Ep. 260: We Said Yes to the Call

Isaac Dagneau:

Hey, welcome to Indoubt. My name is Isaac. I’m one of the hosts of Indoubt, and I’m also one of the pastors at North Valley Baptist Church in Mission, British Columbia, Canada. I’m excited to be on the show today with Andrew Rokeby. He’s a new friend of mine. He’s a husband and a father also living in British Columbia in Canada. But he will soon, Lord willing, be leading his family many, many kilometers away from here as they follow God’s call for them to be missionaries. And I’ll let him, as we go on in this conversation, fill in more details of that. But anyways, I just want to say, first of all, thank you for being on the show with us today, Andrew.

Andrew Rokeby:

Thank you so much for having me.

Isaac Dagneau:

I do want to begin, and this is the way we begin all of our conversations, just by hearing a bit about who you are just personally. And I think a great way, especially since we are brothers in Christ and many people that are listening are Christians. It’d be great just to hear your salvation story. And then, sort of leading up to just where you’re at right now, what your life looks like in this present moment.

Andrew Rokeby:

Yeah, I’m Andrew Rokeby, and I’ve been married to my wife Tanja for eight years, and we have two children. John is two years old, and Anna is six months old. I grew up in Northern Ontario in a small city called Timmins. I came to saving faith as a young boy through the witness of my dad. He shared the gospel with me, and I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior. I was baptized a few years later and grew up in our local church. We are really involved there, and it was really the center of our community growing up. It’s been now about, let’s see, coming up on a year since we’ve been appointed as long-term missionaries to Japan with Fellowship International, which is the sending agency of our Fellowship of Baptist Churches. And right now, we’re just going around… Well, at this moment, we’re not visiting any churches, but we’re getting in contact with churches and reaching out and looking to find folks who share our vision for ministry. And our ministry is, we’ve been appointed to serve in Japan long-term as disciple-makers partnering with a existing local church to really equip them and encourage them as they reach out into their community. We have to bring the good news of Jesus Christ.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah, That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing. That is so good. Before we kind of get more into your personal story when it comes to missions and some of the inner thoughts conversations that you maybe had or maybe still have as you approach actually going over to Japan like you said. I’m wondering if you could just sort of give us what you believe best defines a missionary. So what is a missionary? I think important to come to grips with at least this before we sort of jumped into the personal stuff. Missionary is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot in the church. If you’re listening and you’re used to church, missions, missionary, these are words that you hear, but sometimes we lose sight of what they really mean. So let us know what is the mission?

Andrew Rokeby:

Yeah, I think at the broadest sense, a missionary is someone who is about the business of proclaiming the gospel to the unreached. But I think it’s very useful to have a more specific and particular definition of a missionary to be helpful and meaningful as someone who has been sent by a church across cultures for the proclamation of the gospel or to a ministry where the primary function is the proclamation of the gospel. So, of course, this can be worked out in many ways other than just planting churches. So you don’t have to be planting churches to be a missionary. But I think those key components there are someone who’s been sent by church across cultures for the proclamation of the gospel.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah, That’s good. And I think it’s important that you say across nations it’s to the unreached, this sort of idea. Because I think there was maybe, and it wasn’t bad, but there was sort of this push to impose the idea of missionary in all Christians. We’re all missionaries.

Andrew Rokeby:

Yeah.

Isaac Dagneau:

We interviewed Duane Fraser from Joshua Project a few years ago, and he kind of made the point if everyone’s a missionary, then no one’s a missionary.

Andrew Rokeby:

Yeah. You lose the meaning of the word when you say everybody’s a missionary, well, then what am I?

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah exactly.

Andrew Rokeby:

What’s the difference between you and me if everyone’s a missionary?

Isaac Dagneau:

Totally. Totally. And I mean, what you and your wife Tanja, and John, and Anna are going to be doing is going to be a lot different than many others. Although, the same, I mean, disciple-making, we’re both going to be doing. Everyone is going to be Christian ought to be disciple-making, but you have the specific calling that sending away. And it makes me think about in Acts when the church in Antioch came together. They prayed and fasted, and they sent out Paul and Barnabas and some of those others to go and to proclaim the gospel. So, your church has sent you and Tanja and your family out to do this. I just was wondering, and I didn’t ask you this beforehand, so this is sort of a curveball. I hope you’re okay with that. Do you remember the first moment that missions or even being a missionary began to take hold of your heart? Was it a specific moment? Was it a conversation? Was it a sermon you heard? Was it maybe a season in your life? I’m not sure. Do you remember something that was like, “I’m going to be missionary?”

