Tribute to a Failure
At 53 years old, Dad was looking for a new career. He had been a missionary in a predominately Muslim country for six years, but visas to that country became difficult to get. So, in 1994, our family returned to the United States. The missions project was abandoned.
But Dad didn’t give up. After returning to America, he spent six years working on a doctorate degree in cross-cultural education through Biola’s School of Intercultural Studies so he could return as a professor to the country in which they longed to minister. That was the plan.
With the doctorate degree completed, my parents returned to their original mission field. Just months later, the events of Sept. 11, 2001, fueled terrorist activity there. The missionaries, including my dad and mom, were forced to flee. The projects and offices my dad had helped administrate were inherited by the government.
My parents had spent their lives and savings on the mission field and had no home to return to. So they moved in with me, my husband, Greg, and our 11-month-old son. We all lived in a two-bedroom apartment, waiting for Dad to find a job where he could use his degree.
I love my parents, and they helped with the baby, so for a while living together was satisfactory. But, eventually, my husband and I wanted to bond within our own small family. Yet my parents’ homeless period dragged on.
After a year of rejections from universities and colleges, Dad found a job teaching ninth-grade history. With much anticipation of their new lives, my parents moved to San Jose, Calif., for his teaching career.
Just two months later, Mom called to say Dad had resigned. With no experience or training in classroom management, he had been unprepared for the challenges of a high school classroom.
I was stunned. How could this happen? My mind ran through a list of “what ifs”: What if they had called us a few weeks before? I had taught middle school for two years; maybe I could have stayed with them for a week and given him tips on classroom management and lesson planning. Why hadn’t the school administration observed some of his classes and given him advice? But it was too late now — he had already resigned.
Remembering how, the last time they lived with us, weeks had turned into months and months into a year, Greg and I asked my newlywed sister to house Mom and Dad. She and her husband agreed.
But their living conditions weren’t my only concern. I couldn’t understand how God could let this happen to a couple who had dedicated their lives to serving Him. Failed mission project, doctorate degree my dad hadn’t been able to use, no income — was this God’s plan? Failure? Does He make a man for failure?
I struggled with these thoughts for days. During this time, in one of my teacher credentialing classes at Biola, the professor spoke about coping with failure. She said that President Abraham Lincoln failed in business twice, was defeated for political positions eight times, and suffered a nervous breakdown. But he was persistent. In 1860, he was elected president and became one of America’s most dearly loved presidents.
As I drove home from class, I thought about other “failures.” I remembered the biblical prophet Jeremiah, who never succeeded in turning the people of Judah from their sins. As a result of his prophecies, he was put in stocks, imprisoned, thrown in a cistern, and eventually had to flee to Egypt to escape Babylonian attack. What a failure! But he had prophesied exactly as God told him to.
And then there was Jesus. He never owned a house, nice clothing or transportation. Like my father, he lived off the support of others. His ministry was mocked and rejected by the religious leadership, leading to an early and torturous death as a criminal. But God the Father said of him, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
I wondered: Could it be that God is not so concerned with our success as He is with our obedience?
My father has been prayerfully obedient whenever he felt God’s call. Once, while we were in the country mentioned above, a teacher brought one of her high school students to my parents and asked them to care for the girl, who was being neglected at home. My parents had two teenage girls of their own, but they prayed and agreed to parent her. Soon, two more teenage girls were at our door asking to stay with us for similar reasons. Dad acted as a compassionate, respectable father to five teenage girls, three of whom were not his own. Each afternoon, all five of us sat around the dining table and listened to him read from the Bible.
Things looked different when I tried seeing Dad’s life from this perspective.
In 2003 — nine years after my parents returned from the mission field — they moved out of my sister’s house. Dad began his current job at a trucking company, and my parents rented a one-bedroom apartment.
Today, people look at my father and see a man who is middle-aged, working in a modest career and living in a small apartment. But they do not see his three adopted daughters serving as powerful witnesses of hope in their own war-torn country. And they may not understand the father’s joy that comes from knowing his children are walking with God. But, hopefully, they can see in Dad the peace that flows from willingly serving God, even in the humblest situations.
That is true success! And God is not done using Dad yet!
Charis (McCollum, ’99, ’03) Rippe has a B.A. in English education and an M.A. in education from Biola University. She and her husband, Greg, live in Clearlake, Calif., with their three children: Samuel (4), Faye (3) and newborn baby, Hadia.
© Biola University 2005