Record Live Podcast

Does the world still need missionaries_
[00:00:00] Hi there everyone. I'm Jared. And I'm Sunita. We are your hosts of Record Live, a podcast where we talk about church faith and living well. We believe as followers of Jesus faith is more than just a set of beliefs. It's a way of life, something we'd put into practice. Let's go live.
Jarrod Stackelroth: We are back with another week of record live, and I'm very excited today to once again be joined by Ashley. Thank you, Ashley, for joining us.
Ashley Jankiewicz: Thank you for having me.
Jarrod Stackelroth: It is great to have you back again. And Olivia, Olivia works with us here at Adventist Media. She does a lot of good work in our editorial communication department.
She also works with production, helping them produce,, some of the videos and [00:01:00] the special projects that they run. , But that's not why we have her on today. Ashley. And Olivia are here to talk with me about does the world still need missionaries? Olivia's just been on a short term mission trip and we wanna hear about it, and there's some really important questions I think, that come out of these mission trips.
So, Olivia, thank you first of all for joining us today.
Ashley Jankiewicz: No worries. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So Olivia, I've seen so many photos. From this,, mission trip. So why don't you tell us a little bit about how it went, where did you go? Some of the things that maybe you did, just give us a little bit of context.
Sure.
Olivia Fairfax: , So in July, a group of 23 of us from the greatest Sydney Conference all traveled together to Zambia. We landed in Lusaka and then drove about six and a half hours down to Livingston. [00:02:00] And for about two weeks we did some mission work in a remote village called Metang. , Doing a whole range of different activities, with locals, with some translators and Bible workers helping us to navigate the different culture and, , yeah, communicate God's God's message to these people.
Jarrod Stackelroth: I don't know. Olivia, if you've been to Africa before, but that's pretty exciting. It's definitely on my bucket list to head over there. Tell me a bit about the, was there any culture shock? Was there anything that surprised you that , you didn't expect or stuff that you saw that you did expect, but it was like, amazing? What was that experience like?
Olivia Fairfax: Yeah. , I hadn't been to Africa before. It was quite not what I expected., This was also my first mission trip, so I hadn't really been exposed to third world countries or extreme poverty before. Like the extent of my [00:03:00] poverty, awareness and knowledge was homeless people sleeping out , out the front of train stations or, , people who come and get fed at Parramatta for.
, Homeless meals. So seeing a country, an entire country where the greatest infrastructure they had was a shopping center. , That was very. Challenging just to realize that, oh wow. I come from a really privileged place where I take everything for granted.
And on our six hour drive from the airport down to Livingston, it was unusual to see. Nothing. All along the roads, it was just kind of grassy fields. And when we came into a town or a village, it would just be like small little brick huts with straw roofs and the people would run out from the huts up to your car with fruit or vegetables or other items to sell you.
And they had a really. , A lot of [00:04:00] energy about them because you could see how much they needed the money or needed to trade in order to survive and get by. So it was very confronting in that way, but it was also unexpected how kind people are over there because I don't know what I was really anticipating from a poor country, but I assumed that it was gonna be a bit of a, you take what you can get.
Mentality and hold onto everything you can. But the people who I interacted with over there were very generous and very happy to give of what they had and share the best of their stuff with us as missionaries. I,
Ashley Jankiewicz: that's really interesting. , How were you specifically involved? Like what were the, some, some of the things that you did while you were there?
Olivia Fairfax: Hmm. So, there were kind of four aspects to our mission trip and everyone was [00:05:00] involved in either one or more of the aspects. So in the mornings when everyone would wake up, we'd wake up at around seven or so. And , half of us would split up, split into a building group and the other half would split into a nursing group.
And so those who had like medical skills or qualifications would have health checks with members of the community and give them medical advice or treatment plans, prescriptions, whatever they could alongside the local medical professionals. , And also we're helping to. Provide transport to hospitals and medical clinics.
