Bible Belt Blogger: Missionary week

Frank Lockwood

First Assembly of God Church in Kelso, Washington did not use the traditional liturgical calendar. The minister did not know or care if it was the first week of advent or the 22d week of ordinary time. Although it was a Pentecostal church, we did not celebrate Pentecost Sunday. Our spiritual calendar did not include Ash Wednesdays or Maundy Thursday.

But we did have a few high holy days including my favorite -- missionary Sunday. Once each year, missionaries would descend on the church, bringing souvenirs and stories from distant corners of the globe.

Usually, they would sing a few songs in unknown tongues -- Spanish or Swahili. In the pre-IPod, internet, PowerPoint age, they would dim the lights and show us tray after tray of slides. These visitors simultaneously fascinated and terrified me. I loved the bright indigenous attire they wore, the dry, scaly snakeskins they stretched out for all to see, the exotic musical instruments they played, and the stories they told. They gave me glimpses of a new world.

But they scared me, too. They told us, year after year, that they were in Africa or Asia or Latin America, because the Lord had told them to go and I feared that if I listened too long, God would tell me to go, too.

I suspected my assignment -- if I got one -- would be somewhere in China.

I did not picture myself as a modern-day Jonah -- traveling north if God said to travel south. If the call came, I would try to obey it.

I never heard the call -- but thousands of others did. Today, the Assemblies of God has an international missions force numbering 2,650 people -- across the Americas and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.

Ironically, the idea of living in distant lands no longer makes me nervous. In fact, I'd love to go -- preferably somewhere where Spanish is spoken, somewhere where I could do some good.

Thanks to the internet, the wilderness is no longer a wildnerness. With technology, the ends of the earth are just around the corner.

Could you picture yourself as a missionary? Where would you want to serve? What would draw you? What would you fear?