In the years since our children were small, many student missionaries have come and gone from our home. Each one has been a blessing. What has impressed me most is watching them draw closer to God during their time with us. Some, after finishing school and starting families, went on to become career missionaries.
Last year, a young man named Jeffrey Cheung came to serve with us. He was quiet and well-mannered, not exactly a people person, yet he made friends everywhere he went. His warm, open manner made people want to know him. He even found a friend for me, a lady he had met, and we keep in touch to this day. After he returned home, people at our market and in our shops kept asking about him. They remembered his diligence, patience and steadiness. Our project is manuscript translation, so on paper, there was not much for him to do. But he willingly let a man struggling to quit drugs live in the house with him, keeping an eye on him. That alone was a large responsibility, and it was a tremendous help in that man’s fight to be free.
Not long after Jeffrey left, our new student missionary, Chloe, arrived at exactly the moment I needed her most. My husband had flown to America to care for his seriously ill mother, carrying on his translation work from there. For more than a month, I was alone. I had neighbors on all four sides, but not one of them was a person of God, and I could not help feeling lonely. When Chloe came, freshness visited my heart again. We worshiped morning and evening, ate together, went to the market, visited people, and on the Sabbath, traveled far to help at a church. Everyone took to her. She was small and quick, always helpful and willing, and the little children especially loved her. Wherever I went without her, people asked where she was.
I am grateful to AFM for sending Jeffrey and Chloe to us, and we hope their time here will be a stepping stone toward lives of service. Ellen White tells us that God could have given this work to angels, but in His love, He chose us as His co-workers to share the blessing of unselfish ministry. He does not need our help. He gives us the work to build our own characters.
That is why every student missionary, short-term missionary and career missionary in the field holds a special privilege. And those who cannot go, the donors and the prayer supporters, are no less important than the missionary. Each of us has a part God is calling us to do, so that when He returns, we can report with confidence: “We did our best.” Could the next part be yours?