So that was happening between about 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM during the day. And at the exact same time, the rest of us who had no skills whatsoever went to a building site just down the road, where we were helping to build a medical clinic for their community. , So what we started off with was a building which had been.
Like the foundation had been laid and the [00:06:00] walls had been laid, like the bricks and mortar, but we had to help in putting the rafters on the roof, measuring and painting the wood so that it didn't get, you know, infect infected. No. So that termites don't get into eat it all up. , Then we put the roof on and did the rendering of the whole building and put door frames and window frames in.
So it was. It was tough physical work for someone who's not necessarily built for that kind of work. But it was a great experience for people to bond and connect with the locals because we were working alongside some of the more skilled, you know, carpenters and builders and tradesmen. And so it was, it was really fun.
So that was during the mornings and then in the afternoons from? 4:00 PM till 6:00 PM we broke into th So everyone came back together and we broke into three different groups and we were staying at the main village called Metang, [00:07:00] but about 20 minutes drive through four wheel drive Rocky coun country to the, I think it was the east was another village.
And then 30 minute Rocky Drive to the West was another village. So we had three sites and we did kids clubs, providing kids with games and music and teaching them Bible stories. And most of these kids don't have a very good education, so they like, it's, it's limited in terms of English and the ability for them to progress beyond primary school.
And so we tra, we taught them a lot through translation of, you know, songs and about gospel stories, which was really fun. And the kids just. They come alive. I've never seen kids so excited to be involved. I don't know about you guys. If you've ever done like several schools or anything for kids and teens, sometimes it's just [00:08:00] like you're, you're wrestling with them to, to participate.
You're trying your hardest. But these kids were just so eager. They wanted to be involved and they wanted to learn about God. . So that was, , the first part of the evening, and then from 7:00 PM until about nine, eight or 9:00 PM we had an evangelistic series at each of the three sites. . , At one site we had a evangelist speaking and at two sites we had missionaries who went along volunteering to do a sermon or two, speaking to the people and being translated.
So that was really cool. I got to preach alongside some of my friends and listen to them speak, which was really, really beautiful to hear. You know, how they interpreted. You know, lessons such as the Sabbath or baptism or other fundamentals of Adventist beliefs. So that's how I was involved over the mission trip.
I. [00:09:00]
Jarrod Stackelroth: I guess we'll dig into this as the conversation goes on, but big picture, some people would argue in this day and age that short-term mission trips are not where it's at anymore. , Maybe that some of the building could have been done by skilled people or people from in-country, like in-house, , that spending the resources and the flights and the time to go over there.
Was maybe,, a waste of resources when there's needs at home. There could be all sorts of arguments that could come up against something like this. Just as we start to dig into this, , question that we're posing today, does the world still need missionaries? Where do we start? For you?
Big picture, what was the purpose of. Doing this trip, what was the stated sort of goals or aims for taking a group of youth from Sydney over , to Africa?
Olivia Fairfax: Hmm. Well, the area that we went to in Zambia, now Zambia is very much an [00:10:00] Adventist country. Their president is Adventist. And we drove through, so like past so many churches, um.
But the place where we went in this remote village, some people had never heard of the gospel before just because the country is so big due to their lack of infrastructure and ability to really travel throughout the country. 'cause not many people have cars or bicycles or anything. So especially the kids, some of them hadn't heard about Jesus before.
And particularly the Adventist message. So that was the reason that we went, , or at least one of the main reasons. But then also the medical side of things. The area where we were, they didn't have, they didn't have medical services available to the community, and a lot of the people had. Problems. So when the idea [00:11:00] was suggested that we go over and help them, , with medical supplies, we, a lot of the funding which we raised or paid for the trip went towards purchasing like wheelchairs and medicine and materials to build , the medical facility on site.
. And it was interesting, I , had a conversation with, , one of the organizers, Joel Slade and the bible worker who was present and had done a lot of the groundwork for this mission trip. John, John Ana. , And we were working on the building site and we're like, we're weak, we're tired after like two hours of working in the hot sun.
