this thing is very AWSOME !!!!!!!!!!!!

By now, I’ve told many people that I’m a missionary in Romania.  I’ve had a lot of different responses.  They range from complete cluelessness to amazement and awe to violent annoyance.

Here in Romania, I seem to find a lot of disinterested or slightly annoyed people.

It took one of my English students to remind me of just how truly amazingly awesome it is to be a missionary.  Radu found me on Facebook chat the other day

“but Ben, you are a missioner ?” he typed.

“Missionary, yes,” was my reply.

“what’s a missionary ?”

“It’s someone who goes to another country to teach others about Jesus.”

“like a Metodist ?”

“Yes,” I decided to take the easy route, “very similar.”

No reply.  I waited, expecting the worst.

“This thing is very AWSOME !!!!!!!!!!!!” finally appeared in the chat box, taking up two whole lines.

And I remembered again that, you know what, being a missioner really is completely and totally awsome.  We need roads, but I get to build lives.  We need doctors, but I get to bring healing to bodies, minds, and spirits.  We need taxi drivers, artists, authors, garbage men, street cleaners, roofers, housewives, cashiers, teachers, scientists… but I get to live in Romania, eat sarmale and slanina, speak Romanian, teach about the uncreated God, love and laugh and play with poor street kids, teach college students how to share the gospel, visit the hurting in their time of need, bring a meal to a hungry man, climb the Bucegi mountains, ride trains and subways, show gypsies the heart of Jesus, take care of widows, read Bible stories to men and women who can’t read, pray for the sick and see them healed…  Yeah, it’s awsome to be a missioner.

I should end with something insightful.

Here goes:  You can be awsome, too.  Become a missioner right in your own family, neighborhood, city.

Mark 16:15 – “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”

Be a missioner.  It’s awsome.