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World Outreach Podcast
World Outreach Podcast
EP 55 Cockroaches, Rats, and the Shimmer of God's Grace: A conversation with Sue
What does it take to transform from a shy person who "couldn't speak to people" into a missionary who serves for decades in challenging environments? Sue's remarkable 40-year journey provides powerful insights for anyone considering cross-cultural ministry or seeking to persevere through difficult seasons.
Sue's adventure began at a small church with a global vision, where stories from missionaries returning from Africa sparked a desire that would shape her life's direction. After her first outreach to Swaziland—where she witnessed healing and spiritual transformation—she returned changed, with newfound boldness replacing her natural shyness. This marked the beginning of a path that would eventually lead her and her husband to 27 years of service in Mozambique.
With refreshing honesty, Sue shares the mistakes and challenges that shaped her understanding of effective ministry. "We were just like gung-ho cowboys," she admits, describing their early years teaching Bible school without language skills or cultural understanding. Through cultural misunderstandings, family decisions like sending children to boarding school, and the ever-present spiritual warfare embedded in local beliefs, Sue discovered that effectiveness comes not from having all the answers but from positioning oneself as a learner.
The conversation explores significant shifts in global missions—from predominantly Western workers to diverse multicultural teams, from organizational silos to collaborative partnerships, and from limited roles for women to greater recognition of their gifts and calling. Sue's perspective on these changes comes with hard-earned wisdom about sustaining ministry for the long haul: maintaining your relationship with Jesus as your top priority, taking regular breaks, understanding cultural differences rather than judging them, and balancing day-to-day faithfulness with long-term planning.
Have you considered how God might use your unique gifts in cross-cultural ministry? Sue's story reminds us that the most powerful qualification isn't expertise but willingness to follow where Jesus leads, learning and growing along the way.
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You're listening to a World Irish podcast Dynamic Conversations designed to empower our community as we engage unreached people groups everywhere. Today I'm sitting down with Sue from South Africa. Sue and her husband served for a long time in Mozambique and have been involved in a variety of roles and missions over the years. We're going to hear from her life experience and what God has done through and in her, and then what she sees about the future of missions as well. So, Sue, thanks for joining us today on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks for inviting me, Ben.
Speaker 1:Before we jump into the conversation, why don't you share a little bit about your background, how you got into missions?
Speaker 2:Yes, I went to a little church called World Outreach Church. It was started by Congolese missionaries who were associated with World Outreach way back 40, more than 40 years ago. I attended that church. More than 40 years ago, I attended that church. What I really loved about it was they had a real mission outreach ethos, so they went to Malawi and Mozambique and Swaziland, and everybody would come back and report on their exciting experience.
Speaker 2:When they came back, I thought I wonder if they'd ever let me go on an outreach, because I was a young Christian in those days, and I thought what do I have to offer? Eventually, though, I managed to go on an outreach to Swaziland. It was the most exciting experience. I don't even remember much about it, but I do remember we prayed for people to receive the Holy Spirit, to be healed, and we saw so many results, and that was just very exciting for me. And I came back and I was a very shy person. I couldn't really speak to people, but after that experience, I just started to become bolder and I was able to share our experience, and I decided that's what I want to do. I want to be a missionary and go and work in another field.
Speaker 1:And so, through that experience and this desire to work in another field, how did that kind of initial experience, how did you match that up with kind of a calling for long-term service?
Speaker 2:So it was a process really. I went, they asked me if I would manage a stall for World Outreach at a Bless the Nations Missions Conference and I went there. And while I was there I met other people at the conference and everyone was involved in missions or excited about missions, and especially there were some young students from a mission school. They called it Fill the Gap Mission School. It was called Mission School and I thought, well, I could do that. At least I could start preparing myself. And so I started to find out more about it and signed up with them.