Meanwhile. Like the local people are hard at work mixing the mortar and cement and everything, and they're just gung-ho. And we asked, are we actually making an impact here? Like, [00:12:00] is what we are doing actually helping you guys? Because we don't have the skills. We are just slapping on morar and render and it's a rough job.
And John mentioned that. Although we're doing a rough job, it's helping the locals to see that we care and that we want to help. And it's not just them alone in the world trying to make a difference. And then he shared with us that, , some people from over 50 kilometers away had walked, they'd walked 50 kilometers all the way to our building site to see.
White people working. , They saw, they came all this way because they were number one, fascinated by these strangers who'd come in to help them. But also number two, because no one had come into that area before [00:13:00] to show any concern. About their state, the state that they were living in, the poverty that they were facing, and , their real struggles that they just don't have access to medical facilities.
, So yeah, it did change my mind a fair bit about , what the meaning behind a mission trip is. Because I think when I was going into it, I thought, oh, it's about. Mostly just teaching people about Jesus and having a positive impact. But after these conversations, I realized actually the greatest impact is where people feel seen and they feel like their needs have been recognized and they feel supported by someone because it's very easy for these poorer communities to feel just forgotten about by their government by.
There are other communities around them or, yeah, by the church sometimes.
Ashley Jankiewicz: yeah, that's a really interesting [00:14:00] perspective, Olivia. I feel like I've never thought about it like that before. , So do you think that everybody should do mission trips or do you think that everyone could get something out of it?
, Do you, or do you think that only certain kinds of mission trips should be undertaken? And others not. Like, is there a specific way that we should be doing short-term mission trips?
Olivia Fairfax: Hmm, that's a good question. .
To be honest, I'm not sure of the answer because I've only been on this one mission trip. However, there was a girl on our trip who'd been on four before this one. , So she had a lot of experience with mission trips, and she was, she was so lovely and easy to get to know and very good with.
Communicating with the locals, even though, you know, she didn't know the language. , And she shared a little bit about the previous mission trips that she'd been on. She'd been to, I think one of the island [00:15:00] nations , in the Pacific. , I think she said she'd been too. Oh, like Cambodia I think as well.
But she said that the mission trip to Zambia was definitely the most confronting because of the extent of poverty that they faced in that area. , And so for different types of mission trips, I, I don't think that there should be any limit to what people should be willing to give and willing to participate in, because.
Although everyone of us who went on this mission trip had different skills and different abilities, all of us were able to give something. Whether that was just our time, our resources, our smiles, our listening ears. Every little bit of compassion goes a long way when people are hungry for compassion.
And I think when [00:16:00] it comes to mission, it shouldn't be restricted either just to third world countries or just, short, short trips. I think mission should be really integrated into our lives as a framework for how we perceive the world and perceive our communities. , Because after coming back from that mission trip.
, We had a long drive back to the airport and during that drive I was talking with, , three of my friends from the trip , and Joel Slade, who is helping to organize it about what can we actually take away now that we're going back to like our normal lives. And we're just,, injected back into normality.
Life continues as is. What can we actually take away? And one of the things that all of us agreed with was that being on a mission trip and seeing how [00:17:00] other people live needs to change our hearts in terms of what we're grateful for and where we see need because we've been confronted for two weeks.
Of people in desperate need of help, like physical help, emotional, spiritual help, medical help, and it opened our eyes to just how much need there is in the world. But just because we can see that need in that context doesn't mean that when we get back to our ordinary lives, our eyes should suddenly be closed to need.
So mission can happen wherever we are, just as long as we have our lens of mission on and seeing things from that perspective.
Jarrod Stackelroth: There's, a common phrase you hear thrown around, , conversations like this, the white savior complex, the idea that, you know, these people need someone to come in and save them, help them. . That [00:18:00] somehow, because we are from, say, Australia, not from Zambia, we're inherently better placed to do that. , There's also the concept of volunteerism that people have been sort of anti this idea.