Andrew Rokeby:

Yeah, I would say that the first time that I really started thinking about missions was, I was age 18. And I moved out to the West coast here to study at University of Victoria. My first Sunday at church, the pastor sermon had a question at the center, and the question was if prestige and wealth were important, what would you be doing with your life? And at that time, as a young man starting university with kind of dreams and aspirations for life. My goals at that time in life were comfort and respect. I was a university student, and people should have respect that. And I was going to have to get a great job and have a comfortable life. I immediately thought when I heard that question, “Oh, I’m going to be a missionary.” But then those other ideas of comfort and respect really overwhelmed that, and I didn’t give much thought to missionary service for a number of years after that. But I really identify that as the first moment when the Lord was really working in my heart to bring about the change necessary for me to get on board with His plan for my life.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah, That’s good. No, I appreciate that. And I think it’s just a good call for all of us who sit under regular good preaching to really be attentive because you never know when the Holy Spirit’s going to speak through your pastor or one of your Christian leaders or even one of your Christian friends that brings about some of those pivotal questions, pivotal moments in your life that will really change the trajectory of your life. That’s really cool. Also, your story reminds me of. I’m sure you’ve heard of and have looked into a little bit about Adoniram and Ann Judson.

Andrew Rokeby:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Isaac Dagneau:

Or Nancy, as she went by some times. It’s sort of similar. You’re in school. You want to get this good job, all these different things. And you probably had the potential to really do well. And I think about Adoniram, and he was very, very, very smart. And he could’ve probably been in government in Boston there and all these different things, but he still chose to take that lunge and go over there. And his story is quite something. But anyways, it just kind of reminded me of that. I’d love to hear now, Andrew, some of the inner conversation that you’ve had with yourself. You’ve already kind of mentioned a little bit about your inner kind of maybe conflict of sort of living a life of comfort but also going. So what is some of that inner conversation that you’ve had with yourself as you’ve considered missions? What are some of those conflicting thoughts? How have you worked through those, or are you still working through some of those things?

Andrew Rokeby:

Yeah. So, like I said. At the time, my primary pursuit in life, my goal was really centered in myself about comfort, and security and respect. So it wasn’t until a few years later, in 2011, that God really ordained my path that I would travel to Japan to do relief work in evangelism in communities that have been affected by the earthquake and tsunami that happened in March 2011. And I ended up going there on pretty short notice. It was, I think, I got the green light to go on a Tuesday, and I was there on a Friday, and I traveled alone. Yeah, it was my first time outside of North America. And at the time, I was really looking selfishly for some volunteer work to put on my application for medical school.

Isaac Dagneau:

Thank you for your honesty.

Andrew Rokeby:

While I wanted to help out and I had a humanitarian’s heart. My main driver was [inaudible 00:09:38], this is a great opportunity for me. Not seeing that it was going to be a way in which the Lord would really be working in me. So I spent about 25 days in country. And while I was there, I stayed with a missionary family. And I learned a lot about their ministry and their life as missionaries in Japan. And while they were often uncomfortable and life was challenging, they also had a strong sense of fulfillment and purpose in what they were doing in the ministry there. So when I returned home, the spirit really started working in my heart to work out those idols in my life. I started to realize how much I had been idolizing comfort and the respect of others. And at the same time, I started to take on more leadership in my local church, started leading a Bible study for young adults in my place. I had one year of undergraduate studies left, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do when that was done. So I started seeking out the counsel of others. Started talking to other mature believers about how I’d seen the Lord working in my life and seeking out their advice. So through that process, I ended finishing up my studies and then applying to study at Northwest Baptist Seminary, which is at Trinity Western University, and being immersed in that environment was really the kind of next step of working out those areas of sin in my life. Being immersed in an environment with other believers who were pursuing ministry really helped me grow and surrender to God’s will in my life. So my burden to reach the lost became less of a burden and more of a joy.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah, yeah. That’s so good. And I think what’s one of the key parts there is that immersing yourself in a community of other believers that are like-minded and want to grow more in their understanding of the word and also have the pursuit of seeing lives changed. It’s amazing. It’s so amazing how much your group of those that influence you. Your friends, your family, they really do influence you. And if you want to be more, let’s say, maybe you’re listening, and you struggle with joy in your faith, this personal joy. Well, think about people in your church that are just always happy in Christ and just hang out with them. And I know it’s COVID. Have a Zoom call with them, go for a walk. That’s okay. Hang out with them, and the Lord will begin to use them to really help shape you. I think that’s really powerful, Andrew, just to hear that. That was a way that the Lord helped you work through some of your sin was immersing yourself in this community where you began to see the passion around you. In Matthew 28, this is obviously a very famous text, not just for missionaries, but for all people. We hear the command of Jesus after he basically declared this authority that has been given to him for all things. He says, “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, teaching them everything. I’m with you.” We know this. It’s a command, right. This is a command. Jesus is not giving a suggestion, a recommendation to some people. It’s the command. So in one sense, as I was thinking about it, you and your family. You and Tanja are just being obedient. You’re being obedient to Matthew 28. But obviously, we know that the work of disciple-making, we’ve talked about this, is also essential in the nation that we find ourselves in, obviously. But for you, I’m just wondering, was becoming a missionary more of this calling that you felt by the spirit, or was it just sort of decision that you’re like, “I’m going to choose to obey this command in this particular way?” Or maybe it was a little bit of both?