Speaker 2:But in the meantime I had been doing a CAM course, which was Kingdom Advancement Ministries, and we went door to door evangelizing and discipling people, and so I was getting more experience and exposure in praying for people and ministering to people and boldness and less shyness. And so by the time I did actually go to mission school, I was, I feel, at a good spot to discover more about it and experience more about it. And it was only while I was at mission school that I really knew. I just knew in the depth of my heart. I didn't have scripture, apart from Matthew 28, but I just knew that this was what God was calling me to.
Speaker 1:Right, so you knew this call. Now you have the benefit of hindsight. You know some 40 years or so of ministry experience and stuff. As you look back at it, what would you have found helpful to prepare you for what you would eventually move into, or where to be more effective as a missionary?
Speaker 2:Well, certainly the mission school didn't prepare me for that.
Speaker 2:It prepared me for ministry, okay, and our faith was on a high level and our ministry experience was great during that time, but we didn't learn anything.
Speaker 2:So it was only when I did the Nations course and the Kairos course and did ASCO studies that I started to understand, after years of experience on the field field, how much I'd missed out on.
Speaker 2:The Nations course really prepares you for culture shock, crossing into another culture, how important it is to learn a language and the culture at the same time and not to go in as a person with all the experience and the knowledge, but to go in as a learner, to learn from the people about their lives and their experiences and what they know. And we were invited to start a Bible school in Maputo. We were in our late 20s and early 30s and we were teaching men who had been in ministry for years and they were in their 30s and 40s and 50s. And it was a humbling experience in so many ways because all we had was a lot of zeal and excitement. We didn't even have the language. We used interpreters, and I now know that using interpreters takes years of your ministry if you don't move forward with the language quick enough and you can't express yourself and get knowledge and understanding of the culture for yourself.
Speaker 2:You have to always go through somebody else. It really stunts your advancement in ministry.
Speaker 1:Right. So having zeal is one thing and really important, but then also matching zeal with wisdom, experience, but also practical skills and awareness of things like learning language. Do you think, as you look back, to help prepare you or to equip you for more effective ministry?
Speaker 2:I don't know. There's so many things we didn't know. We just went in blind. We were just like gang-ho cowboys, you know, just excited.
Speaker 2:So I think being aware of culture is one of the biggest things that to respect a culture. They have so many different ways of doing things. It's so easy to offend people. You go in there with your own culture, with your own background. The way they ran church in the place we went to was completely different. It's so easy to judge people and to be skeptical about it.
Speaker 2:We didn't know anything about a church planting movement. We experienced it without knowing anything about it. Later on we were working with four pastors and they would go out into the bush and they would come back and we said we planted a church here, we planted a church there. We're saying wait, what's going on? What do we do now? How do we train leaders? How do we do this? And we used Moses' example of electing different people. So we had blocks, block leaders who would have church pastors and they would train them. But there were so many gaps, so many holes, so many things we didn't know. So we had to learn everything the hard way, which takes a lot longer. I think even our own knowledge was a little shaky. We could have done more Bible school and more Bible study, because if you're going in there to teach the Bible, you do want to have a better background than just excitement.
Speaker 1:So your advice would be to actually really make sure you're prepared as much as possible in these areas.
Speaker 2:some of the foundational things and you have experience in your own home church. You know, I don't know. So many of us think we can just go across into another country and minister there, but we've never really ministered much in our own country. So rather get your experience at home in a safe place and in a safe environment, because once you go to another culture there's so many experiences you don't understand, so many experiences that that hit you hard until you start to understand the culture better yeah for sure, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Having the confidence, the competency as well, in your home culture helps position you to be more effective in the culture you're going into. But there's still gaps there because, it's a place you don't know, so you still have to do additional preparation and even on the job, training or learning Like you mentioned being that learner in that environment is really crucial because it's not the same as you where you were, so some of the skills transfer over, but then you have to figure out how that skills transfer over into a new environment.