Yeah, you got to do some service, but you also. You know, got to do a bit of a tour around a safari. , It's like you can easily wash the dust off and come back home, as you said, and then, and then process, oh, this was such a great experience for me. I grew so much and I got to do all these things.
What would you say to people that have that attitude and are a bit against this sort of thing? And second part of that question, did you see the impact that. I guess was left behind , and how much impact can you really make in a two week journey? Or was there any feedback you got from the people there that was like, no, actually this is why this is, this works, or this is valuable, or maybe there's some truth to some of the criticisms.
Maybe it's a nuance sort of thing, and it's not. Cut and dry. What do you think , about some of those [00:19:00] perspectives?
Olivia Fairfax: , I've heard that phrase before about, you know, the white savior complex and you just go in for two weeks, have a little impact, and you go, and you haven't actually changed that much.
But what I would say to that is it's not necessarily about those two weeks of impact, it's about what's been leading up to those two weeks and what happens after those two weeks. So. Before we arrived in Zambia, someone had been working for the past, oh, let me get it right. I think it was two to three years, like two and a half years as a Bible worker in the areas going from door to door, day after day, getting to know the people in the community and starting Bible studies with them.
And during his time, this was John Mubiana. During his time. Getting to know these people. He'd been able to plant six churches and start an actual [00:20:00] foundation from which evangelism could then grow and expand and get people to be more aware of how they can reach other people. So he had started this amazing work of establishing communities, establishing frameworks, starting bible studies, and as we came in, we were able to provide.
Numbers really. We were able to provide numbers to give people Bible studies, to teach people about the fundamental beliefs of Adventism. We could provide entertainment and resources for kids to then associate, , their time with Adventist. Like the Adventist Church in such a positive way because they can't afford holidays.
But having people come in and bring the fun to them, they can go away with a lasting impact of like, oh, I had so much fun with the Adventist Church, or with this community, I wanna come back. [00:21:00] So it's less so about us as missionaries coming in to this place, but about the people who are there and making that impact.
For us to just get involved with. And I think that's something that the white savior complex misses because evangelism and mission isn't just about the people who step in, it's about the relationships with the locals. It's about what they can then do from whatever we're able to provide coming into that place.
, And so, we were able to help them with building the health clinic, but they were the ones who started the job and they're the ones who have finished the job as well. And they've been sending, , a couple of us photos of how the updates are going. And , it's really beautiful to have that relationship.
And I think it's the relationships that you can carry [00:22:00] on forward after a mission trip and into eternity. I dunno if that actually answers the question.
Ashley Jankiewicz: Yeah, no, no, I think it does. , I've had a fair amount of cynicism, I guess you could say, about the whole coming back and saying, oh, the people there changed me.
I had such a good experience. Do you think that's okay? For the people who go on these short-term mission trips, to actually feel like they got something out of it, that they were changed when in reality we're really meant to be going and serving that community.
Olivia Fairfax: Mm-hmm.
Ashley Jankiewicz: I think
Olivia Fairfax: service is a two-way street.
It's never meant to be done in isolation. And I'm pretty sure there's a Proverbs that says something along the lines of, . The Lord blesses those who bless others. And so when we choose to have a heart of service, when we choose to give and to get our hands dirty, we will [00:23:00] naturally receive the blessings that come from gratitude of someone expressing gratitude for that service or the appreciation and friendship that is.
Formed and forged in difficult times. And so when people come back and say, it changed my life, I'm so grateful for that experience and, , life will never be the same again. It's natural to have a, I guess, a cynicism towards it when you hear it, but for that person experiencing it, I think , it's okay.
And it's actually. A good thing for them to come away feeling like they've received because, , it's better to give than it is to receive because when you give, you get a double blessing of being able to give and receive.
