WHAT'S IN STORE
A few years ago I had my best friend drive me thirty miles outside the city to a chicken farm/storage container lot (yes, you read that right). We came home that day without any chickens, but we did arrange for a used 45-foot-long storage container to be delivered to a friend’s property. My in-laws, who at the time were missionaries in Kenya, purchased half the container, so both of us could use it to store our stuff when we were living overseas.
As my son Daniel and I approached our container in early July of this year to unpack it, the summer sun beat down on us. Before being able to open it, we first had to stamp down a bunch of weeds that each stood a few feet high, blocking our path to the entrance. We then struggled to creak the doors open, since we hadn’t touched the container after sealing it in November of 2018 shortly before we moved to Brazil. I was curious what things awaited us now, nearly three years later.
The first sensation was the rush of hot air. Without any insulation our stuff baked each summer and chilled every winter. Such extremes create condensation as well, which eventually evaporates to feed mold and mildew. Our plastic containers did okay in keeping the worst effects of this process away from our stuff, but some containers cracked, and we were left cleaning mold off books, movies, clothes, and even furniture.
On top of the mold our wooden items warped. Some drawers required a lot of strength to open, while others wouldn’t open at all. That same summer sun that beat down on Daniel and me helped cleanse our furniture that same day. And after a day or two indoors most of the smell and warping went away.
As Daniel and I unpacked our storage unit, I couldn’t believe what things we put in there three years earlier. Forgotten things. Useless things. Unnecessary things. We kept too many clothes, towels, and sheets. Some things made little sense to store in there at all, such as my street hockey nets.
I got rid of most of my books before moving to Brazil, but I was surprised to be greeted by several more boxes of books that won’t be going on a plane to Brazil anytime soon. Now is the time to let them all go along with the clothes, the movies, the towels, and even the hockey nets.
Absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder. In some cases, it gives cold clarity. Things I thought I wanted to keep a few years ago are expendable now. As we pored through our belongings like one of those families from a Hoarders television show we identified things to throw away, things to donate, and things to keep.
Our container is like a 45-foot-long time capsule. Some items will end right back up in the container. There are office decorations still without an office to adorn: framed diplomas, baseball memorabilia, and my beloved John Calvin bobblehead. My childhood keepsakes were fun to unpack, only to be repacked, as I have nowhere to put them in our rental home. We also have photo albums and pictures from when our kids were little, and Marci and I were younger. For a moment I felt like Clark Griswold, sitting in his attic looking at old movies.
Instead of an attic we have a container, and next June we will be storing things in it once more. Our furniture will get too hot and cold again. More of our plastic containers will crack. And, Lord willing, when we reopen the container in the summer of 2026 who knows what our reaction will be to the things we chose to put in there this time.
As Daniel and I sweat and worked for hours through the container we finally got to the very back of it, where belongings from Marci’s parents lied. After serving as missionaries for over forty years they had to retire abruptly as her Dad got sick and then died in 2020.
In their time capsule rested all their materials from their life as missionaries: clothes, small furniture items, and their missionary materials: their collapsible white screen, their carousel slide projector, and various items from Kenya that they would bring to partnering churches as they connected with their support team. So many tools of the trade that will never again see the light of day, just sitting and forgotten.
As I stood and stared at them, I couldn’t differentiate between my sweat and my tears. Truly, as James writes, our life is but a vapor or puff of smoke.
How do you sum up the life of a missionary? Jesus warns us that life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions. And as with everything else in our lives, our belongings literally straddle two worlds. We constantly fight off fears that everything—and even our family itself—can become forgotten in both worlds.
Paul, whose missionary life was far more difficult than mine, once wrote: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers”(Galatians 6:9-10).
At the end of that hot summer’s day in July my body and soul were weary, but I remained thankful for the calling God has had for us. I am thankful for how he used Marci’s parents for decades. Although we constantly shuffle items and bits of our hearts back and forth on this earth, we are thankful that God continues to give us the grace and comfort we need for each day.
Thanks be to God that the real legacy of being a missionary is not the abundance or condition of the items stored in our containers, but how God works in us and even through us to proclaim the good news of his kingdom in a new tongue to new people. We can all be thankful that he uses all of us, whether we go or stay, as we make the most of our opportunities to do good to all people.
But, even knowing all that, it still hurts to rustle through pieces of a past life that are stored away and forgotten with weeds growing all around, especially when it’s my past life. I wonder what’s in store for my children if they ever have to work through my container-time capsule after I am gone.