Speaker 2:That's right and you have to learn language and make it a priority, I think, at first, so that you can communicate and you can make your bluffs with the people and they can all laugh at your mistakes and you build relationship and friendship, and I think that's so important. We want to go in and do ministry, but actually the most important thing is to build relationship with the people, understand where they're coming from, go to the shops with them, walk to the market together, enjoy building relationships. I think that's just a wonderful way to start. Before you just start ministering to everybody and you're looking like the important person, be the friend as well.
Speaker 1:Be the friend as well. Yeah, that's good, as you've looked over the years, back into missions, from your time in missions then coming out to these different generations.
Speaker 2:what shifts have you seen within the mission world so much really Like, say, 35 years ago I remember going to a world outreach conference. We were all my culture, we were Westerners, Caucasians. There were very few people of another culture. And they also said will everyone over a certain age stand up? And everyone just about was over that age of 40 or whatever it was. And so they said we want to start bringing in people of different cultures and we want to start bringing in people of a younger age group. And so that was an interesting discovery for me and I think that's really one of the biggest changes I've seen, like in World Outreach.
Speaker 2:We have so many missionaries now from India, from Asia, from different countries, different cultures, different backgrounds, and I find that so exciting. It makes it harder in a way, because we are having to learn different cultures and different ways of doing things and adjust the way we do things, but I think at the same time it makes it much more exciting because you can send people who are closer in culture to reach out to people and they have a better understanding quicker of a different culture. Maybe it's easier for them to learn the language as well than if you send me to a primitive or a very remote place where they've never learned English, they've never heard the name of Jesus before and I don't know how to even communicate with them. It's a much longer, harder journey for me to go somewhere than somebody from Asia to go to Asia.
Speaker 1:What other shifts have you noticed within missions?
Speaker 2:I don't know. We were all the pioneers going doing our own thing and we didn't work a lot in team in those early days, whereas I think people are trying to form teams, work together more closely linked. We also have internet and wi-fi, so it makes it so much easier to link over the miles and to work together and I also see mission organizations partnering more. In the early days I remember people were very protective of their own mission organisation and they thought like this and we thought like that and we were protective of our space, whereas now we're linking together. Sil would invite a guest speaker to speak on missions and culture and they would invite all of us to join them, and that just made it opened doors for us to learn new things that we hadn't been exposed to before.
Speaker 1:So, through increased collaboration and partnerships with other organizations, some of those barriers are coming down. So there's shared resources, there's shared learning. They're helping both sides or different groups advance in what they're doing and bring the gospel forward and I think that's exciting.
Speaker 1:As you've seen these things, you've seen these shifts, there's also been a significant shift in the way women have been viewed in ministry, in those things. As a pioneering woman, as someone who's gone out and done these things, what has that been like for you? Either kind of pre-shift, during the shifts, kind of post-shift, just your journey as a woman in ministry and in leadership and a variety of the roles that you have done.
Speaker 2:Well, I think when I first went, I went as a Bible teacher, so that's what I wanted to do. But all our students were men and in African culture there was a lesser respect for women in those days and so I didn't have the. Perhaps they didn't take me as seriously as they would take the men, but I still loved teaching the Bible and I was always passionate about it and I think teaching is one of my gifts. So it did help in that way and just building relationship and then trust with the people. Then they learned to trust me and I was always under the covering of my husband, which I think was helpful in those days.
Speaker 2:But more and more we saw how women were more acceptable over the years, even in Mozambique, which is still very much a man's world, but women were more accepted and we saw Mozambican women rising up and becoming good and amazing teachers as well in the churches. So I think it's been a process of accepting women in ministry more and more. I think in the earlier days as church pastors we saw that if the church was a pastor, the wife had to be a pastor. If the church, if you know so, whatever the man was, the woman had to be as well. But then they started to understand the women have their own giftings as well and they started to respect them for that. Maybe their wife was prophetic and they were more pastoral and they were allowing them to move in the gifts more and that sort of thing. So we saw a great move in that direction where women were more acceptable. But still in some rural places it's not that easy to be a woman, yeah to be a woman, yeah.
