What I Learned Working with Missionaries
The sun blazed down on the heads of hundreds of people, the whole crowd streaming toward an enormous mosque. I was a few days into my NEXT internship in Central Europe, and my team and I were visiting the largest mosque in the city during afternoon prayer.
As we filed into the last crosswalk before our destination, I noticed an elderly man struggling to get his walker over the curb. I glanced around. Surely he had a relative or friend nearby?
Then, before anyone else could approach, one of my team leaders jumped forward. He helped the man lift his walker over the curb, then sent him on his way.
The act seemed like a small kindness. As we walked away, though, the moment stayed with me. I had assumed that someone else in that huge crowd, someone with a closer relationship to the man with the walker, would help him.
But my teammate — a six-foot-tall American man, who certainly stood out from the crowd of mostly
Turkish Muslim people around us — hadn’t waited for anyone else to step forward. He had just helped.
We were probably the only Christians on that street. Who knows? That older man may have never interacted with a follower of Jesus before in his life.
A small kindness, sure — but a profound witness for Christ.
For the first time, I began to understand the actual scope of missionary work. It doesn’t have to be some kind of lofty calling. Sometimes, being Christ’s witness means lifting a Muslim man’s walker over a curb.
Anyone could do that, I realized. I could have done it.
Maybe I could be a missionary, too.
Later that summer, my fellow interns and I had the opportunity to attend Global Partners’ Summit conference. In group worship services, breakout sessions, and poolside conversations, I watched and listened to dozens of missionaries talk about life and ministry. They listened to me, too, and helped me start discovering my own call to missions.
Again and again, I noticed how purposefully they all lived. They displayed intentionality by seeking to deepen their faith, making personal growth plans, praying for the global church, and even mentoring us interns — all alongside living in different cultures in order to share the gospel with the unreached.
By the end of my internship, I knew I wanted to be part of that community. God confirmed my call to missions in personal prayer, through affirmation from other missionaries, and by giving me more chances to explore what my specific work might look like. 
One of those opportunities was a second, shorter NEXT trip. Several months after my time in Central Europe, I spent a week on a field in the Turkic-Arabic Area. My teammates and I learned about Islam, Middle-Eastern culture, and the plight of refugees around the world.
On the last day of our trip, our site leader read us an excerpt from the book Everything Sad Is Untrue, by Daniel Nayeri. It’s the true story of the author’s childhood experiences as a refugee. I still remember our leader’s voice breaking as he read Nayeri’s description of the hopeless, impersonal monotony of a refugee camp he and his family had to live in for a while.
Tears rose to my eyes as I listened. A song lyric came to mind, and I thought, “God, I want you to break my heart for what breaks yours.” Our site leader grieved for people forced to leave their homes and endure loss after loss, many of them without the hope of Christ.
As I thought about it, I realized that God had already given me a broken heart — for Muslims and for refugees. All I’d needed to do was pause and pay attention to where he had directed my attention in the past.
Without my short-term experiences, I never would have seen myself as a missionary. Growing up, I was taught that God could call anyone to the mission field. Somehow, though, I still hadn’t expected him to call me.
Thanks to the missionaries I’ve met, I learned that the Lord’s work goes far beyond my expectations. God could — and did — call me. He also prepared me and showed me a path forward. Every follower of Christ has a role to play in fulfilling the Great Commission, and I’m excited to keep learning and growing as I discover my part.