Missionary Writer Ramblings

I never liked English class. I got confused with pronouns and adverbs. I never memorized the lists and I got lost in the explanations. English is a hard language. Writing was never on my radar. I had no plans to write anything of value. None. Though I did think that writing my story would be cool. However, I also thought that it would be rather egotistical. 

Then I became a missionary. Missionaries are expected to write updates. Back in the day our mission told us that a supporting church wanted to receive at least one update every quarter. I had been on a missions committee and remembered getting loooooong updates, with fine print and fuzzy pictures. Ho hum. 

Anyway, we joined our mission in June of 1993, the very same year that email became a popular way of communicating. You remember email right? 

The old update method saw missionaries typing out multiple letters to multiple supporters, addressing multiple envelopes, sealing said envelopes, licking stamps and tossing the quarterly communications into the nearest mailbox. I got a cramp just writing that! 

Me, I thought, wait a minute, if email is fast and churches like quarterly communications, how much better would they like more notes? I mean, if hearing from a missionary is exciting, just imagine the jubilation of multiple communications! 

So I got my email list together and started writing when stuff happened. If it was once quarterly then so be it. But usually, for me, stuff happened more often. So I wrote short notes more often. 

I started getting comments like, "We love your updates. They seem so real." Or, "I can imagine you talking when I read your emails." Or, "You are so funny". One pastor friend even said, from his pulpit on Sunday morning, "I get so many updates from Mike, that I have labeled them 'spam'!" Then he chuckled as he looked at me with a wink. I could see his sarcasm. Oops! 

However, most comments were positive and the spam people didn't comment at all. So I was good with that. 

I remember one update that started me on my writing career. I had gotten a tad flowery in my wording that morning but decided to send the email anyway. A few hours later, a coworker sent me a note, "Mike, you are such a good writer! That update was an amazing blessing! Thank you." 

I was stunned and pleased. This friend, whom I considered a very articulate person, was complimenting me on my writing. Her comment was what I needed to begin focusing more on my content. I didn't want to sound fake or sickeningly verbose but I did like to sound like me. 

For some reason I thought that beginning an update with a long scripture verse was silly. Not that scripture is silly, it's just that it seemed like a way of making an update look "spiritual" and long when it was neither. But that is just my thought. 

My belief is that people either read or don't read according to how they see you or how they feel on a given day. If they read your notes, great! If not, great too. It's a free country. Politics aside. 

Just last night I came across an old blog that I started years ago. As I read through some of the posts, I cracked up and cried. It was fun to read what I had written so long ago and it was rewarding too. God has blessed me with the ability to communicate. I believe that it is an art form that can be developed with practice. I have written my life story in five volumes and published four books to date. The fifth is half done and I hope to publish that soon. 

So, where am I going with all of this? Nowhere in particular. These are just missionary writer ramblings.