Speaker 1:As you've navigated that and you've seen that and experienced it yourself, and you're a mother, you're a Bible teacher, you're a missionary, you're all of these different things. How has that maybe impacted your understanding of the church or society at large, as you've kind of navigated these things, roles or these both externally forced roles, but then also your internal passion, desires that God has put in you?
Speaker 2:I. I think I have taken a step back. Perhaps I was. I was a strong woman and I liked to be in charge, and I have a that kind of a personality that likes to control and to be in charge. So I have learned to soften, actually for me, but to still be very comfortable in my role as a woman. I still see it in some churches in South Africa where women are not really accepted in a high leadership role, but it doesn't worry me anymore. Perhaps I just say, lord, if you want me somewhere, you will. So I've learned to trust God in every situation much more, to navigate my seasons differently, not to be hankering after those things, but just to be trusting God to place me in the positions where he wants me, and I think that's a much easier way of doing things. I was always trying to make things happen.
Speaker 1:Now.
Speaker 2:I've learned to just be more relaxed and enjoy the journey of where God is taking me.
Speaker 1:And what benefits have you seen as you've embraced this, enjoy the journey with God more trust, less self-forcing and more God-opening. What has that been like for you, both personally as a person, but also in your spiritual journey?
Speaker 2:It's just made me much more relaxed about everything. It's so much more fun to just trust God for everything. We've had to do that in so many ways and it's been a long journey of just walking by faith, trusting God, and now I have such confidence in my God and not in myself so much, but I know he will always come through for us and he's always been faithful. He's taken such good care of us, over for me, and when a door opens, even if I feel inadequate to fulfill it, I know I'm there for a purpose and God has placed me where I am, maybe for the learning experiences that I need to have, but also that there is something I can also impart and add to the mix of wherever I am.
Speaker 1:And as you've learned that within World Outreach we have this ethos and one of our distinctives is men and women in leadership. We have a long history of pioneering women who've gone out and done amazing things, you being one of them. What advice would you give to women coming up in this generation or behind you and just kind of what you've seen as you've looked back, what advice would you give?
Speaker 2:them. Well, for me, first of all, your relationship with Jesus is the most, most, most important thing, and you have to walk close with him Because and I think of single women as well you know single women wow, they're so amazing the work that they've done. But it must be really hard for them unless they have that really strong relationship. And I don't think I could have gone for 27 years in Mozambique without my relationship with Jesus. So that, for me, is the most important thing.
Speaker 2:And Matthew 6.33 says seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything you need, everything you have need of will be added to you. And not to be anxious about tomorrow. So it's been a one day at a time walk. You can plan your future, but walk it out one day at a time, because then you're not worrying about tomorrow, you're not anxious about what's up ahead, because if you fail to do that, then your life is more stressed. But if you just one day at a time I just learned to do that in Mozambique, just one day at a time. I just learned to do that in mozambique one day at a time, and each day was much better than if I was worrying about tomorrow that's good.
Speaker 1:And as you think about it, or I think about it, um, from an organizational perspective, or even from you know, being a man, a man and different experiences coming up through leadership, through ministry and those things what would you advise men and organizations in this understanding of women in leadership?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say to men don't be threatened by women. They have their own giftings. They have giftings and acknowledge that. So each person that carries the Holy Spirit has their giftings. And I think women have a different perspective. We see things differently. We have a heart for the children, for people, children for people. And men perhaps are better at governance and leading in that way, and they do gain respect in many cultures easier than women, but we still have so much to offer. We see things differently. We feel and experience things differently. We may be more emotional at times, but I think we carry something that brings a good balance to the mission, because if it's all strategy and all one-sided it, it needs the balance of both yeah, so how does an organization in particularly in the missions world, then position itself so that both sides are represented well and both strengths sets of different strengths are utilized to the fullness?
