27 September, 2019

Missionary code words—do you have them sorted out?

I read an amusing article a while back about "code words" in missionary prayer letters, but I'd say some of them are employed by plenty of other people, for example, in annual Christmas letters. 

For example, the article gives this one: "it's been a year of transitions". If I were to guess what that meant, I could suggest it might include: "it was a year when we packed a lot of bags and endured many stressful moments in airports, or, we had to say a lot of goodbyes and work hard at getting to know new people."

So I went hunting in our own prayer letter for some "code words". I don't think there are too many, but perhaps you can suggest some more. Here are some I found:

[Regarding summer holidays] "These were much needed and much appreciated breaks away." Meant: we were desperate for a holiday and had been for some time. 

"Pray for patience with one another as we adjust to everyone being based at home for 10 weeks." Well, I'm guessing that that probably isn't so coded. Use your imagination! Especially when thinking about the extra hot days where only three rooms in our house are airconditioned and we spent most of our days there together (including me trying to work). 

The word "farewells" appeared several times in recent letters. That means that we'd said goodbye to quite a number of people, yet again, for the 19th year in a row (in our case). Some were close, others not so much. It's relentless, even if we ourselves don't move.

"Continue to pray that God would provide us with new financial support." Yep, you might know that we nearly didn't get back to Japan in January because of this exact issue. It's just some words on the paper until you're living it, then it is a real challenge to trust God for all you need.

"Praise God for the various people who helped us to quickly pack up and leave Australia and also to settle back into Japan." This means that people did stuff for us like, take school uniforms and offer to sell them to other parents, cleaned our house, housed us when we were exhausted and in the deep throes of transition. People who stocked our fridge in Japan and found blankets for our beds for when we arrived close to midnight on our first day back in Japan and picked us up from the bus from the airport. And many more, I listed some here at the time. We wouldn't have made the move anywhere near so gracefully without all this help (and I don't know how graceful it was, even with their help...).

In our last two prayer letters I've used the word "challenging". It was in relation to the life of one of our sons. This meant everything from: "we lost sleep over him" to "he spent hours with David each day working on an online subject just to meet the deadlines". And plenty more that I can't share, which, of course, is why sometimes we resort to "code words". We can't share everything and rely on perceptive praying people to read between the lines.

What code words have you seen in prayer letters? Do you know what they mean? We use code words in polite conversation too, sometimes they help smooth the way when you don't have much time, or you don't know how committed someone is to hearing all the details, or you simply can't tell the details because you are protecting someone. Which code words do you find the most difficult to decipher?

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