Dead Doctors

I believe the number was ten; ten dead doctors in Afghanistan; doctors in the north, treating ailments of the eye among the population, killed by the Taliban. The Taliban said they had distributed Bibles. Although the group for which the doctors worked had a religious affiliation, there was no missionary work - nor distribution of Bibles among the populace.
That sums up what I recall.

I do not like the Taliban. They are among the more disgusting results of the CIA and American meddling in the boiling pots of wars against America's enemies: our country has spent considerable money supporting intolerant forms of Islam to create surrogates to fight the USSR and Communism years ago. We found that after the USSR was gone, the intolerance grew on its own, like a genetically modified rare plant escaped from the laboratory.

What I want to talk about, however, is missionary work. This has been a topic that has exercised my mind ever since someone quoted the Bible at me: Going forth to nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
What did that mean?
I have to admit that I do not like the manner in which many groups push their missionary work upon the world. I do not like the large-scale pushes to gain cathecumens, nor the mega-church with millions sending its emissaries tax-free to engage and enrage the local population....

The doctors in Afghanistan spent some time there. They worked for better eyesight. They could not miraculously make the blind see, but they could do all medical science could do.
And this seems a close approximation to what the meaning of the Going Forth to all Nations means: live and teach as I have lived and taught: live your life as one living among the nations: do not take a few years of your life to do what you believe is mission work and then return to the home you actually love... for you must do the most difficult things, leave your home and families - forever ! Abandon your father and your mother.

Teach by act and example.
Teach by paradox: the meek shall inherit the earth! the mighty shall be removed from their thrones! Although there may be holy books to quote, these holy books obviously cannot be the length and breadth of the Teaching, for there was need for parable and paradox to make the mind escape from the mundane bonds of mens' thinking and mens' hearing.

There have been some missionaries like this.
Avoid the inhumanly large scale of efforts; avoid large churches and assemblies. There is the work of mankind here: politics rather than the work of the spirit.These approach God as did the builders of the Tower of Babel, demonstrating their own superiority, not their abject humility.

The work of God transforms. It is the most difficult thing in the world, for it is not of the world. Missionary teaching will possibly transform the hearers, but it must also transform the teacher.

The paradox of missions is: you must teach in absolute humility - a humility equal to the awareness that your message is one of many. This is not to say all messages are the same; it does set forth the paradox that our teaching is enveloped in the humility of one who knows nothing.
And by knowing nothing, we find the way to know all.