Month: June 2025

4 Benefits of Having a Family Member on the Mission Field

Posted on by Emily Belvery

(Written by Ruth Barz, Mental Health Therapist and Missionary Mom. Photo: Mission Partner Sarah in Taiwan with her parents.)

You probably still remember where you were when your loved one told you they were thinking seriously about going overseas to serve as a missionary with Mission of Christ Network.

Maybe this had been a conversation you had with them numerous times and you were excited that they made this decision to join Jesus on His mission. Perhaps it was the first time you heard about this person’s decision to move far away from you. Or it even may have been a conversation you had before, but your heart sank as your loved one told you of their decision.

As a parent of three children, two of whom went overseas to serve with MCN, I can relate to all the above scenarios. There are so many questions and a lot of different emotions all at once. Your mind may be swirling with thoughts such as “this is not what I was expecting in this person’s future”; or “will he or she be safe there?”; “I need them to stay here and help me take care of things” ; “I feel like I am losing them”; “we have not been close for awhile and now they will be SO far away and I worry about being emotionally close again.” If it means your grandchildren will be moving to another country, your heart may be breaking with the realization that you will not be able to be physically around them very much as they grow. If it is your parents, or an aunt or uncle moving overseas, you may be sad they will be missing out on large parts of your life or those of your children.

As real and confusing as the above thoughts and feelings are, here are four reasons why this experience will help you grow and will expand your world.

  1. First and most important is that any big change, and maybe especially those changes we are not sure about, are the ones that drive us to our knees in prayer and cause us to become more dependent on our Heavenly Father. In Jeremiah 29:11 we read, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” This is true for us, and it is true for our loved one going to another country. Then in Psalm 62:5-8 we read, “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him. Truly He is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress; I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; He is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” 
    • Here God is inviting us to “pour out our hearts to Him.” So, you can tell God about all your fears, concerns, joys, and hopes, and He will hear. In addition, He promises that we can trust Him even when we don’t understand the ending.  Depending on God will grow your faith, be an encouragement to your loved one going overseas, and expand your prayer life. As I prayed for my children overseas and for the specific prayer requests they gave me, I got to rejoice with my children when we saw God’s answer to prayer.
  2. Your vision of the world and the church will be expanded. You will learn about how God is moving around the world and what the church looks like in other countries, and you will realize the bigger plans of God’s salvation. This may also give you an opportunity to travel to other parts of the world and hear how God is a work. What joy to know you will meet people in heaven who are there because your loved one was part of God’s plan to work faith in the hearts of others! When my husband and I worshiped with Christians in Asia over Christmas, it gave us a glimpse of what it will be like to worship in eternity with brothers and sisters from around the world.
  3. You may work harder at staying connected with your loved one(s). As you work at communicating with your overseas family member, you may find yourself being more intentional in asking them about their life, in telling them about yours, and in expressing your love and concern. You may find that sharing prayer requests with one another becomes more intentional. Sometimes, when family members are far away, we realize that we cannot take those relationships for granted, and you may find yourself working harder to stay connected than you would if they were in the same town.
  4. You will become more aware of God’s mission which calls you to mission work right where you are.  You may find yourself realizing that God’s desire that “all be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4) means each of us is to live our lives being willing to “give an answer for the reason of the hope we have in Christ” (1 Peter 3:15).

This is not an exhaustive list of how you may grow or have your world expanded when a loved one answers God’s call to mission work, but it is a good start.

I invite you to lean on the Lord while you welcome the changes He is bringing because your child, parent, aunt, uncle, friend, sibling has decided to serve as a missionary.

Pieces of My Heart in Many Places

Posted on by Emily Belvery

(While this piece was written back in 2016 when I was on the mission field in Taiwan, we pray it helps you understand missionaries traveling “home” this summer who may now struggle to feel at home in any one place. – Emily (Barz) Belvery)

“There are pieces of my heart in many places.

There are pieces that drift lazily across a backyard patio on the scent of coffee and freshly-mown grass and pieces that roll over Iowa hills at twilight on the wings of a tailwind.

There are pieces on the plains of Nebraska, in old dorms with peculiar, age-old scents, in classrooms and offices stacked with books and papers and even overheads, over a sloping floor bathed in colored light and echoing with an acapella doxology – in the middle of nowhere and the middle of everywhere.

Sometimes your heart fixes on the strangest places.

There are pieces in St. Louis – that second home for Sewardites, Nebraska round two.

Pieces wrapped up in popcorn and pinochle and Let Us Exalt His Name – and then dispersed across the country, too many miles apart for this small world where everyone is only six degrees from a Barz.

Pieces fragilely held together by internet across a million time zones and seven-way Google hangouts – pieces sewn up in letters and penned in pictures and memories and oh so many stories.

But there are also pieces of my heart that hover over rice fields and quiver in the haze of humidity and pollution, gazing at distant mountains.

There are pieces that smile in Mandarin and grasp chopsticks in an accepted offer of shared meals and lives and cups of tea.

There are pieces that laugh at the absurdity of language and the extravagant love of the Father and pieces that cry at the futility of idols and the fear of what we can’t understand.

There are pieces of my heart in many places.

“My heart lives in so many places. With so many people. But God whispers to me that I really have only one home, and that is with Him. I will never be content on this earth. I will always be a nomad. It was meant to be that way. My heart was created with a desire for a home, a nest, a sanctuary, and that can be found only with Him in Heaven. And I will continue bouncing from one home to another, loving with everything I have in whatever location I currently reside, excitedly awaiting the day when I am called heavenward and He says to me, ‘Welcome home.’”

– Kisses From Katie by Katie Davis

David prayed, “Unite my heart to fear Your name.” (Psalm 86)

I used to think that was strange because you need a plurality to be able to unite. You can’t unite one thing.

Then I realized how broken and scattered by sin my heart is – how often it is running off to worship other things and to seek honor and satisfaction in places other than at the throne of the Father – how often it’s splintered and divided between the things of the flesh and the things of the Spirit.

Now I realize my heart is also broken and scattered by separation, pieces left behind in every place I’ve lived and loved.

And yet – it’s also perfectly whole. “For great is [His] steadfast love toward me” and “I will glorify [His] name forever.” In the love of the Father, my heart is more whole and more full than it’s ever been before.

And someday even the tearing of separation will be perfectly mended as “all the nations You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name.” And all the pieces of God’s sacrificial heart will be perfectly united in eternal unity and unending praise.

Amen and so be it.”