Even married couples will feel this to a certain extent. A young married couple will probably have to live with an older couple for the first two or three years on the field. Owing perhaps to the shortage of men, and perhaps to other reasons, it even happens that sometimes a young married couple is sent to live for their "breaking-in" period with one or two older single lady missionaries! The initial period passes, and they are given a home and a work of their own. But they are not likely to be left alone long. Younger workers will be coming along, and most married couples are rarely without other workers living in their homes. Besides this, it is likely that the husband will need to be away from home for weeks and even months at a time, leaving the wife at home with the little ones and the junior workers.
The single worker feels the force of this even more strongly. Two good friends may be placed in a station together; or what is more likely, two who have been placed together may become especially good friends. The fact that they are good friends, however, cannot be a reason for placing them together, nor for leaving them together. Any of us would realize that. The placing of workers is determined by the best interests of the work. If, when the best interests of the work are considered, it seems right to place two special friends together, or to leave them together, well and good. If not, why, that's the end of it!
Not being able to choose my own fellow worker will present two possible difficulties for me. One is that I may be placed with someone who does not appeal to me. The other is that I may be separated from someone with whom I strongly desire to remain. The first difficulty is one that comes along now and then. Probably most missionaries, at one time or another, have had a period of living with someone with whom they did not seem to "hit it off." The second difficulty is, for the unmarried worker at least, of much more common occurrence. Over and over again it happens. Just when you and someone else have lived together long enough to rub off the rough corners, and come to a place where you really "fit," along comes an upheaval, and you are separated. We like to put down roots. We like to make friends and stay with them, but on the mission field frequent change of location and of fellow workers is the normal thing. New personnel is constantly being added, and older workers are constantly retiring. New stations are constantly being opened. And the single worker, time and time again, finds herself being separated from a fellow worker with whom she would prefer to remain permanently!
Some will notice that I have been using pronouns in the feminine gender. This is not without reason, since by far the majority of single workers on the field are women. And, as has been said, one of the hardest things the single woman worker must face is that she can never say to anyone, "I'm going to stay with you."
"What a negative sort of outlook!" exclaims someone; and we must thank that one for reminding us that there is a positive side. There is One whom we may choose for our Companion. (How amazing that I should be allowed to choose Him!) And it is just because we have already chosen the one Companion who will not leave us that we may not choose anyone else—not even a husband or wife—without reference to Him. As soon as we choose Him, then He does all our choosing for us.
According to old Oriental custom, marriages were arranged by parents with the aid of a middleman. Sometimes when things went wrong after marriage one of the couple, or both, would blame the middleman. When marriages are made after the Western pattern, there is no one to blame but oneself. Before I left America I used to think that marriages arranged by parents, through middlemen, must necessarily be unhappy. But after I had been on the field for a time I decided that in China the proportion of happy marriages among those outside of Christ was greater than marriages of those of the same group in America, even though almost all the marriages in China were made after the old traditional style! People who choose partners for themselves do not always choose wisely. Older people, with more experience, may make a wiser choice than the young people themselves would have done. It may be better to have a trustworthy middleman than to try to do the choosing oneself!
If this is true of an earthly middleman, how much more it is true of the One who chooses for us! The earthly middleman may do very well in many cases, but certainly he makes some mistakes. The One who chooses for us makes no mistakes. So whether it be a matter of accepting a fellow worker you would rather not have, or of letting go one whom you would like to keep—remember the One who does the choosing for us makes no mistakes.