I had been aware of it all along. But it was only when the realization struck at the right moment, that an epiphany hit me. For the first time, I was convinced.
It wasn’t just a mouldy cliché parroted by people anymore. It was true, through and through. And now I believed it with all my heart.
While many of us claim to believe that everything we do for God is meaningful and for God, not every one of us might -really- believe it, actually. I know, because I was one of them.
Even though I intellectually grasped the omniscience of God, He was somehow more palpable at church than at home, more tangible during times of duress than comfort, more real in the mission field serving as a missionary than at my workplace back home as a doctor.
Now that I’m having to transit back from the mission field to my home country, Singapore, I understand the fears and stresses most missionaries are familiar with, couched under the nebulous term called “Re-entry stress”. Finding a new home, new job and adjusting to a new pace of life suddenly sounds harder than it was transiting into the unknown.
I started to wonder: Would God still be as real to me back home, as He is here in the heart of Africa? Will I depend on Him so closely back home as I do here, when every water cut, power cut, pothole, car breakdown, and rainy season (which spells dozens of mosquito bites and prayers against malaria) calls for heartfelt prayers, moment-to-moment? Will I still see eternal meaning and purpose in my work back home behind a desk, as much as I do here?
Recently at a key meeting, I came under fire by a team of Ugandan health professionals, for the work I had been doing in training community workers in Uganda in caring for the elderly. Here in Africa, the number of elderly is increasing at an alarming rate. Yet, with infectious disease and HIV still taking the limelight in priority lists, they are increasingly marginalized and neglected. Doctors and healthcare workers have little, if any, idea of Geriatric medicine, and how the elderly can be cared for.
As I led meetings week after week, my work in developing a full-fledged, nationally-accredited training course in caring for older people in Uganda would come under critique by my colleagues. Often, as I presented my work while batting the intense comments which were shooting fast and furious from all sides of the room, I felt like gasping for air.
Over the past few months, we had gained headway in several areas: Doors were opened for me to meet with the Commissioner at Ministry of Health Uganda to advocate for this cause, conduct talks at conferences and the Medical University to raise awareness, and establish a partnership with a major hospital in Singapore for the project.
Looking back, none of this happened overnight. None of the skills I so needed and used in the mission field occurred miraculously simply by being here. As stodgy as it sounds, these skills of networking, presenting, curriculum design, grant-writing and public health were not honed in the mission field, where “God’s magic comes alive”, but in the mundane cubicles of my previous job back home, the grueling hours on-call working 90-hour workweeks within the confines of the hospital, and the after-work tears down my cheeks as I would tell my husband, “I don’t know if I can be good at this.”
The truth I discovered and was finally convinced by, through and through, was this- God is as real in the mission field, as He is back home.
When we realized we could not stay another year as we had hoped, as I had to return back home to serve the rest of my bond as a medical doctor, God moved mountains for me to be seconded to the National University of Singapore during our 1 year back home. This was a miraculous event, given contract policies had made this arrangement technically impossible. Of all things I had been tasked to do, it was to develop curricula to empower students for Overseas Community Involvement Projects! It was a specific answer to my prayer, to continue to serve in missions as long as I could.
God heard, and honored that. He is back home in Singapore, as much as He is here in Uganda.
And while the adventurous likes of us keep dreaming of the day we’ll be in the mission field again serving the poor, raising orphans and healing the sick, the fact of the matter is this- that doing God’s work starts where we are right now.
He isn’t a dormant force now that supernaturally powers us when we stamp our passports; He isn’t the genie who answers all our prayers once we obtain a foreign visa in a developing country; He isn’t the darkened lighthouse that only starts shining when we are set sail to unknown destinations.
He is in the here and now-in our mundane, everyday lives which are continually preparing us for His work ahead.
As I came under fire one day in a hot meeting room, perspiring under the collar, I saw how all those years at work had developed endurance, tact and stamina for my work in the mission field today. I saw how my re-entry back home to Singapore after a year of serving in Uganda is not a hiatus in living a God-filled life, but merely a training ground in yet a different setting again, to prepare me for the next mission field God would call us to.
I saw that God is here, but God is also back home. Why did I need to fret about the challenges of “re-entry” as we adjusted back home, even though so many things seemed uncertain? If He had provided for us in Africa, would He not do so in Singapore?
What colors our perception of God is our eyes and our heart.
I am learning- He isn’t any more wondrous here in the mission field than He is there, where you are. The eternal value, meaning and purpose of our work to Him does not change with our geographical location.
For wherever we are with a believing heart, is where God is.
“From heaven God looks down and sees all mankind;
from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth—
he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do.”
– Psalm 33:13-15