Speaker 2:well, I think in every leadership group or team it's good to have a balance of both men and women, because they do bring that, that balance, and to be aware of that and not token. You don't put a woman in there as a token of representing women. You find the women that have the experience or the strengths that you're looking for and it will bring a different dynamic to the team. But it's good to look for those people and different cultures as well. You know, women in different cultures will also bring a different dynamic.
Speaker 2:So as we move more and more into different cultures, we need to be including those people into our teams as well, which doesn't make it easier because there has to be greater understanding from both sides of how different cultures work. So there's things to be worked out, but it's the same with women, the same with culture. It's worth.
Speaker 1:It's worth the effort it's worth the effort yeah because we get twice as many people, twice as many perspectives we get the different strengths and different representation of who god is, um manifested, you know, in your presence. Um, yeah, I think it's fantastic. I think, you know, as we as an organization have done this or are continuing to do this, I think we're doing it fairly well, very well yeah and but there's still room for improvements and growth. We're seeing, I think, more complete pictures and more perspective, and better perspective, which then brings you greater clarity to planning to thinking, to engagement with people and all of that stuff, so it's really, really beneficial.
Speaker 2:And what I love about World Outreach where we have really come into our fullness is the Unreached People Groups. Before, when we went out, it was much broader, but the vision has become more focused and I really love that aspect of it the Unleashed People groups because those are the last people on the earth that need to be hearing the gospel and it's a huge job still to be done. A lot of people say, oh, the Holy Spirit can do it, the angels can visit them. You know we have internet now, but there are some people in remote places where they don't have access to any of that.
Speaker 2:So it's still a large work to be done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. In Mozambique, for example, still 70% of people don't have access to the internet.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:So I mean that's a massive amount of people who don't yet have access just to that technology.
Speaker 1:So for many of us we take for granted for what might be there, but there's still many people who don't have it. From that perspective as well. But, yeah, that focus of unreached people group is is really, really important, and you mentioned this idea that it's the last people. In many ways, it's some of the harder people or places where the gospel still needs to penetrate. You've had 27 years in Mozambique. You've had other decades of ministry experience as well. What has helped you to persevere through all of this? You've had some great highs, but you've also had some pretty tragic lows over this series.
Speaker 1:How have you persevered?
Speaker 2:I? I mean, sometimes I've really lost it, sometimes I've blown it. Like my first culture shock experience, I was screaming and we lived in a caravan in the heat with cockroaches and rats all around us in somebody's backyard and the family was stealing from us all the time and I couldn't speak the language and I didn't know how to express myself or even speak to them. And I just remember just losing it. But I didn't know about culture shock because I hadn't learned about it at my mission school. And then they were all looking out the back door. I saw all these heads and I started shouting thieves, thieves, ladroys, ladroys. They got such a fright. They slammed the door. They came back out. They had piles of clothing, piles of this, and I said, yes, this is mine, no, this is not mine, no, no, yes, yes, you know.
Speaker 2:And but then I felt so bad because in the culture, the last thing you ever do, the most despicable thing you can do, is lose it, lose your temper or just fall apart. You can lie, you can tell stories, you can you know so to soften the blow of anything, but you don't do that. And I felt such a failure and I went for this long walk and I thought I hate this place, I don't want to be here. And there was all this rubbish down on this embankment and I sat on this wall and the rats were there and I thought, oh, it's so horrible here. And then, as I lifted my eyes, I just saw the sun shimmering on the sea and the Lord said to me lift your eyes up.
Speaker 2:Don't look at your circumstances, don't look at the things around you. Keep your eyes on me and my word. And I had a little pocket Bible and I started flipping through it and it just opened up at 1 Timothy 6.68. Godliness with contentment is great gain. You brought nothing into this world. You will take nothing out of this world. If you have food and clothing, you'll be content with that and it brought such comfort to me. So, to keep my eyes on Jesus and to keep my eyes in the word of God, that was how I persevered. And I like adventure and I get over things quickly. So I have a personality that, okay, I blew it, okay it was a tough day, but tomorrow is going to be better. So I have a positive outlook. But I know, just pressing into the Lord and keeping my eyes in the Word, that really helped me a lot.
