“He who finds a wife, finds a good thing” This beautiful Proverb must be doubly true for the man who is called to serve as a missionary. A man’s role as a missionary can be authenticated or undermined by his wife. Equal in value to her husband, she has nevertheless, a challenging role to play in God’s purpose. When a wife of a missionary walks closely with God and when she gracefully and wisely performs her duties, she is a delight to God and a joy to her husband.
In our country, where millions of people have not heard the Gospel, missionary’s life is challenging, demanding and a sacrificial one. Most of the missionaries in India live in rural areas, in remote parts where there is very limited transport and communication facilities, where their life-style has to be altered, adjusted and adopted according to the surrounding eco system and people. In some places, the family must live in huts woven with bamboos, plastered with mud walls and thatched roofs. Such houses are not weatherproof. They need to travel either in a cycle or bullock cart or even walk to reach the nearby towns. The family has lo adjust with the minimum comforts and with few commodities that are available to them, So the pressure to make physical adjustment to the different life-style is a challenging one for a wife more than the pressure faced by her husband. The challenge for a wife is to be very supportive and loving to her husband or she can be very demanding and selfish.
In addition to the problem of adjusting to their surroundings, they also face the problem of loneliness. They are away from their kith and kin and from their fellow believers. Life in certain places is quite dangerous because of the wild animals and at times they face the attacks of hostile people. Sometime they face challenges from their own fellow co-labourers in Christ. While life is reasonably untroubled, it is quite easy for a wife to trust God and labour with her husband. Many times, a missionary’s wife has stood shoulder to shoulder with her husband and maintained a steadfast loyalty to her husband and to God, but she has recoiled in bewilderment and shock when God has allowed her husband to be wounded or when a crisis has hit her family. When her husband is misunderstood, when his opinions are misrepresented or when she hears stories circulating which are mischievous lies, then it is all too easy for her to react in anger and bitterness, to withhold forgiveness and to be burning with indignation at the injustice of it all. Unless, the wife is rooted firmly in the Lord, it is impossible to face these subtle challenges and provide encouragement and help to her husband whenever it is needed.
The next challenge for her is to be Co-labourer with her husband in the mission-field. Along with her husband, she needs to learn the language of the people. This knowledge of the language is necessary to communicate to them the Gospel and also translate the books of the Bible. She must also be equipped with wisdom to counsel the womenfolk who seek her help to solve their personal problems. Beside this, she teaches hygiene and creative work for them. She also has the tremendous responsibility of bringing up the children, disciplining them and teaching them. For most of these tasks, the husband is not available and he seems to have given himself so completely to his chosen ministry that everything else matters little to him.
Under such circumstances, Satan likes to play on her vulnerable areas-her home, her children, her possessions, her pride, her emotional highs and lows. If he can succeed in making her feel isolated and full of self- pity, then he can play havoc on her role as an encouraging and reassuring partner to her husband. So, it is very vital for a missionary’s wife to develop and maintain her own walk with God. Her roots in the Lord needs to grow deeper and she must depend and trust in the Lord for all her needs.
One other area, and an important area in which a wife can help her husband is to be there in prayer before the throne. One of the foremost activities in the role of missionary’s wife is to intercede for her husband. This comes before speaking at meetings, conducting Bible studies etc. The role of an intercessor r is an enormous one but it is an exciting responsibility. If a wife wants to see her husband develop into all that God wants him to be, then she must pray. Effective prayer is not automatic and it is costly. She must be sensitive to know his struggles, frustrations, hardships, his aspirations etc. Then armed with information about him, she can come in earnest to the throne of grace to make specific requests.
God wants every woman to be a queen in His Kingdom – called, loved, chosen – with identity, security and status. When a missionary’s wife diligently attends to the Vineyards which God has given her, He can extend her influence to other Vineyards also. God wants to use women today to effect enormous changes in society. But women will only be effective as we lay our lives at the master’s feet and ask Him to exalt us in His way and in His time.
-Mrs. Jean Hope
