turn to host the convention.

So last Thursday believers from Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, and the United States, as well as Paraguayans, gathered in Asuncion for three days of getting excited about what God is doing. It really was exciting, too. Each country had an opportunity to share and we all worshipped together, mostly in Spanish but also with a few additions in Bolivian Quechua, Peruvian Quechua, and Guarani. The traditional songs and dress were impressive and even more exciting were the stories of God's grace in each of the countries represented.

On Sunday we had a special commissioning service for two couples who are being sent as missionaries—a Honduran couple to central Asia and a Bolivian couple to the southern United States—and for the new Executive Director of AMSLA, Jorge Pacheco, a Honduran. It was thrilling to see these families being sent into the harvest field from the Latin American church.

I was especially pleased with how the Paraguay team, led by Pastor Rafael Flores, put together and executed the conference. There was barely a hitch. It was really beautiful to see, especially since we've never done anything near that big before! A real milestone in the history of the Iglesia Evangélica Mundial in Paraguay!

All That Way?

A man from Escobar came to buy a pig from Norma the other day. Vonni and Greg, my Guarani students, were at Norma's house so the man asked where they were from. Norma replied that they had come from Africa.

"Eh!" He replied, "and what did they come here for?"

"Well, I'm not exactly sure I could explain it all to you," said Norma, "but I think they've come to tell people that Jesus lives."

"Eh!" Said the man again, "they've come all the way from Africa for that? I've been baptized and I don't even talk about Jesus to the man who lives next door to me! I'm ashamed."