Speaker 2:Without that I couldn't have done it, and we often used to say to people that were in business why on earth would you want to live here? You know like God told us to live here and we know we have to be here, but you've come for other reasons. How do you do it? So, it was the Lord. Really. In my own strength I can't, but in His strength I can.
Speaker 1:So good and so true. So, as you think about that, keeping and fixing your eyes on Jesus as you're thinking about staying in the word and truth, what other practical practices helped you maintain your?
Speaker 2:in those days we didn't have internet, so we I had my husband and basically he he's my rock as well. Just having a good relationship with people of your own culture can help you a lot when you're in isolated places. So if you're single and you can connect with a family or you have a family, you have to keep that family together so that you are there for each other, because when one is up, the other's down, the other's down, the other's up, so we help each other to walk that walk out together. I remember once saying to Paul I hate this place, I don't want to be here another time, and he'd say, well, where would you like to go? I said I don't know. He said, well, when you know, let me know you know. So like he was so calm about it all.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know, that's not what I wanted, that's not the response, but it was the right response because I thought there's nowhere else to go because this is where God wants us. Yeah, so I think if you know you're calling and you know God has placed you there, no matter what comes your way, you're not going to run away because you know that God has called you there. The relationship's important and having a support group back home, and now we have Wi-Fi and internet and connection with people. We can connect with someone and say help me walk through this, please can I just offload on you and you just help me with this. So I think connecting with people you are close to or family is also really important.
Speaker 1:It helps. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And, of course, friendships in the culture. You know you can't necessarily tell them how you're struggling or what you're struggling with, but they can bring you back to this place is okay. This is good. I like it here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, it is really about our obedience to Jesus and that calling aspect, but it's about the people he's called us to love there and so if we can foster that relationship and we build that genuine love and that deepness with them, then it will make those other things better. Right, it's not a task and not a target, but there are people that you love and that you're embracing and you're journeying life with together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you walk out and you just meet somebody and you think, oh, this is why I'm here. Yeah, you know, yeah. So I think it's when you make it about yourself that you actually start to struggle, but when you know why you're there and you make it about other people it's much easier, yeah, when my focus is on me and what I want. That's when it gets difficult.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. What other general advice? All this ministry experience, life experience, you know, mother, successful missionary, successful teacher, author. Now would you say, hey, I wish I would have known this going into missions.
Speaker 2:Well, there's some I don't know. It's really hard to say, but there's some things you don't think about. Like, we had two boys and we raised our boys and as a teacher I was quite happy to homeschool, but I never thought of boarding school as something that would rise up on the horizon later on. So you know, you think of your life as it is when you go to the field, but it's also if you're there for a longer period of time. What's it going to look like in the years to come?
Speaker 2:so you live one day at a time but you do have to think ahead. So I homeschooled my boys in African villages. They had a mixture of friends from every culture. They had missionary friends, they had local Mozambican friends, they had little Indian Muslim friends. We had a lovely mix of friends for the boys and they all ran around like boys should together and I homeschooled them and it was great because I could be flexible with ministry and school and it all worked out really well.
Speaker 2:But when they got to the magical age of 14, they wanted to go to boarding school, like their other missionary friends had gone to boarding school and also they seemed to grow further apart from some of their friendships. Or their friends had gone to the big city and not stayed in the small village. And so we thought boarding school that had never been on our radar, we had never thought of it. And I'll tell you one thing that was the hardest thing I ever did in Mozambique. It broke my heart to send my boys to boarding school. The maiden went at the age of 14. Kyle was three years younger and at 14, he wanted to go. He tried it at 11 and he didn't want to stay. So he came home again and that was fine, and we always said if you don't like it, you can come back. They never came back. After 14, they never came back and I always felt at 14, I lost my boys, I missed out on so much of their life and I would love to have had those extra years with them and that was hard for me. I think that's one of the hardest things. So there are things that you don't think about ahead of time. I don't know. I think when you go into another culture, you can never be fully prepared. You always are going to be learning things.
