Missionary Work Is Not for Sissies

By Barbara J. McKim

"You have just stepped into life" those were the prophetic words spoken to the author by her new
husbands non-Christian friend. She would later discover how accurate those words were.

If you are wondering if you are called to the life of a missionary; gain insight from the adventures of two
travelers who started their lifelong journeys together in military life, the authors husband being a U.S. Navy
pilot at that time.

Follow the continuing escapades of the author as the wife of a commercial Airline pilot, later becoming
church planters and eventually entering the mission field.

These many encounters are not only about the life of the author and her husband. The recollections also
include some of the authors family and tales about many friendships forged along the way.

Stories that include very special friends who are much admired and respected by the author and her husband.
Two thirds of God's name is GO; If you are called to GO, the author guarantees you will never be bored.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Nov 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483439617

Book preview

MISSIONARY WORK IS NOT FOR SISSIES

Barbara J. McKim

Copyright © 2015 Barbara J. McKim.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3962-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3961-7 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 10/27/2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1:   Our Journey Together Begins

Chapter 2:   Time for a Change

Chapter 3:   Church Planting

Chapter 4:   Africa; here we come!

Chapter 5:   Come to China!

Chapter 6:   Merciful God

Chapter 7:   2/3 of God’s name is GO!

Chapter 8:   Bouncing around the World

Chapter 9:   Claim your family for Jesus

Chapter 10:   Here, There and Back Again

Chapter 11:   A Familiar Name

Chapter 12:   Disaster strikes

Chapter 13:   To Go or Not to Go

Chapter 14:   Don’s Adventure

Dedicated to my husband Bob McKim, our cousin Dorothy McKim, and Debbie Sell, all of whom over many years, have been encouraging me to write a book. I finally thought Maybe the Lord is speaking to me through them without them this book would not have been written.

Also dedicated to my Aunt, Esther Flenniken, who raised me like one of her own children when my own mother could not afford to keep me. By her loving example she helped me to see the humorous side of life.

Special thanks to Miriam McKim who’s help and expertise on the computer kept me from totally blowing all my mind circuits when attempting to deliver these photographs and the manuscript to the publishing company.

Arise

Awaken and arise from your slumber O’ world!

The King of glory beckons you to come!

You who’s fear has made you numb

You who’s brain is seared by rum

You who’s mouth has too long been mum!

Arise and meet your deliverer

Jesus has redeemed your soul

Now He reaches out to make you whole

Arise and fulfill your destiny!

He has chosen you to carry His glory

You are anointed to tell His story!

His Holy Spirit will guide you with gifts from on high

His Holy word gives you promises you can live by!

Awaken and Arise from your slumber!

Declare the Glory of your soon coming King!

- Barbara McKim

CHAPTER 1

OUR JOURNEY TOGETHER BEGINS

Missionaries are a hardy group. As a youngster, I have heard many criticisms of this group of dedicated warriors. Things like, they are just weak bleeding hearts, and they do this because they are not qualified for any other job, they are foolhardy, or they are running away from responsibilities. Many of these judgments have been handed down by people as they sat in their comfortable homes, having cars and being well-fed and clothed.

In our journey through life, we have seen just the opposite of these pronouncements made by chair-side critics. Missionaries we have met, some of whom I discuss in this book, are strong, focused, and endure circumstances that would cause others in this country to cringe in fear. They are determined to aid and bless others in their service to Jesus Christ our Lord; missionary work is not for sissies.

Stand up the Prophet said! We stood up and he pointed his finger at my husband and me; You are called to be God’s commandoes, you will go into other countries and you will strike a hard blow against the enemy there! You will be in and out before he realizes what has happened to him, you will withdraw and strike again in another place confounding the enemy while doing God’s will; you will be destroying the gains God’s enemies have made in those areas. You will be going in and out, in and out and you will also be used to set at liberty those who are bound in your own homeland.

I looked at my husband of many years and my mind went back to the past when I had met, for the first time a dashing young Navy pilot at the Alameda officers club. He, being a stranger to me had asked me to dance and while we were dancing he took me by surprise when he announced to me within five minutes of meeting me that he was going to marry me. My reaction was one of total disbelief; I looked at him like he had kissed the Blarney stone and thought oh boy, I have heard some lines in my life but this guy has them all beat. Yet in just a matter of months there I was married to him and flying across the Pacific Ocean on Pan American Airlines to Japan where I would follow the Aircraft carrier he was serving on from port to port in that country.

Prior to that trip, I had been introduced to one of my new husband’s friends who said to me you have just stepped into life! I did not know what he meant at the time. However, as I stepped off the plane in the middle section of Japan; Tokyo (having never before been out of the U.S.), I began to understand what he had meant. Especially since I was greeted by my husband with the information that his ship and everyone on it were going out to sea in three days! He gave me a booklet on how to speak Japanese in 2 weeks and told me to remember yen is money then he informed me that I was to meet the ship at Sasebo Japan which was located clear at the southern end of Japan; the ship he was serving on was scheduled to make port there in two weeks.

Fortunately for me, there were several other wives who had already been following the same ship, and I was able to travel with them, because it turned out to be well over a month before we would see that ship and the men on it again. Instead of going to Sasebo as they were scheduled to do, the ship had been sent to Laos due to acts of hostility that had taken place in that area.

It didn’t take long to figure out that my little book on speaking Japanese was pretty useless, when I stumbled through the words to ask a question, they would shoot back rapid fire at me in Japanese, they spoke too quickly for my friends and I to look up the answers in my little booklet of Japanese words. I have since learned, when going to a foreign country for the first time, it is wise to educate yourself about that culture before traveling there.