Andrew Rokeby:

I can really look back on my life and see God ordaining my path towards becoming a missionary. He’s really put me in circumstances and introduced me to different mentors who spoke into my life to that effect. But I believe that all true missionaries are sent by a church and not by themselves. So while I felt the leading of the spirit, that God was ordaining my life. Our real calling to missions came through the elders of our local church, are when they consecrated us for missionary service. So I can think it can be a temptation for some churches to have a young person come to them and say, “Pastor, God is calling me to missions. Please sign this paperwork. I need you to sign off on this.” And it can be easy to get really excited about a young person who’s showing that kind of passion. But I think it’s important to go through a process of discernment. And we’re really thankful that our church went through a process of discernment with us, which it was after we expressed a calling for long-term missionary service. Our church went through a process with us about two years in length, where they really evaluated us and looked at not just our involvement in ministry but our personal lives. And this really gave us a great assurance that not only do we sense the Lord’s calling, but also our elders were seeing the same thing.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah, yeah. That’s so good. And it’s sort of backwards sometimes, because we live in this fast-paced culture, right. We want our food fast. We want our show’s fast. Want everything fast. And yet, lots of good things come with time. And I think that’s really powerful that your church actually puts you through this two-year sort of discernment process to kind of set you up for success and set up Japan for success as well. They don’t want to just receive some Christians that are going to be there for a little bit, and then they get flaky and then take off. It’s the lifelong thing. That’s really cool. Was there maybe a particular passage, biblical story, maybe a doctrine something, some truth of scripture, truth of God that sort of kept you going through the process of, and still because you’re not in Japan yet. This sort of this process of preparing you and your family to go to Japan? Has there been some particular that has sort of gripped you or helped you through those moments that you feel tired, weak, maybe unsure?

Andrew Rokeby:

Yeah. I think a passage that really resonated me as the Lord was drawing me along, sometimes kicking against the goads is from Acts nine, where Paul receives his call to ministry. At the very start of his ministry, he was faced with the cost of his ministry. The costs was so revealed upfront. And while I don’t anticipate any physical persecution as a missionary in Japan, I really knew that in going to the mission field, I would be facing some costs. And I would have to give up things like comfort and certainty in employment and predictability that I wouldn’t be pursuing a life of comfort. So, in a sense, my life was going to be harder than I had planned, but God had so much more in store for me than my small vision for life.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s so good. And you mentioned Paul, and when you read through, if you haven’t read through the New Testament and you’re listening, then read through at least first and second Corinthians, and you’ll get a look at some… or Acts, the book of Acts. You’ll get a sense of some of what Paul went through and in the midst of just hardship through the ministry that God called him to go and preach to the non-Jews, right. He experienced this joy and this communion with the Lord that probably surpassed many people that never experienced the same sort of hardship. And so that’s really cool. I’m glad that he, Andrew, is like Paul. The spirit through Paul and his calling is encouraging you to experience that same joy through this. You mentioned there that you don’t foresee physical persecution. What are, maybe, some other challenges that you kind of foresee as being an issue potentially when you go to Japan with your family? And as you consider those with your wife, with your family. How have you worked through these, and how are you working through them?

Andrew Rokeby:

On the mission field in Japan, one of the things can be very discouraging for missionaries is to labor for many years without seeing any fruit. So the soil Japan is hard to the seeds of the gospel. So after finishing seminary, we spent about six months in Japan as midterm missionaries with a church plant. While there, one of the missionaries said something very important to me. He said, “You need to have a good understanding of your role here, or you’re not going to survive. You scatter the seeds of the gospel, but salvation is a ministry of the Holy Spirit.” So that message really stuck with me. The idea that my job is to labor in Japan, but I can’t conjure up fruit. That’s really the work of the Lord. So I can do my work trusting that the Lord is going to bring the fruit in his perfect timing.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah. Amen. That’s so good. And that reminds me too of… I often think about we’re called to be fishers of people, and our job is to lay down the nets. And obviously, even in scripture, we see Jesus as the one. Lay him over here. And then He’s the one that fills. And I find that just encouraging that we don’t have to have this sense of guilt or this burden of saving people. That’s not our job. We’re going to kill ourselves in guilt if we think that way. And also, just to bring up Adoniram again. Seven years he was in Burma, which is now Myanmar before they had their first convert. Seven years. And in today’s terms of getting results and ROI, your return on investment, that sucks. That is not very good. But praise the Lord. Him and his wife’s determination. And then, that was just after seven years, one and then two, three, four, and then it started to birth. So I think that can be encouraging. We’re starting to approach our time here, Andrew, but there’s a couple of things I just want to get to before we finish up and maybe one more sort of personal thing, and then a way that we could maybe encourage other people that are considering missions. So maybe as a personal question, I’m going to jump here. Obviously, you know the gospel. Your father is the one that told you it and brought you to the saving faith so long ago. So in reflecting on the truths of the gospel, some of the themes and some of the realities that we experience through the sort of the crux of the gospel, that is Jesus and what He did for us. How do you see the gospel and the gospel’s sort of truths impacting your future in missions? How are those things going to help you as you go on the mission field?