Jarrod Stackelroth: . What would you say to someone who's never done a mission trip? You know, maybe they've grown up in the church or maybe they haven't, they're new to the [00:24:00] church and they're , listening to this, and they're going, huh, that sounds interesting.
I think that'd be cool. What do they need to know before they go, and what would you encourage them with?
Olivia Fairfax: Hmm. , I would just say wholeheartedly. Go, if you're thinking about it, go. , When I was in school, our school had a mission trip, which I was unable to go on, but I wanted to go really badly. And then ever since missing out on that opportunity, I've been , looking for a chance to go on a mission trip and this one presented itself.
, And in order to be prepared, I don't think there's much. Way you can be prepared for it except to , do a little bit of research about where you're going, you know, for safety reasons. See if you're going with someone that you know, that helps a lot. , And [00:25:00] I think something that helped me to handle.
The very different experience that it was in a third world country was to spend a little bit of time in prayer just to humble your heart and. Realize why you're going, because you know, going on a mission trip is all fun. You're surrounded by, 23 other people who are all doing the same stuff and you're complaining about, oh my goodness, it's so hot.
But then you don't ever wanna complain because these people live in these conditions and you're just like, you are laughing about circumstances that have happened through the day. It's a joyful experience, but there's also. A great spiritual weight to serving. You are there to represent Jesus. And so to get repaired, I think you have to spend a bit of time in prayer just getting to know God [00:26:00] and humbling yourself so that when you have interactions with local people who may not be as well off or may not be as fortunate in terms of material wealth, or.
Access to different resources that you can listen to the working of the Holy Spirit and know how to serve. Because , I mentioned we were doing kids clubs, evangelistic building, that's just , the physical aspect of what we were doing as missionaries. What we were really doing in spirit was representing Jesus to people.
And I think,, getting in the right attitude is important.
Ashley Jankiewicz: What about the people who can't necessarily afford to go on a short term mission trip? How would you suggest that they can be missionaries in their own backyards?
Olivia Fairfax: Hmm. That's a good question and I have been thinking about that a little bit since [00:27:00] getting back. , Because I'm involved in my church and.
Being involved in a mission trip versus being involved in church. Totally different experiences. One is so structured, the other one is so kind of like, oh, we'll figure it out as we go. , But , I think the best way to be a missionary in your own context when you can't, , necessarily afford to go overseas is to connect.
Connect with people. That is what mission is all about. When Jesus came to this earth, he was a missionary from heaven. He was representing God to people by serving them. And the way he did that wasn't through like mass healings, although he did do that. It was through personal encounters. It was through those one-on-one conversations with people, and so I think.
For each of us, there is a challenge to be missionaries through [00:28:00] relationship, through talking to your neighbor when you see them taking out the bins at night and say, Hey, how are you doing? And develop a relationship where you can get to the point of saying, are you okay? Do you need any help around the house?
If they're elderly, can I mow your lawn for you? Just being helpful. Looking for ways to serve others and developing relationships of trust and compassion. I think that's the best way to start. And the more that you spend time with God and in prayer, I think the more God will open up each person's eyes to where God wants them specifically to be serving.
Jarrod Stackelroth: I think that's a very practical note to end on today. Olivia, thank you for sharing some of your experiences. Record Live, family, get out there and be missionaries through relationships. I really like that and I'll take that with me this week. Talk to your neighbors. Mow their lawns. , Build those [00:29:00] relationships up.
I think we can all do that. , We have spoken to Joel Slade, who you mentioned a couple of times. He's now pastoring in New South Wales, but he did spend some time in Africa a couple of years in,, was he in Zambia also? Yeah.
Olivia Fairfax: Yeah, it was in Zambia. Yeah.
Jarrod Stackelroth: So. Again, that speaks to the relationships he built while he was there.
This is a return to those relationships and a continuing that connection. So we've spoken to him on record Live. You can watch that episode as well. We'll put it in the comments. , Olivia, thanks for joining us today. Everyone else. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next week. God bless.