The Wayfarer's New Assignment

The Story of Jonathan the Wayfarer

The cardboard boxes sat half-packed in my apartment, monuments to a life I'd lived everywhere but here. Twenty-three years. Forty-two countries. Countless villages whose names I could still pronounce in languages I was already forgetting.

And now, nothing.

"Shifting priorities," they'd said at headquarters. "Budget reallocations." The phrases were diplomatic, but the message was clear: the world had moved on, and so should I.

I stood at my window overlooking the city-my city, though it felt foreign after so many years away. I'd walked dirt roads in Haiti, navigated monsoon floods in Bangladesh, distributed hot meals, and supplies in Eastern refugee camps in Greece. I somewhat learnt how to purify water, treat cholera, and negotiate with local officials in three languages. But alas!! I didn't know my neighbor’s names.

That evening, I found myself reaching for my worn Bible, the one that had travelled with me through every assignment. My finger traced the pages until it landed on 1 John: "Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way which he walked."

Walk as Jesus walked. I'd always thought I was doing exactly that by serving the poor, healing the sick, bringing hope to the hopeless. Wasn't that what Jesus did?

"Love one another," the next passage read. "Just as he has commanded us."

I closed my eyes. When had I last genuinely loved my Church, not as a concept, not as the distant supporters who funded my work, but as actual people? The believers sitting in pews while I was always preparing for the next departure?

The next Sunday, I forced myself to attend the church I'd joined years ago but never really belonged to. I sat in the back, feeling more out of place than I ever had overseas.

After the service, an elderly woman named by the name of Mamma Margaret approached me. "You're Jonathan, aren't you? The missionary? I've prayed for you for years, though I've only seen you twice."

Her words stung with unintended truth.

"I'm not a missionary anymore," I said. "Oh," she replied, her face falling. Then she brightened. "Well, perhaps God has brought you home for a reason."

In the weeks that followed, I began to see what I'd been missing. Margaret needed help with her grocery shopping, her arthritis had made it difficult. A young single mother named Jahanara Beg was struggling to keep up with her small group while working two jobs; she needed someone to watch her kids. Tanwar Singh, recently widowed, just needed someone to sit with him.

These weren't the dramatic needs I'd spent my career addressing. There were no photo opportunities, no newsletters to write, no donors to impress. Just ordinary people with ordinary struggles, all of them my brothers and sisters in Christ.

I thought of Jesus washing His disciples' feet. I thought of Him cooking breakfast for Peter on the shores after the resurrection. I thought of Him patiently teaching, listening, abiding with the Twelve day after ordinary day.

Walking as Jesus walked wasn't just about grand gestures. It was about faithful presence. Sacrificial love. Humble service to that right in front of me.

One evening, I sat in Tanwar Singh's living room as he showed me photos of his late wife. There were no cameras documenting this moment, no reports to file. Just two men, both learning what it meant to not be alone.

"You know," Tanwar said, "when Sarah was alive, we used to pray for you. We'd see your updates and think, 'Now there's someone really serving God.' We felt like what we did here was so small in comparison."

I shook my head. "Tanwar Jan, I've been thinking about that. I travelled the world, but I never really learned to abide, to stay, to be present, to love the way Jesus loved His disciples. Day after day. Meal after meal. Conversation after conversation."

I paused, feeling the truth of it settle in my chest. "Jesus didn't just serve humanity as a concept. He loved specific people. He knew their names, their struggles, their fears. He walked with them."

Tanwar Singh nodded slowly. "So, what you're saying is... you're home now?" "Yes," I said, and for the first time in months, I meant it. "I'm home."

Reflection

Jesus' commandment to love one another wasn't a secondary calling, it was “the calling.” Living as Jesus lived meant more than replicating His works; it meant embodying His love in the daily, faithful, humble ways He loved His disciples.

I had spent decades serving the world's marginalized folks, but I'd overlooked the poverty right in front of me: people starving for a community, thirsting for presence, needing someone to walk alongside them, talk to them or even spend some time with them.

The world's priorities may have changed, but God's hadn't. His command remained clear: Love one another. Walk as I walked.

My assignment hadn't ended. It had just begun.

"To walk as Jesus did is to love those in the Church with compassion, faithfulness, and humility. It's by this love that the world will know we are His disciples.” And this Church doesn’t necessarily need to be the folks you meet up with, smile and laugh with every Sunday. They could be just the ordinary people down your lane, your neighborhood, even some homeless soul.