All That You Can't Leave Behind: A Rookie Missionary's Life In Africa
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About this ebook
Do all missionaries live in grass huts, wear taped glasses, have 13 children, and stutter? My, my, my. It is good you picked up this book. Through personal stories, cultural insights, and perspectives on the mission movement in Africa, Ryan Murphy shares what the missionary life looks like in the 21st century. All That You Can’t Leave Behind offers an entertaining bridge into the unknown lands of missions work and challenges you to make a difference in your world for God’s glory. Leave the ordinary. Live the extraordinary.
In an age where the Great Commission has become more talk than walk, Ryan Murphy has given us a gift. In fresh prose, Murphy has put flesh on the bones of Christ’s commission. Come learn. Love. Be inspired.
Ryan J. Murphy
In 2005, Ryan Murphy, along with wife Heather and infant son Micah, left his comfortable home and successful career in San Diego to teach the children of missionaries in rural Kenya. After graduating with a B.A. in Literature from Point Loma Nazarene University, he planned to pay off his school debt in ten years and then leave for the mission field. Through an incredible turn of events, the debt was paid off in four years, and Heather and he raised all of the financial support needed to volunteer in Kenya. Appointed to work at a boarding school called Rift Valley Academy by Africa Inland Mission, he and his wife teach, mentor, care for, and live with the children of African missionaries nine months of the year. Although he ministers mainly to the students, living among Africans has provided him unique insights into faith and friendship which only cross-cultural missionaries can experience. He taught English at a public school for five years in the US and is devoted to the Great Commission to “go and make disciples of all nations.” Besides writing and teaching, Ryan enjoys playing guitar, wrestling with his two sons, and watching Penn State football. His first year as a missionary is recounted in this, his first book, ALL THAT YOU CAN’T LEAVE BEHIND. His second book, WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER, FALL picks up where the first one leaves off.
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All That You Can't Leave Behind - Ryan J. Murphy
ALL THAT YOU CAN’T LEAVE BEHIND
A ROOKIE MISSIONARY’S LIFE IN AFRICA
by Ryan J. Murphy
Smashwords Edition
PUBLISHED By: Father’s Press on Smashwords.
Copyright 2007 by Ryan J. Murphy
Ryan J. Murphy holds the copyright of this book and has granted the exclusive right to publish it to Father’s Press.
All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
Father’s Press, LLC
Lee’s Summit, MO
(816) 600-6288
www.fatherspress.com
To contact Ryan Murphy:
email—rhmurphy@aimint.net
blog—http://strangersinkenya.blogspot.com/
web page—http://murphy.kijabe.org/
Cover photo and design: Mike Gaudaur
First printing, September 2007
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Father’s Press, LLC
Lee’s Summit, MO
(816) 600-6288
www.fatherspress.com
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
CHAPTER TWO
The only way is the wrong way
June-July 2005
CHAPTER THREE
Eating an elephant
August-October 2005
CHAPTER FOUR
Homeless for the holidays
November 2005-January 2006
CHAPTER FIVE
The rains down in Africa
February-March 2006
CHAPTER SIX
Thin air, thin pair
April-May 2006
CHAPTER SEVEN
Stranger year
June-July 2006
CHAPTER EIGHT
Epilogue
ENDNOTES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Perhaps this book was born while I was sucking on a plastic straw in a San Diego McDonald’s. As I sat there and told my missions pastor about the hundred and one dreams of a twenty-five year old newlywed, the burly blond in his late 40’s listened intently with a smile on his face.
I want to write,
I said. Dream one hundred and two.
He paused for a second, searching for the most polite way to say, "What could you possibly write about?"
I didn’t know. But as the conversation wore on, Brad Buser pushed me past dreaming about living to a place where my life would make a difference for the kingdom of God. Instead of merely being interested
in missions, I decided then and there to give my life to God for full-time missions. And in doing so, I found something worth writing about. Thanks Brad and may you encourage many more to follow our Savior wherever He leads. And to all of the other pastors—Kenny, Eloy, Von, Rick, Ray, Jeff, Rick, Anne, Andy—thank you for helping us obey our calling.
I’d like to thank my wonderful wife Heather for being my partner in this life and my helper with this book. The seminal material of All That You Can’t Leave Behind came from my blog Strangers in Kenya, which I began at the urging of Ian Fraser. Thanks Ian. I’ve had a slew of great editors along the way as well—my mom Cindy, my sister Emily, Kristy Faber, and Suzanne Geba. Mike Gaudaur did an awesome job with the cover photos and design. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
Thanks to Mike Smitley and Father’s Press for caring more about the things of God than dollars and sales. I’ll always be indebted to you for giving me a shot at sharing my story.
Of course, the biggest thanks of all go to my Lord and Savior. Thanks for redeeming this mess of a man and giving him more than he could have ever dreamed of.
