"Just listen to me a minute!" another voice spoke up. "I'll tell you the one way out of this difficulty. Everybody wants a congenial fellow worker. Well, there's only one way to be sure, and that is—pick your own! That's what I'm going to do!"
"Don't be stupid!" clamored three or four voices at once. "Pick your own! Just as if we'd be allowed to pick our own senior workers! What are you talking about?"
"Just what I said. I'm picking my own senior worker! Of course I may not be able to do it right away—I may have to live with one that Mr. Gibb picks for me for a year or two—but I'm getting the one I've picked for myself in the end!"
At that juncture two girls jumped upon the speaker, and rolled her from the bed to the floor. "Just because you are engaged you don't need to think you are better than we are!" and the serious discussion broke up with a laugh.
With whom am I going to live and work for the next six months? For the next six years? For the rest of my life? Who will be the one I will see the first thing in the morning, and the last thing at night, and all the time in between? With whom will I sit down at the table three times a day? Who will be my fellow worker, my companion in recreation, the one who spends time with me at the Throne of Grace, pleading for souls, and for the upbuilding of God's Church? Yes, it's quite a question. For somehow, mission boards usually seem to recognize only one legitimate reason for allowing a missionary to choose his or her own fellow worker, and that one reason is marriage. Even married couples will probably be asked to take one or more younger workers into their homes; and if you are one who remains single, why, you will just have to let the superintendent, or committee, pick your companion and fellow worker for you.
When I was in high school it was one of my ambitions to learn to be at home in any environment. Whether a wealthy home or a poverty-stricken one, whether an American culture or the culture of some other group, I wanted to be able to live in that environment as though I had grown up in it. This ambition was no doubt laudable and its attainment is very useful to the missionary. I found later, however, that it does not quite go to the heart of the problem. My ambition at present is not so much to be able to live happily in any environment as to be able to live happily with any other missionary.
This statement may horrify some of my readers. If I had said I make it my ambition to be able to live happily with anyone, you would have had no bone to pick with me. But no, I must say, with any other missionary! Am I trying to imply that some missionaries are hard to live with? That class of God's devoted servants who have given up all to go for Him to the far corners of the earth? Let anyone else be hard to get along with, but surely not missionaries!
Well, missionaries (excepting some feeble folk like me) are the salt of the earth. At the same time, my experience on the foreign field leads me to the conclusion that it takes a good deal more grace to live happily with one's fellow workers on the foreign field than it does at home. Why? The reasons are varied. I think I can safely say that most missionaries are rather strong-minded. If they were not, perhaps they would never have gotten to the foreign field! They know what they want to do, and they know how they want to do it. Most missionaries will agree on the task to be accomplished; but what are the best means to accomplish it—that is not always so easy to agree upon! The older worker may think the younger worker's plans wild and impracticable. The younger worker may think the older worker stodgy and in a rut. Perhaps both may be right. Happy the fellow workers who can learn to discuss their pet ideas without heat! Happy the fellow workers who can develop just the right combination of initiative and co-operation!
It is hard to realize how closely one is shut up to a fellow worker on the mission field. Probably there are no others of your own race in the place where you live. At home one can live with one group, work with another, and have special friends that are entirely apart from either group. On the field there is no one else—no one who speaks your native tongue, understands your background, or has the same pattern of thought as yourself. Perhaps you are stationed with one other worker. Every human heart longs for some special friend; but this fellow worker may not be one you would have chosen for a special friend. Perhaps she has some mannerisms that are irritating to you. Perhaps you like dogs and she hates them. Perhaps she believes in being extremely economical and you like to spend money more freely. In some ways, as two single missionaries live and work together, the relation is as close as that between husband and wife; but in this case the two have not chosen one another. Of course the relationship is not established for life; and the missionary who finds herself paired off with an uncongenial fellow worker may console herself by hoping that a change will come soon. That frame of mind, however, is not exactly conducive to the sort of adjustment that would make for the most effective carrying on of the work.