Liking the new site/domain.. Miss hanging out with you!

I note that if young women do start their own agencies, they will be cutting themselves off from contact with guys at another level, which doesn’t seem that desirable either.

I do wonder if women who are serious should look closer at the dangerous edges of mission. Would there be more interest if they had jungle camp under their belt? Flight training? Maybe guys want to see the flush in Emily’s cheeks as she hikes up the mountains of Kurdistan?

As for our generation, would it be beneficial to create social events that force the issue? The old coming out parties, debutante balls, etc. had a reason for being – many young men need to have the appropriate context be created for seeing girls as marriageable, and having to dance with them, or talk with them because there is positive peer pressure.

Bethany and I talked recently about how “Special Needs Dance Night” at the summer camp she worked at was the only time she ever really experienced that kind of guy-girl interaction at a fun, non-threatening “will-you-dance-with-me- it doesn’t-mean-anything-or-maybe-it-could-if-you-want-it-to” level. You could be as silly as you wanted, and it was expected that boys could show their nice side. Remember how about half the boys needed serious prodding to go to high school proms? They wanted to -but it was putting themselves on the line. Some of them, you could see, wanted to be forced!

Anyway, maybe a fly-in dinner-dance associated with Apostolos or something would help. My kids would go anywhere for a mixer, with enough notice but, as Emily brought out, the serious nature of missions conferences aren’t going to bring out that side of the guys without some serious manipulation, maybe.

Should I make my ministry “Social Director For Frontier Missions Events?” Hmmm?

But I have to tell you about a teammate from Spain that will forever have by admiration. He was single and already approved for service in Spain when he met Faith. Faith was a single mom that had come to faith in Christ after a series of unfortunate decisions. She was in need not only of a companion but also a father for her two young daughters.

Jamie had already been approved and assigned to Spain for the next four years. He met with the leadership of the mission when it became apparent that the relationship was pretty serious and was told to either resign and get married, or get on with his four year assignment. He chose the latter.

Over four years I worked side-by-side with Jamie. He was from the US and I was from Canada, and so I knew nothing about Faith. In fact, we became accountability partners and still he never mentioned a word about her until he entered the final months before his assignment was up. He shared with me that they had agreed to put the relationship on hold in order for him to fully commit to what God had first called him to do. There was very little communication other than Christmas cards and birthday greetings and no commitments regarding the future.

Well, his assignment ended and he married Faith. They have her two daughters, four nephews and nieces they adopted and one of their own today. Their home is one in which Christ is honored first and foremost, and His blessing on their lives is evident to all.

First things first is an important principle.

I think it’s great that you’re talking about this and I think the discussion needs to continue. I’ve been thinking about the topic a lot in my current setting and I have several observations and personal experiences I’d like for you to respond to if you have the time (what did you expect from me, right?)

I’m at a mission conference here in SE Asia where the number of single gals is THREE TIMES the number of single guys and even higher if you’re at at SINGLES event. I went to a singles dinner last night at sat at one of the only tables with guys at it, and the ONLY one that had more guys than girls. Of the five guys there, one was my brother, and two were in their late 30s-40s. The last two were early twenties, remarkably handsome and eligible, great families, missiologies, etc, etc, ad infinitum. The perrrrfect gents. And me, being the only vaguely young or pretty gal at the table (really, I’m not just being conceited) and also the “first daughter” of the agency, I should have had the pick of the pair. And I probably would have…in any circle besides a missions one.

But I happen to know both these guys (and they they both really are great guys) and, because I know them, I know that one of them is convinced that to be a proper 3D missionary he can’t marry an American, and the other wants to get married, but his missionary mentor (who happens to be the other guy’s dad) has told him if he wants to be a team leader he can’t even THINK about women for the NEXT THREE YEARS!

Meanwhile, there are so many aching single gals at this conference that if my dad even mentions the kind of stuff you’ve talked about in this post (which, of course, he has) the backlash of hurt and angry people is TREMENDOUS. So much so, my mom and I have had to schedule ourselves to lead a seminar called “The Strategic Role of Single Women in the Mslm World” to try to balm some of those wounds.

And, while I really REALLY believe in the topic of our seminar, there’s something I would never say here, or to most single women, but I’ll say it to you: Single women are second-class citizens in the mission world. There is NO ROLE for us besides PAs and children’s helpers, there are NO TEAMS that strategize how to utilize us effectively, there are SOME AGENCIES that won’t even take us. And I don’t blame them! Most single women are volatile, fickle, rebellious, and a clear liability on the field. The two single women on my parents team in the early days BOTH ended up having affairs with MBBs. Yuck, right?

I had a heart-to-heart with my brother, Abe, about this on the way home from a friends wedding recently. He put the topic of “looking while going” that you wrote about into some perspective for me. He said that guys for most part are going to try to avoid rejection. Duh. So they’re looking for girls that look like they want to get married. And girls that are “getting on with their lives” don’t really scream, “marry me!” His wife was getting her master’s degree when they met, and he said probably wouldn’t have thought about her as an option if her dad hadn’t approached Abe directly about considering her. That was a wake-up call for me. Since then I’ve been really deliberate about letting guys know that I’m not desperate, but I am available, and I have room in my life to not only get to know them as friends, but get to know them as something more, if they’d like, and for them to introduce me to their other single guy friends. Not that I’m an easy catch, but I definitely AM catchable.

I know the pain of being in a community that has guy after guy after coming through or hanging around looking for a “beautiful, mission-minded girl from a great family” and they don’t look twice my direction. “Where exactly do I NOT line up with that ideal?” I’m forced to wonder. And I think it’s a similar experience for a lot of girls in our community. And it hurts. It hurts to have it done to me, and it hurts to see it done to my friends.

But I think it’s WAY too easy to blame the guys. I’ve been prone to do it myself and IT NEEDS TO STOP. Us girls have a share, if not a majority share in the problem. Of course, our culture, parents, mission mentors, and the sinfulness of the age, also have a lot to do with it.

Last night I was getting advice from another married guy like you on this topic and he asked me, kind of skeptically, “Really, how many offers have you gotten?” I was a bit offended so later I counted them to myself. Not only was I staggered by the total, but I had to admit that I’ve had two, perfectly decent, guys overtly interested in me IN THE LAST MONTH. I started to make a count for my girl friends and the same thing was true. Whoa.

Now, it’s not necessarily true that every guy that comes knocking is the right guy. But they’re certainly worth a second look, and maybe even a cup of coffee together. I’m so scared of getting hurt or hurting someone else that I tend to turn the interested parties away before I even know them well enough to know if I’m interested back. I know other girls who do the same, sometimes without even knowing it. And having three brothers, I also know how much it can hurt from the other side, when wonderful guys aren’t given the time of day.

So to all the guys out there, I’m SO SORRY, and you DO deserve to be loved in a godly manner and treated fairly, even by girls who are NOT going to become your wives. And to all the single girls, I know your pain, but maybe you ought to look around you, and count again.

Of course, I have a lot more to say about this (I TOLD YOU I’ve been thinking about it) but I’d really like to hear what you have to respond, Dave. Again, if you have time, Mr. Big-Man-On-Campus.

I used to resent when people told me that any loneliness associated with singleness is an opportunity to get closer to God. Now, I realize that the closer I draw to God now, the more prepared I am for whatever comes in life- more singleness or marriage- and this time really is a gift to pursue Him with everything I’ve got.