Ryan J. Murphy
ONE
Introduction
The world is not impressed when Christians get rich and say thanks to God. It is impressed when God is so satisfying that we give our riches away for Christ’s sake and count it gain.
John Piper
I love reality television. Before you hate me, hear me out. I think reality TV shows are more than just a passing fad; I think they’re here to stay. I think we’re tired of trying to solve the same old murder mystery and sitting through a half hour of a laugh track-boosted sitcom. We want to engage, to be shocked, and to see something new; to experience life without scripts.
Shows like Survivor and American Idol feel kind-of real, and we like reality. Granted, reality
has been heavily edited and condensed to fit into an hour time slot and most of the real
people are three times more dysfunctional (or three times more beautiful) than anyone we know. But it still feels real, like there’s no script.
Now, you may ask me how I know about reality TV. Aren’t I a missionary in East Africa? I can’t possibly have a TV over there, can I?
Well, I don’t have network TV, cable, or a dish, but my friend Andy from Pennsylvania sends us recorded DVDs of our favorite shows, and we hook up our classroom LCD projector to watch them. While we might get our shows in the mail a few months after you’ve seen them, we still get them. I still get my occasional fix of reality TV even here in Africa.
Any other questions? Don’t all missionaries live in grass huts, wear taped glasses, have 13 children, and stutter?
My, my, my. I’m glad you picked up this book. This book tells our story, the story of two American twenty-somethings who heard a whole lot of talk about reaching the lost and going to all nations, but didn’t see a whole lot of it happening. Whenever there is a lot of talk about something, but little changes, it makes me ask two questions: Are the talkers liars? and Why is nothing changing?
We found that many folks were paying lip service to missions. I stood in churches where they would pray for the world to be reached every Sunday, but they would send none of their members and very little of their money.
This confused me. Were they praying for some pixie dust to fall from heaven and help these foreign people? Was there a real face to missions out there or was the American church mired in hypocrisy? In the end, I couldn’t answer my first question.
The answer to my second question was two-fold.
One, real change is happening throughout the world, but where can the average Christian hear about such work? The non-partisan 6 o’clock news? Standing around the water cooler at work? Doubtful. The Gospel has been exploding throughout the world, mainly in places with very little money and thus very little international press to report it. But things are changing because of missions.
Two, the main vehicle that churches seem to use when it comes to missions
are short-term mission trips with devout and passionate individuals who are often untrained cross-culturally. They are whole-heartedly committed to give a few weeks of their time to reaching the lost, and then they return to suburban living. If you study history, the real change, the powerful movements of God, began through long-term, career individuals who devoted not 20 days to a people group but 20 years; people who gave more than a few weeks of sweat; people who gave their entire lives.
My wife Heather and I felt this calling to career missions during college. It was one of the things that drew us together, and in our first 3 years of marriage everything we did was focused on this goal. Our budget, our teaching jobs, our church activities, our personal reading list—everything. We knew we wanted to teach the children of missionaries, but we had no idea where we were going. We hoped God would show us in time. But while we waited, we wanted to be ready. In the words of Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, we wanted to do something while we were doing nothing.
So, we had it all mapped out. If we saved our money and disciplined ourselves, we thought we’d be free of our college debt in ten years (when we’d be in our mid 30’s) and then we’d be free to go to the mission field. Paying off $50,000 in a decade sounded like an aggressive but doable plan.
God had a better plan. The housing market in San Diego went through a huge boom around the turn of the century, and if you’ve ever been there, you know why—beautiful beaches, plenty of cultural excitement, and 340 sunny days a year. Financial savvy is something I sorely lack, but lucky for me, I had friends. They guided me into the housing market long before it peaked, and in 2002 my wife and I were able to get a small house in a bad part of the city for a small, bad fortune ($260,000). We weren’t exactly sure how the whole thing would play out, but we knew that while we worked toward our goal of going to the field, paying a mortgage made more sense than paying astronomical rent.
About a year later, lightning struck. A businessman from our church (upon hearing of our plan to become missionaries) said that he’d pay off $10,000 of our debt if we’d find a way to pay the rest. Neither of our parents could afford such an amount, but we knew of a way that we could.
Our house had appreciated nearly 20% that first year and was still climbing. If we sold our house, we’d be able to pay the other $40,000 of our debt and leave for the field. We took his offer and our ten year plan suddenly got pushed up six years by a financial miracle we didn’t see coming.
The question of How? had been answered; next was the question of Where? We knew there were needs all over the world for teachers of missionary children. Wherever Americans are going, living and loving people for Jesus (and that’s happening in most corners of the world these days), there is a need for someone to educate their children. We knew of two firsthand. Heather had been to Numonohi Academy in Papa New Guinea, and I had visited Faith Academy in Manila. Neither of us had ties to the third one under consideration, Rift Valley Academy (RVA) in Kenya, but we’d both felt drawn to it even before we knew each other.