I had a series of misadventures in Japan, but my knack for misadventures has not decreased much over the years. Thankfully my many misadventures have taught me a certain amount of wisdom. I have seldom made the same mistake twice. Seldom being the key word here, I cannot say I never made the same mistake twice!

I was soon to discover when traveling out in the Japanese countryside, away from the big cities; each public bathroom (known as binjo’s) were for both men and woman; the year was 1961, male and females were not allowed to share the same bathroom in the U.S. at that time, and as I had never left the U.S. before, this came as a big shock to me.

One of the wives I often traveled with was very pregnant and when she needed to make use of one of the he/she type binjo’s she would post me at the door and say don’t let any men in here! Fortunately I was never challenged while standing guard duty at the binjo door.

Thankfully at the movie theatres in Tokyo they had separate binjos for the men and woman, however none of the commodes in Japan at that time were the kind that allowed a person to sit down, they were holes in the floor and there were no railings to hang onto. When the Aircraft Carrier my husband was stationed on, was still in port prior to going to sea; we went to see a movie in Tokyo and while using the binjo there I lost my balance over one and my foot went far into the hole, I told my husband if one of my feet suddenly grew larger than the other it would be because it had been well fertilized.

When we traveled to southern Japan to meet the Aircraft carrier, most of the wives traveled by plane to Sasebo, the seaport city where we were scheduled to meet our husbands. However one of the wives and I opted to travel overnight by train so we could see much of the countryside up close.

While waiting for our train, I sensed someone staring at us, I looked to my right, and there was a husky Japanese man in his full World War II fighting uniform, he reminded me of old black and white war movies from the 1940’s where the Japanese soldiers were creeping through the jungle. These movies scared the be-jibbers out of me when I was 10; looking at this man; I don’t think I have ever experienced so much hatred emanating from one person’s eyes before; if he could have gotten away with it, he would have slit our throats. I thought to myself the war ended 15 years ago, and you lost! My friend standing next to me said don’t look at him! She really was a lot brighter than I was at that time in my life.

While on this train, we got hungry in the evening; not speaking the language and not knowing the dining car was closed for the night; we set out to find it. We started going through the various cars in search of the dining car. I was leading the way when, upon entering one of the cars I came face to face with a man in his underwear carrying his suit over his arm, when I saw him I immediately froze! He smiled and bowed very politely, a quick look around and I discovered there were only men in that car and they were all in their underwear. They seemed to find my flustered reaction very amusing and were all smiling; meanwhile my traveling companion was behind me, trying to push me forward and saying, Keep moving! Keep moving!

Of course when we finally discovered that the dining car was closed for the night we were disappointed, but worst of all we had to go back through the car where all the underwear men were in order to get back to our sleeping area. We moved through that particular area as fast as we could without running, this time my traveling companion was saying, don’t look around! I was not looking to the left or the right, only straight ahead to the door I was going to escape through.

When we joined the other wives in Sasebo; they told us we would be staying at the Bachelors Officers Quarters. You may ask why were you staying at the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters? Simply stated; there were no military living quarters available on the Navy base in Sasebo for wives traveling alone; but we were very fortunate because my train traveling companion was the daughter in-law of the Chief of Naval Operations, because of this; when two of the Commanders wives traveling with our group, made the establishment directors aware of this, they were very happy to accommodate all of us.

My traveling friend and I were later to experience firsthand what it is like to be discriminated against. While we were staying at the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters in Sasebo; we requested information from the Japanese desk clerk, we asked for the address of a restaurant where we could get authentic Japanese food, he wrote an address down in Japanese for us to give to the taxi cab driver. When the driver dropped us off at the restaurant, he asked if he should wait for us. We told him that was not necessary because we would just get another cab after dinner. When we got out of the cab we noticed people all along the street, coming out to their second story balconies to stare at us.

We entered the restaurant and we were quickly ushered back out again. We were told in no uncertain terms that Caucasians were not allowed in this restaurant; as a matter of fact, they were not even allowed in this neighborhood and he suggested for our own safety that we depart very quickly. The taxi driver had waited for us; he understood we would not be welcome there. Since I had never discriminated against any race of people that I had been fortunate enough to meet, this came as quite a surprise to me.

At another time my same friend and I were to meet the ship which our husbands were on at the marine base in Iwakuni; While the other wives flew to Hong Kong my friend and I travelled on to Iwakuni by train ahead of them; when we got there we found out there were no rooms available on the base so we had to find a place to sleep off base. We eventually found rooms at the Miss Iwakuni Hotel which was a lovely place; actually it was also the only hotel in that whole village. We did however eat our meals at the Officers club on the Navy base, and every time we mentioned where we were staying to one of the military men there, they laughed out loud; finally I insisted on knowing why this was so funny! I found out we were staying at a Bordello! But nevertheless we stayed there since nothing else was available; when the other wives arrived they stayed at the same hotel with us and soon our husbands were also able to join us there as well.

Traveling by the local train system between cities in Japan sometimes proved to be a chore, on one occasion some university students overheard me discussing our destination with one of the wives (Japanese, young and old liked to try their English out on us, it was a way of learning for them, so when not personally engaging us in conversation, they would listen to our conversations).

These university students informed us we were on the wrong train, when the train stopped at the next station they grabbed our suitcases and said follow us then they jumped off the train and they took off running with our luggage. Meanwhile we were trying hard to keep up with them, hoping they were not stealing our luggage. They put us on the correct train and told us we had been headed way out of our way. I never forgot their kindness. This was the beginning of a healing process for me; learning how very thoughtful some of the young Japanese people were. These had been a people that I had learned to mistrust as a little girl when Pearl Harbor was bombed and my favorite Uncle went off to war. This feeling of mistrust had been reinforced when we had been sent to an area for dinner that was not safe for us, and when the Japanese Army veteran at the train