Andrew Rokeby:

Yeah. I think there’s a few elements of the gospel that really impact our future in ministry. And first, I would say Christ example of pouring himself out for his church is as we seek to imitate Christ in our ministry, really pouring ourselves into the churches with which we will be working. Really see, living that life of sacrifice and pouring out oneself. Recognizing that having a right perspective on eternity, as far as what we decide to do with the life that the Lord’s given us.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Rokeby:

And then, second. I see that in the gospel, there’s the element of salvation. But then God doesn’t just save us and leave us there. He gives us his spirit and continually sanctifies us. So the gospel is a long-term investment. And we really see our ministry in Japan. I kind of tell people half-jokingly, but in truth, people ask us how long are you going to be there? And we say, “Oh, we’re going to be there until the Lord sends us elsewhere. Until the Lord calls us home or until the Lord comes to get us.”

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah.

Andrew Rokeby:

And we really see our investment in Japan as being a long-term investment, as we spend our life investing in what the Lord is doing in Japan in the same way that in the gospel, the Lord not only saves us but continually invest in us. The Lord is committed to us for eternity.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s so good. As we wrap this up, Andrew, I want you to speak as someone who is a missionary and is preparing to go. I would love for you to be able to speak into the lives of maybe those listening that are beginning to sense this maybe burden may be to do the same to follow. So for someone listening, who’s interested, what sort of advice would you give them as they begin to consider this more? What would you say to them?

Andrew Rokeby:

Yeah. If I could give two pieces of advice, first I would say don’t rush. God’s plans will not be thwarted because you took time to adequately prepare for the missions [inaudible 00:23:15]. It’s been five years since we returned from our midterm service in Japan to now raising support for long-term service. And far from wasted time, God has been using this time to prepare us and mature us for the mission field. And second. I would really encourage anyone who’s looking and feeling their call to mission is to talk to your church leaders and engage them in the discernment process. And even if that means really having to prod them to get engaged in the discernment process. Your church leaders are going to be able to better discern than you on your own if you’re suited and ready for ministry. And when they give you that stamp of approval, you’re going to have so much more assurance that the Lord is calling you to ministry.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah, that’s so, so good. Andrew, if anyone wants to learn more about you and your family, your mission’s journey, is there anywhere they can go? I don’t know. I should have asked this beforehand, but is there a site or a place they can go to learn more about you and your family’s personal ministry?

Andrew Rokeby:

Yeah. So we have a web page with our mission, and that’s fellowship.ca/rokeby. That’s R-O-K-E-B as in Bravo, Y. And if you just want to drop me an email, our email address is atrokeby@fellowship.ca, and I would be happy to have a conversation with you about your call to missions and point you in the right direction.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, thank you for opening yourself up for that. That’s awesome. Thank you so much, Andrew. We so appreciate you and your family. And obviously, you guys being obedient to where the Lord is leading you. But also, just thank you for taking time to chat with us today. We appreciate it.

Andrew Rokeby:

Thank you so much for having me.

Isaac Dagneau:

That was Andrew Rokeby. A missionary who is preparing to leave British Columbia in Canada, along with his wife and two young children, to go and make disciples of Jesus in Japan. In our conversation, we obviously didn’t get too much into the particular culture of Japan. Only that the ground is hard to the seed of the gospel. To give some perspective, there are over 126 million people living in Japan. And approximately 97.9% of them are considered unreached. Meaning, there’s a good chance that those people will live their lives and perhaps never hear the gospel. Joshua Project, which is a great Christian organization that seeks to help Christians understand sort of the missions’ climate of our world. They explain the unreached as those people groups that have no believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group without outside assistance. Well, we’re excited that our friends, Andrew and Tanja Rokeby, along with their children, will be going as that outside assistance to proclaim the gospel and make disciples among the many unreached peoples in Japan. Again, if you want to know more about Andrew and his calling to Japan, you can head to fellowship.ca/rokeby. Anyways, I hope you enjoy today’s conversation as we think about missions. And please join us next week as we continue to have conversations that will impact our lives and our faith. We hope you’ll join us again.