Navigating Wealth and Poverty on the Mission Field

I remember the first time I visited my friend Tay’s house. I use the term “house” loosely because what her family lived in is probably better described as a shack. I had gone to drop something off to her. As we got into conversation about her daughter’s education, she wanted to bring me inside to show me one of her daughter’s certificates that was framed and hanging on the wall. As I walked into the house, I immediately couldn’t imagine living there myself. It really was a shack, hastily put together, with dirt floors and holes in the roof. I wondered how the certificate hanging on the wall was still in decent shape, knowing that their home flooded horribly during the rainy season.

Tay is someone who regularly comes into our own home. As I drove away from her home, I couldn’t help but marvel at the difference in the way we live our day to day lives and the differences in our living conditions. How can the two of us really relate to one another?, I wondered. According to my way of thinking, the bridge to becoming close friends seemed like it had just gotten a lot longer, due simply to our inability to truly understand one another.

Our family has been living in one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia for several years now in hopes of seeing a church planted among an unreached language group one day. Our visas state that we are in the country to represent a business that exists back in America. In the eyes of both the government and local people, we’re not just Americans (who they assume to be wealthy already), but we’re also business people. All of which leads us to some significant questions: What does it look like for us to live amongst some of the poorest people we’ve ever met in a way that honors Christ and aids in the proclamation of the gospel? How should I think about this issue of wealth? Is it essential to understand one another experientially in order to become close friends? Is it fundamental to be living similar lifestyles before I’m qualified to share the good news of the gospel with her? 

This topic is a complex one, dependent on specific situations and circumstances. But scripture gives us guiding principles to help us avoid additional and unnecessary barriers to the gospel in the eyes of those we’re ministering too.

I think about the passage from Paul in which he lays out how he has surrendered certain rights in efforts to “endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:12), attempting to become all things to all people for the sake of this good news. Paul’s circumstance is unique (he is writing to believers in a specific context), but we can learn from his example and ask the Lord for help in discerning what this “surrendering of our rights” could look like in our own unique contexts of ministry. One of the rights Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 9 is the right to marry a believing wife. In other words, he was free to marry a believing wife if he wanted to, but for the sake of his ministry he decided to lay down this freedom and remain single. In his unique context, he obviously believed his singleness would better fit his ministry.

The passage raises more questions for a missionary: What freedoms am I willing to lay down for the sake of our ministry? How should I live in the sight of my unbelieving neighbors who may one day be believing brothers and sisters? What example am I to strive to set? And how can I live this way in and through the power of Christ and not in my own strength?

These are necessary questions to wrestle through as we go forth as ambassadors for Christ. The answers will sometimes be dependent on specific cultural norms, which is all the more reason why we strive to be students of the culture in which we find ourselves. I want to know what the wealthy local people around me do to show off their wealth, how people distinguish the different classes of people that exist, how the wealthy are treated, how the poor are treated, etc. Knowing the answers to these questions will help guide in decision making as we seek to be culturally relevant and inoffensive to those around us.

However, it would seem that no matter how hard we try to be as culturally relevant as possible, for a lot of missionaries living in impoverished communities, it is an unrealistic expectation that we live in the same way that some of our neighbors live. The reality is that compared to them and most of the rest of the world we are incredibly wealthy. And so another major question we must wrestle through is as follows: how are we to steward our wealth in such a way as to display the love of Christ in the way we live? How can we humbly walk in wisdom with the money and resources that have been given to us? Do our neighbors and local friends see us as being appropriately generous? Are we hospitable with the home we’ve been entrusted with? How can we use our wealth to be a blessing and an expression of God’s love to those around us?

Individuals and individual families will have to wade through these tricky waters, expecting to mess up along the way. While not wanting to be taken advantage of, we can sometimes shut our hearts against those in need. At other times, we can give too freely in a way that may harm those we are giving to in the long run. Sometimes we may think we’re walking righteously by living as minimally as possible, but the result is sinful pride as we look down on other missionaries who’ve chosen differently for varying reasons. But at other times we may fail to consider what things we need to lay down, give up, or surrender in regards to our wealth or living conditions so that our lives may reflect our citizenship in Heaven more clearly. May the Holy Spirit lead us in the moment by moment decisions we must make living cross-culturally. 

Like many of the believers that we witness in reading through the book of Acts (some of whom seem to be very wealthy in their own culture), may we take what we have been given and live in a radically generous way for the sake of the gospel of our Lord. May He grant us wisdom and discernment as we seek to be all things to all people in our unique contexts.