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A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries
Have We No Rights?
Mabel Williamson
China Inland Mission
Overseas Missionary Fellowship
Moody Press
Chicago
Copyright ©, 1957, by
THE MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE
OF CHICAGO
Reprinted, 1973
_Printed in the United States of America_
_Contents_
CHAPTER PAGE
1. Rights 7
2. The Right to What I Consider a Normal Standard of Living 11
3. The Right to the Ordinary Safeguards of Good Health 23
4. The Right to Regulate My Private Affairs As I Wish 33
5. The Right to Privacy 39
6. The Right to My Own Time 47
7. The Right to a Normal Romance, If Any 55
8. The Right to a Normal Home Life 67
9. The Right to Live With the People of My Choice 81
10. The Right to Feel Superior 91
11. The Right to Run Things 103
12. He Had No Rights 125
NOTE: Most of the Scripture quotations have been taken from the
American Standard Version.
CHAPTER 1
_Rights_
"Well," said mother, setting down a cup she had just wiped, and
picking up another, "the older I get, and the older my children get,
the more I realize how little right a person has even to her own
children. By the time they get--well--into high school they aren't
yours any more."
"But, Mother," I protested, dropping a dripping dishcloth into the
dishpan and looking at her in amazement, "of course we are yours!
Whose else would we be?"
There was silence for a moment. Then, "You--you belong to yourselves,"
she said quietly.
America--the land of freedom and opportunity! The land where
everyone's rights are respected! The land where the son of a shiftless
drunkard can grit his teeth and say, "I'm going to be rich and famous
some day!" Here in America we pride ourselves on the fact that
everyone has the right to live his own life as he pleases--provided,
that is, that he does not infringe upon the rights of someone else.
Rights--your rights; my rights. Just what are rights, anyway?
* * * * *
A group of half a dozen missionaries were gathered for prayer in a
simply furnished living room of a mission house in China. For a few
minutes one of the group spoke to us out of his heart, and I shall
never forget the gist of what he said.
"You know," he began, "there's a great deal of difference between
_eating bitterness_ [Chinese idiom for 'suffering hardship'] and
_eating loss_ [Chinese idiom for 'suffering the infringement of one's
rights']. 'Eating bitterness' is easy enough. To go out with the
preaching band, walk twenty or thirty miles to the place where you are
to work, help set up the tent, placard the town with posters, and
spend several weeks in a strenuous campaign of meetings and
visitation--why, that's a thrill! Your bed may be made of a couple of
planks laid on sawhorses, and you may have to eat boiled rice, greens,
and beancurd three times a day. But that's just the beauty of it! Why,
it's good for anyone to go back to the simple life! A little healthy
'bitterness' is good for anybody!
"When I came to China," he continued, "I was all ready to 'eat
bitterness' and like it. That hasn't troubled me particularly. It
takes a little while to get your palate and your digestion used to
Chinese food, of course, but that was no harder than I had expected.
Another thing, however"--and he paused significantly--"_another thing_
that I had never thought about came up to make trouble. I had to 'eat
loss'! I found that I couldn't stand up for my rights--that I couldn't
even _have_ any rights. I found that I had to give them up, every one,
and that was the hardest thing of all."
* * * * *
That missionary was right. On the mission field it is not the enduring
of hardships, the lack of comforts, and the roughness of the life that
make the missionary cringe and falter. It is something far less
romantic and far more real. It is something that will hit you right
down where you live. The missionary has to give up having his own way.
He has to give up having any rights. He has, in the words of Jesus, to
"deny himself." He just has to give up _himself_.
Paul knew all about this. If you do not believe it, look at I
Corinthians 9. "Have we no right to eat and to drink?" he asks. "Have
we not a right to forbear working?... Nevertheless," he goes on, "we
did not use this right.... Though I was free from all men, I brought
myself under bondage to all, that I might gain the more" (vv. 4, 6,
12, 19).
Paul, as a missionary, willingly gave up his rights for the sake of
the Gospel. Are we ready to do the same?
"But," someone will ask, "why should this be especially true for the
_missionary_? What rights must be given up on the mission field that a
consecrated Christian at home would not have to give up?"
The following chapters picture some of them.