In English we say a picture is worth a thousand words. In the Portuguese language, there is a word worth a thousand pictures. “SAUDADES.”

sau·da·de [souˈdädə] (noun) a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia that is supposedly characteristic of the Portuguese or Brazilian temperament.

SAUDADE

A word in Portuguese and Galician (from which it entered Spanish) that claims no direct translation in English. It describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade

We are in the final countdown month of preparations for our return to missionary service in Brazil. Many of you have asked how you can pray for us. Mark and Caron will both be sharing some thoughts on this poignant subject of leaving the land and people we love to return to the land and people we love. Here is the first of a two part series. Caron shared  s her reflections in Part 1 last week; Now, Mark shares his thoughts in Part 2.

Part 2 — Mark’s Thoughts

Hudson Taylor, at the end of a life full of suffering and trial, said, “I never made a sacrifice.”^[1] In once sense, these words seem to be blatantly contradicted by the plain facts of Christian experience in general, and all forms of Christian missions service in particular. Hardships are endured on the part of God’s people when they are obedient to God’s mission, whether in sending or in going.

God’s mission has always gone forward on the “sacrifice” of God’s people. Minimally, that sacrifice consists of giving and sending. All Christians are called sacrificially to give of their financial resources for the advance of the Gospel. Some Christians individually will be called to give of their lives by actually deploying to other places and cultures in order to spread the Gospel.

However, at the same time, Christian missions is motivated by a deep sense of gratitude, gratitude for what God has done for humanity’s salvation in Christ Jesus. “Sacrifices” made in God’s mission pale in comparison to that which He has done on our behalf in order to procure for us salvation. Temporal “sacrifices” made in God’s mission pale in comparison to the eternal benefits that wait for us in God’s certain, coming Kingdom. His servants believe these truths, live for these truths, and willingly undergo personal hardships for the sake of these truths.

Is Christian missions a “sacrifice”?

In one sense, Hudson Taylor is right; deploying for the Great Commission is not a sacrifice. It is a privilege. No hardship experienced on our part equals the magnitude of the grace of God lavished upon us in Christ Jesus.

Yet, in another sense, the pain felt in Christian service is very real. The nature of missionary service is such that common human pain is often times amplified beyond normal experience by the additional challenges and stresses of trans-cultural living and cross-communication. As a result, the normal hardships of life, including the Christian life, are magnified in the rigors of transcultural living, ministry, and survival.

Missionaries deeply feel the pain of separation from kin and country that deploying for the Great Commission demands. This pain is real, and it can be very intense. This pain has been a constant companion in my missionary pilgrimage. For twenty-three years, I have lived with this reality of Great Commission obedience in my life, the pain of good-byes. Indeed, nothing has been more painful than the good-byes.

My first years of leaving family and friends to go to the mission field were accompanied by a deep sense of pain and loneliness.  Initially, leaving family and friends, I would cry like a baby. Sometime ago, I quit crying. Not because the pain of separation grew less, but not even tears could bring healing to the heart. For some sorts of pain, the hurt runs too deep to be casually cured.

• Medicine can mask the pain.
• Counsel can ease the pain.
• Diversion helps to momentarily forget the pain.

However, as an American, I always felt the deeply held cultural assumption that I had to get through pain, get over pain, and/or move on from pain in order to be whole. After all, “the pursuit of happiness” is a part of the political and cultural legacy of what it means to be American. It was at that point that Christian missions itself taught me how to deal with, live with, and ultimately embrace that which I felt most deeply in my heart. Allow me to share another story from the life of Hudson Taylor that illustrates this important life lesson. The following passage is from The Growth of a Soul, vol 1. Written by Howard and Geraldine Taylor, son and daughter-in-law of Hudson Taylor.

My beloved, now sainted mother had come over … to see me off. Never shall I forget that day, nor how she went with me into the cabin that was to be my home for nearly six long months. With a mother’s loving hand she smoothed the little bed. She sat by my side and joined in the last hymn we should sing together before parting, we knelt down and she prayed – the last mother’s prayer I was to hear before leaving for China. Then notice was given that we must separate, and we had to say good-bye, never expecting to meet on earth again.

