How to Make Pancakes
A while ago Lois had to be gone, so she left me instructions on making breakfast for the kids. I was to get the package of pancake mix from the pantry, add water, mix, and cook on the griddle. After a few mistakes, I was able to serve a platter of hotcakes to my happy children.
Those instructions, though, were incomplete. They assumed that there would be pancake mix, properly prepared with the right ingredients in the right proportions. They assumed, too, that the mix would be free of impurities, contain no bugs or dirt, and was suitable for human consumption. There was a lot more involved that the simple instructions ignored.
To make pancakes from scratch, first a farmer has to select a suitable field. It has to be cleared of trees and bushes. Rocks have to be removed and the soil plowed up and leveled. Even small weeds need to be removed. Likely a fence needs to be put up to keep grazing animals out of the wheat field. Water has to be available to nourish the anticipated crop. Then good seed needs to be sown and birds kept from eating the seed before it germinates. As the wheat begins to grow, new weeds need to be pulled and the soil kept watered. Finally, after months of hard work the wheat can be harvested, but we are not ready for pancakes yet. The wheat has to be ground into flour, transported to market, inspected, properly packaged, delivered to the store, and finally purchased. Yes, there is a lot more involved than mixing water with pancake mix.
If we, as a group, wanted to support pancake production, we could get behind The Original Pancake House in Bend. They produce hundreds, perhaps thousands of pancakes every day. That would be exciting. It would be far more boring, tedious, and tiresome to support some rural farmer who, perhaps, labors for years before a single pancake is produced. But the fact is, without those farmers, without all that tedious work, The Original Pancake House could not exist.
It’s also exciting to support a dynamic evangelist who can move into a city, canvas a neighborhood, rent a hall, and in a few short weeks have a small but thriving church. Wow, that’s exciting! But we tend to forget what must come before. There are fruitless, dreary years consumed as missionaries work in an unreached, often tribal, situation. They spend years learning the language and culture to translate the Scriptures in a culturally relevant way. Others do medical work, social projects, literacy training, and economic development—all projects needed to soften the soil before the seed of the Gospel can be sown. Then follows years of teaching, disciplining, and mentoring to weed out false teaching, cults, and syncretism. It is difficult, exhausting work, fraught with danger and watered with tears.
I recall one statement from years ago, when reading missionary biographies, that still haunts me today. Reading about missionary work in China among Muslims, where my grandfather served, the account stated that, after years of missionary work, there were more graves of missionary children than converts from Islam. It’s hard. It’s often heart-breaking. But if we want to see souls saved, this is the type of work we need to get behind, support with finances and prayers, encourage, motivate, participate in, and yes, encourage our young people to dedicate their lives to.
That’s the hard work that needs to be done so eventually some father can serve pancakes to his children before they go off to Sunday School.