Speaker 2:I lived in Africa all my life so I thought I understand African culture. I hadn't the faintest idea. I didn't realize how strong witchcraft had a hold on the people and how everything was related to witchcraft. If someone died, if someone was sick, if something happened, it was always the spirits or a curse or something like that. I wonder who put a curse on that person and they died. They died of malaria, but for them it was a curse. So those were things that we had no idea about. We had never been exposed to that in a big way. Um, yeah, that was one of the biggest learning curves for us.
Speaker 2:But just so many things in the culture, like in my culture, if I borrow something from you, I am responsible to bring it back to you and we lend things to people we to bring it back to you and we lend things to people. We never got it back. So in the end we just decided, okay, we'll just give it away. But then I read a book on African Friends and Money Matters by David Mraz and it was a brilliant book written in Western Africa. But he said in the culture where he lived, if somebody borrowed something from you, it was my responsibility to ask for it when I needed it, Because if I haven't asked for it, I don't need it. So if they borrowed my pot and I didn't get it back, I obviously didn't need it, but when I needed it I would go and say I have need of my pot, can I have it back please? And they'd say sure, they give it back. And that's how we learned about lending and borrowing.
Speaker 2:And there are so many little things in a culture that you can't learn about you have to learn it as you go, and so you can never be fully prepared and there will be curves and all sorts of things along the way that are going to surprise you and shock you sometimes. But be prepared to learn from that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that whole idea of positioning yourself a learner is so crucial and staying curious right, yes. What is going on here? I wonder why Like that wondering rather than judgment?
Speaker 2:aspect of it is really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned something like this around your children and not thinking about that aspect into the future and leaving in today, but the need to also be thinking long term and living in today, but the need to also be thinking long term. How do you think, missionaries, particularly in these callings where it's like, okay, I'm moving across the country, I'm moving across the globe, I'm moving countries, all this kind of stuff it's like you want to live in that moment now, but you also need to be thinking about the future. What advice would you give people on managing that tension of the now and scanning the horizon for the future as well?
Speaker 2:So I think you have to have a long-term plan. It may not always work out as you want, but you always have to have that long-term plan. And what we didn't know about at the time? So there are bad there are balances of living today, but planning for tomorrow. But also an exit strategy is something we had never thought about. We thought we were going to live in mozambique all our lives. We never thought of leaving. We even had a beach cottage and a house that we could live in in our old age. And then we went. I think it was on Nations Corps. They said start thinking about an exit strategy. So that was something that we started to think about, but we didn't plan for at all. And then we were offered to look after the World Outreach House in South Africa, which was used for missionaries to come and rest in, and I loved the idea. But Paul said what am I going to do in South Africa? He'd never thought about leaving Mozambique. What would he do? And after chatting with Rod and Linley who were in that house, they said no, you'll find things to do. And Paul has. He's found a different ministry and he loves what he does.
Speaker 2:But I still have this heart for missions. I still have a heart for the nations and for maybe mobilizing people to the field, but it hasn't really materialized. I haven't really managed to do it as I would like, but that's still. My heart is to see people successfully on the field. Because we saw many people come to the field and after a few years the mother was homeschooling, maybe more isolated in the house situation, the husband was out in the community and they were on different pages. They weren't really understanding and in the end they would leave after two years. So attrition is still quite a big thing for missionaries. You go out there, you're all excited, but when the honeymoon stage is over, the reality of life kicks in and you think am I going to do this for how long?
Speaker 1:you know.
Speaker 2:So maybe it's good to have a four-year term and a ten-year. You know have stages, so that you don't think I'm going to do this for the next 20 years, say, okay, well, I can do this for the next two to four years and take a break and then re-evaluate. So it's good to re-evaluate from time to time as well.