For my sake she restrained her feelings as much as possible. We parted, and she went ashore giving me her blessing, I stood alone on deck, and she followed the ship as we moved toward the dock-gates, As we passed through the gates and the separation really commenced, never shall I forget the cry of anguish wrung from that mother’s heart. It went through me like a knife, I never knew so fully, until then, what ‘God so loved the world’ meant. And I am quite sure my precious mother learned more of the love of God for the perishing in that one hour than in all her life before.

 Oh how it must grieve the heart of God when He sees His children indifferent to the needs of that wide world for which His beloved, His only Son suffered and died. 

Hudson said: “I never knew so fully, until then, what ‘God so loved the world’ meant.” These key words from have helped me walk through the pain of separation from family and loved ones.

Simple though it may be, it came as a revelation to my spirit that it was “Ok” to be deeply grieved with saying good-bye.

How could it be anything else but terribly painful to leave those that we love? It was “Ok” to be saddened to leave behind aging parents for whom I longed to care, precious family for whom I longed to be near, and long-time friends with whom I desired to share life. It was not necessary for me to “get over and move beyond” anything that I felt, because the pain I felt was real.

Painful, sacrificial love is the essence of the very faith that God’s people have been sent to proclaim to the nations.

The pain of separation was part and parcel of Christ’s incarnation and ultimately His atoning work on our behalf.

• Salvation cost the Father loss of fellowship with His Son as He became a propitiation, a sin offering on our behalf.
• Salvation cost the Son communion with His Father, which He had enjoyed for all eternity, when He took unto Himself the wrath for which humanity’s sin deserved.
• His cry of dereliction, abandonment, and separation was the price paid for sinner’s salvation.

It comes as no surprise that those who follow in the footsteps of the Savior must be willing as well to walk in the same way of suffering and separation as He walked. As we go to the nations, we go as messengers of a costly sacrificial love. It is no small wonder that we too must bear the marks in our spirits, and at times our bodies, of this same sacrificial love for others that is necessary to make Christ known among All Peoples in All Places.

Caron and I have known the pain of leaving fathers who have now gone on to be with Jesus, mothers who are now aging, precious family members whose relationships are treasured, and now two grandsons. All of these have been painful. Particularly, it is now leaving the two grandsons that brings with it a type of pain heretofore not experienced in my life. I deeply grieve leaving them, because I so deeply want to invest in them, to love them, to see them become the men God would have them to be.

Only one love motivates me to continue in what is indeed a painful mission, God’s eternal love for the lost.

He has lost sheep in All Places among All Peoples whom He desires to call to Himself. These come from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Embracing God’s love for lost souls and His costly mission to redeem them, I can embrace the pain of leaving and separation. I can embrace the pain of good-byes.

When the pain of the mission is embraced, the feeling left in the human heart is “saudades,” the genuine heart-longings that one feels for the people and places we most treasure. I can live with this pain because it is an integral part of a mission bigger than the pain that I feel. For the day will come when these words of Christ words will become true: “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3 NASB).

What will we feel when this Day finally comes to pass? In this life, we embrace the pain of Great Commission faithfulness and live with the sweet “saudades” that God’s Spirit leaves in the heart. The Day is coming when all hearts in Christ will find the eternal joy for which their hearts long. Words from J. R. R. Tolkien express the future for which all God’s saints yearn:

“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”

“A great Shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count.

For now, we embrace pain in God’s mission to the nations, but the day is coming when everything sad is going to come untrue.

It is for this we labor. It is for this we long. It is for this we eagerly await. What does it mean to have “saudades?” For me, it means making peace with my pain for sake of the Prince of Peace.

^[1] Piper, J. (2002). Brothers, we are not professionals: a plea to pastors for radical ministry (p. 52). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.