Pastor Mark's Short Papers
Missionary Lessons
by Mark Koonz on October 31, 2011Christian missionaries are people we think of as going far from home to teach other people about Jesus. Christians who stay
at home think of them as people with a message for the “others,” but I think
they often have something to teach us as well.Some of the lessons they can teach us are valuable.
Let me give a couple of historic examples.
For example, take Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, who settled in our valley
to work among the Cayuse. Yes, they cared about the souls of the Cayuse, but they also wanted to help themassimilate to the changes that were coming to the entire region. Their intentions were to be helpful in
multiple ways.
The story ended tragically with
the massacre in 1847, but not before they taught us some lessons. I mean “us” not the Cayuse. So-called Christian people needed to learn
something from the Whitmans. What
exactly?
In the 1830s and 1840s people of
mixed races were scorned and called “half-breeds. They were often mistreated or excluded. If there was a white school, no one wanted
the “half-breeds” mixing with their children.
The Whitmans showed a better
way. They did not reject children of
mixed races. They took into their home
Helen Mar Meek, the daughter of Joseph Meek and a Nez Perce woman. They took in Mary Ann Bridger, the daughter
of Jim Bridger and a Flathead woman.
They took in a boy, age 2 or 3,
abandoned by his mother. His father was
of Spanish background, named Cortez, who worked for the Hudson Bay Co. His mother was of the Walla Walla tribe. His grandmother had charge of him and either
did not want him or could not properly care for him. When she brought the boy to Narcissa, his foot
was burned, either through abuse or neglect. Narcissa named him David Malin,
after a man she had known back East.
The Whitmans showed a better way than prejudicial exclusion. They also helped and boarded the two mixed-race sons of David Manson, a Hudson Bay employee at the trading post on the Columbia.
The Whitmans were flawed in
their humanity, as we all are, and flaws often come out in harsh living
conditions. But through all their ups
and downs, they showed love in practical ways to the children of mixed races. Had they lived longer, they might have had a
greater impact on the white society of the Pacific Northwest.
More recently we have the
example of Mother Teresa, who worked so long in Calcutta. Her mission was to show love to the
poor. She touched the “untouchables” in
the Hindu caste system and nursed them.
So did her friend, Mark Buntain.
Buntain founded a hospital in
Calcutta. One of the first churches to
help fund the hospital was First Assembly of God Church here in Walla
Walla. Physicians and nurses were hired
to staff the hospital.
Buntain would go out into the
streets and find people slumped over on the ground, helpless and sick. If they were conscious he first gently hugged
them as he greeted them. Then he would
lift them and carry them to his car, and drive them to his hospital.
In addition, he set up a food
service to feed people with empty stomachs.
He set up a school too. Yet he never
holed up in an office. Back to the
streets he would go. Sometimes the people he hugged
and carried to his car were sick with dysentery. Sometimes they were lepers. Many times they were starving.
Years later Mark Buntain died of
a heart attack, because his heart was sick.
But his heart was sick, I’m told, because he had contracted a form of
leprosy.
Like his friend, Mother Teresa,
he touched the hurting, the hungry, and the sick, with the love of Jesus
Christ. He touched the dirty and their
dirt touched him. He touched the sick,
and their sickness became his sickness.
When I look at examples like
this, I realize that these missionaries have a lot to teach Christians.
Above all, they teach us to open our lives more fully to the love of God. If the love of God is poured into our lives, maybe we can love others in more sacrificial ways. Maybe we can love others in ways that touch them where they hurt, and give them hope.
For those who would like to read something good on Mother Teresa, read Mary Poplin's book "Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa Taught Me About Meaningful Work and Service." Or start with Poplin's short presentation called "Radical Marxist, Radical Womanist, Radical Love" in (editor) Dallas Willard's book "A Place for Truth."
For those who would like something good to read on Mark Buntain, there is an older book by Douglas Wead called "The Compassionate Touch." Other books have been written which are listed on Amazon. My own parents and grandparents knew Mark Buntain, so my information comes also from my family's and my own personal contact with him.
For those who want to read about the Whitmans, there is "Shallow Grave at Waiilatpu: The Sagers' West" by Erwin N. Thompson, published by the Oregon Historical Society. Ask for this book to be put back into print if it is no longer available. You should be able to find it on Amazon.