Speaker 1:So living both with the future orientation in mind but also in the day-to-day of what this? Is what God's called me to do and put my hand to in this season. And then when do I need to reevaluate these seasons to make sure I'm continuing to walk the same path God has for me? And there are definite seasons.
Speaker 2:We did so many different things over the years and that was lovely. The variety was lovely. We held seminars, we trained leaders, we ran the Bible school. We did different things. I had a community. I was given some rooms in a community center. I taught English, I trained preschool teachers. We had a little preschool. So there was a lot of variety and the seasons were different over the years. We ran a farm, a cashew farm for a while. And that was fun. I learned so many different things.
Speaker 2:I always enjoy many different things and I always enjoy learning something different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good and living on the island was very thrilling and I think everyone thought I was totally ignorant. We lived on Ibu Island for a while. I didn't know how to draw water out of a well. I dropped the rope and the bucket in the well. We spent hours getting that out and nobody was happy with me. I didn't know how to kill a chicken. I didn't know how to clean a fish. I didn't know how to pound my maze. I didn't know. You know, you had to walk miles to fetch your firewood and they thought I was so ignorant. How did I get to the age of 30-something and not know all these things? So it was fun living in a completely different place, but after three months we always wanted to go off the island for a break, because you get that cabin fever feeling when you're on a small island.
Speaker 2:So that's another thing is to take good breaks. Even if it was a day on another island Mozambique Island that was like such a treat and it really helped us to carry on. So you know, if you live 24-7, day in and day out, you will wear out.
Speaker 1:But take some breaks. Yeah, I mean, that whole idea of Sabbath is crucial as well. But the things that refresh you so that you can stay fresh in ministry and stay effective at what God's called you to do, that's really important for longevity and perseverance. But you know how you take a break.
Speaker 2:Some people go and sleep all day. Some people like to go for a run or a walk or a hike. How do you refresh yourself best? Yeah, and how do you relate to the Lord? Each one is different.
Speaker 2:You know, if you just do it, by law I must read my Bible. I must do this, but it is relationship Like. Paul relates differently to the Lord than myself and I was critical of him in the early days because he has this quiet meditation in a lazy boy chair and I thought you know you don't look very active in your how you're connecting with the Lord, but he does it so differently and he loves to go for a ride on his motorbike and that's when he really connects with God. I like to go for a walk, so find your way of connecting with God. How do you do it best? I had Tea in the Garden with Jesus that's the title of my book and I love that and a little gecko used to come and jump on my leg and just sit there. It's like he enjoyed the anointing or something.
Speaker 1:So yeah until he got bigger then he didn't come anymore. So that key is staying fresh, then, in god, finding your ways connect. Find your way to refresh yourself. So that you have that longevity so that you can feel the purposes of god and also be able to understand the seasons that you're in and the changes that God might be bringing.
Speaker 2:Because they are different. They do change. If you're there long enough, they change definitely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Favorite verse on missions. That would just encourage others to stay the course.
Speaker 2:A favorite verse.
Speaker 1:A course.
Speaker 2:A fair verse? Yeah, wow, there's so many. I don't know. I'm a day-to-day person. Like I lie down, I both lie down and sleep for you alone or keep you safe, and I just feel like he keeps us safe, he watches over us and it's just that relationship. So, yeah, I don't know. Just trust God.
Speaker 1:Just trust God.
Speaker 2:Trust the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean on your own understanding, because when you're out there you are not going to understand everything that's going on. But in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your path, and I think that's my scripture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good. Well, thank you, Sue, for sharing your story, sharing your wisdom and your experiences over the years. I think there's a lot for us to glean from this conversation on how to stay the course, how to continue to stay curious and be a learner, to stay faithful to Jesus and be in relationship with him so that others might come into relationship with him. So thank you very much, thank you, thanks, ben.