On Family, COVID-19, & Being a Missionary at Home

As a freelancer, I've been looking forward to that day when I get to choose where to go and stay in that place for as long as I want. In 2018, when I finally turned my back on office-based work to fully transition to remote working, that dream is slowly coming true.

What I Thought Was Life on Mission

For more or less 1 year, I joined mission activities while bringing my work with me. We stayed at parishes and schools for a day, a couple of days, or a week. It was such an enlightening experience. My schedule is full most of the time, hitting deadlines at night and talking to students during the day about Jesus. And at the end of the day, as we pray our night prayer, I feel exhausted. But I'm fine with it. I thought this was what I prayed for. I asked for this missionary life working on the side.

But God has better plans, as always. He has a way of interrupting my life, which I think was good enough, and brought me somewhere else. He took me back home.

Family: The Heart of All Missions

Albeit hesitantly, I packed my bags and headed home with high hopes that the lockdown would only take a couple of weeks. My father needed to take a break from his job because of the pandemic, which meant I needed to earn for the family. Seven months later, I'm still at home. This pandemic brought me back to where the mission starts – family.

Staying at home made me realize a lot of things. Three of the most significant of these are the following:

• On God as the ultimate provider – As more companies close due to the pandemic, I am extremely grateful to God that I'm still working now. The desires he planted in my heart since 10 years ago have never been clearer now. All I want to do is go wherever I want to go and continue earning. And right now, I am where I need to be.

• On marriage and family – Personally, having kids is a real hassle. Add to that the stress of running a family. But in the 7 months of staying at home, I was able to take a closer at the beauty of family life. The peace I'm enjoying at home is priceless and seeing my family happy and content makes all the struggle of working worth it.
  

• On my own identity and being a child – This pandemic helped me acknowledge my potential, especially in terms of handling family finances. Having kids might be a struggle. But I thought if my parents didn't have any kids, I wonder what would happen to them now.

I used to think missionary life was all about going to different places and sharing the Good News. But in the light of the recent pandemic, I realized that being on a mission is seeing and feeling God in whatever circumstance I might be in. I realized that the most important mission a person can have is to see a family through. The family is the heart of all missions. Charity begins at home.