We took our time and interviewed people from each school. We prayed about the vastly different ministries which our work would be supporting. After all, as teachers of missionaries’ kids that’s our real purpose—support. Help the missionaries do what they do by caring for and educating their kids. In the end, we felt like RVA was the best fit, and we were excited about devoting our futures to that school and those ministries.
Our parents and friends knew that we were headed in this direction for a long time (Heather’s parents said they knew when she was still in junior high), so they blessed our decision, even though there was a new complication to factor in—our newborn son Micah. He was the first grandson on both sides of the family, and losing him was an extra sacrifice for all involved. All of our friends were in that baby-making stage of life, too, and there were no less than six other little boys within two years of Micah when we left. Theirs was a sacrifice as well.
Once we were officially accepted with Africa Inland Mission (the agency which operates RVA), we began raising support. You see, we may have been debt free once we sold our house, but most missionaries don’t receive a salary. We are part of a faith-based
organization which doesn’t pay us a dime to travel or work; we rely solely on the Lord and His methods for providing for our physical needs. Churches, friends, family, strangers—He’s brought all types into our support base.
It’s funny how it took faith to step out on this ledge, but it was also faith that we found out there.
We worked all throughout this process. Heather taught history at a private Christian school in northern San Diego, and I taught English at a public high school in eastern San Diego. Our skills were honed in those first few years of teaching as we rubbed shoulders with amazing professionals and a diverse assortment of children.
Then, in our final few months in the States, we took some extra courses to prepare us directly for the field—the Perspectives on World Missions
course put out by the U.S. Center for World Missions; a special education class and a technology course to keep our California teaching credentials up-to-date; and a language course at Mission Training International in Colorado.
The selling, buying, and packing stages were exhausting. We had not one but two yard sales (raking in over $2,000 for a disgusting amount of stuff
we’d already accumulated in our short adult lives). Super donors helped us stock up on supplies which we then shipped in a container to Kenya, supplies which we were told would come in handy and would be hard to come by once there. We had to pack up and inventory our clothing and appliances and everything else which we felt we couldn’t part with. That container then went by truck to New York, by boat to Mombasa, by train to Nairobi, and by truck to RVA.
It either came with us or was sold for seventy-five cents. Cars, furniture, TV, stereo…even our cat Moses—all found new homes when we left ours. We left nothing behind.
And that’s about where this story begins, this story about all that you can’t leave behind, about what you take with you no matter where you go.
But this story won’t sound like anything you might expect. Missions work has changed so much in the past 100 years. My great-great uncle Dan was a missionary in Liberia in the early 1900’s, and three years ago I got a hold of some of the letters he wrote to his brother. The letters had some element of conversation in them as they asked questions back and forth about each other’s life, but the months which came between composition and reception of each letter made communication difficult. Months, though, have been replaced with minutes today, as the Internet and satellite phones have made the lives of missionaries much easier.
This is just one way that missions work has a new face. Travel is easier; airplanes and cars have replaced ocean liners and canoes. Anthropology has helped us respect and preserve cultures. Medicines help fight illnesses that killed missionaries previously. Past mistakes in planting new churches have improved current methodologies. Computers have assisted and sped up translation work.
The list goes on. My life in Africa is nothing like my great-great uncle Dan’s. But many of the sacrifices are still the same. You can’t step across cultural boundaries without going and moving and missing and giving and losing. You must sacrifice. There are no shortcuts to making lasting impacts on the lives of others.
If you’re reading this book, chances are you want to make an impact. You want to engage, to do something new, and to shake up the world. To experience life without scripts.
I invite you to vicariously live through us in these pages. Enter our reality. Learn the lessons we learned. Cry our tears with us. Scream ridiculous shouts of joy. Feel the pulse of God’s heart in Africa.
Then, put this book down and find your own reality. Your own part of the story God is telling throughout the world. Because, after all, it’s His story and it’s His reality that matters most.
And that’s all that you can’t leave behind.
TWO
The only way is the wrong way
JUNE-JULY 2005
I made my first book in 1st grade. I think it was about monster trucks. Although, now that I think of it, my first might have been about The Dukes of Hazzard TV show or WWF wrestlers—all subjects being equally book worthy. You name the subject, and I turned it into a book, even if the book’s pages were only made out of Scotch tape and used-up elementary school workbooks.
Then in junior high I went sports crazy. I’d take old Sports Illustrateds, cut them up, and make my own magazines, featuring whichever sport was in season: basketball, football, baseball. I skipped the swimsuit issue, of course, because I was a serious journalist.
I started writing short stories and poetry in high school and found that compiling them into books for my friends was a cheap but unique Christmas present. People seemed to enjoy them, and I enjoyed not only sharing my ideas with others but also saving some moolah around the holidays. Cheap and unique—just my style.
Now, I’m a few years older, and the old desire is back. To write, to create, to make sense of all of the change that’s happening in our little world. In less than one month it will be July 6th, and my wife, son, and I will leave for Kenya, embarking on a new career as missionaries who will teach other missionaries’