“Graciana” has worked for a decade in one of Asia’s restricted-access countries. From a Spanish-speaking home where she never heard the Gospel, to leading an Easter service on a temple threshold, this woman is guts, grit, and godliness all rolled into one.

Since the late 1980s, Ibero-Americans (Spanish and Portuguese-speaking) have become a significant mission force. COMIBAM, a mission-mobilizing organization in the Latino world, reported in late 2006 that approximately 10,000 Ibero-American missionaries now serve worldwide. The majority serve cross-culturally in South America; the second largest majority serve in Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist countries. More than half are women. Graciana’s story parallels the plotlines of hundreds of Latinos who have heard and followed a call to mission. The Latino movement—like the birth of modern mission two centuries ago and the subsequent movements that founded SIM—is characterized by faith and sacrifice.

While many possess the tenacity to serve, they are hindered by inadequate infrastructure: cross-cultural training, member care, health insurance, support from their home church, and relationships with field churches. These gaps may take an unnecessary toll of attrition and discouragement. Some simply board a plane and arrive at a foreign destination knowing no one. Others are sent by agencies that fail to provide supportive networks on the field. Still others never make it.

“SIM wants to collaborate enthusiastically with emerging mission movements,” writes Malcolm McGregor, SIM International Director. “Sharing our knowledge and experience and being willing to learn from them is our intentional priority.”

Latinos like Graciana, who survive and eventually thrive, become able to help others cross the bridge into mission.

Father of the Fatherless

Alcohol made life miserable in Graciana’s home. “My father beat my mother and us children. For three or four years we kept running from house to house to get away from him.” Although the family didn’t attend church, her mother taught her the Lord’s Prayer. One night as Graciana recited the words, “Our Father in heaven,” it occurred to her that the picture in front of her contained only Jesus and his mother. With childlike candor she resumed her prayer, “Your family looks like my family; we are without a father. But I hear that you are a good Father. I want to meet you as a Father.” And the Father of the fatherless honored the faith of this child.

Two weeks later, a woman invited her to a Vacation Bible School. There Graciana heard for the first time about God’s love, and she wept with conviction. That night, the 11-year-old embraced Christ’s forgiveness and resolved to serve him. Later that same year, her parents divorced. When her mother eventually brought home another man, Graciana ran away. But not to the streets. She moved in with the pastor’s family at the evangelical church.

Each Saturday the church had Missions Day. She heard the story of William Carey, the first modern missionary to India. She began to pray daily for several Asian countries, for the believers and for more Christian workers. Believing that missionaries were not allowed in those countries, she never considered going herself. Then at age 14, she attended a youth camp where she heard the story of five North American missionaries martyred in 1956 in her country. Overcome with conviction, she felt Jesus call her to be a missionary. Her daily prayers for other missionaries became a prayer also for herself. When the camp director asked if anyone wanted to attend seminary, she answered with Isaiah’s words, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8).

Graciana returned to her church and served there doing odd jobs, completing high school and then university at night. She encountered a hurdle at seminary, where women were expected to study Christian Education. She challenged the precedent, and became the first woman to study theology at the Baptist Seminary in Ecuador. Even then, her call to mission seemed an impossible dream; local churches were not ready to send people overseas. She was even rejected for cross-cultural mission in another part of Ecuador because, as the board explained, “It is too difficult to send single women.” So she continued to work at her church and to teach at the seminary.

Then she traveled to Costa Rica for a mission conference. Exposed again to spiritual needs in Asia, Graciana felt her calling distinctly reconfirmed. She also sensed God instructing her not to return to Ecuador. Astonished—she knew no one, had no place to stay and no job—she asked God for clarification. Then she saw a woman using an object she had never seen before. Curious, she approached to ask what it was. The woman smiled and said it was a laptop computer. During the conversation that followed, the woman, who knew nothing about Graciana, said, “God sent you here for something. If he is asking you to stay in Costa Rica and you need a place to stay, I will be happy to help you. My church sends missionaries, and we can support you.” In stunned obedience, Graciana immediately wrote letters of resignation to her church and seminary.

Protected by a Nose Stud

For the next two years Graciana studied missions at FEDEMEC in Costa Rica, receiving free tuition, a job, and a student visa. The Father of the fatherless left no detail unattended. As she spent her days and nights in study, the Holy Spirit became her advocate by preparing the hearts of pastors in Costa Rica and Ecuador to support her. In 1997, after years of patient obedience, she set foot on Asian soil.

“In spite of my background and the grinding poverty,” Graciana says, “God has granted the greatest desire of my heart. Nothing can keep us from God’s will when he steps into our lives.”

She soon discovered alarming attitudes towards women in her adopted country. She recounts, “In this country, parents sometimes abort, kill, or sell baby girls to avoid paying the required marriage dowry. Women who don’t meet this fate are pierced in the nose and adorned with a nose stud. This causes men to treat them with respect in public, because there’s a man—father, husband, brother, or uncle—standing behind them.” Fatherless and husbandless, Graciana decided to pierce her nose anyway. “I am a single woman with no earthly man,” she says. “My nose stud means that my heavenly Father stands behind me.”

After a decade in Asia, Graciana now has a discipling relationship with 18 people, who in turn disciple 2,000 others in the city. She also plays an important role in helping other Latinos find their way to effective mission work in Asia.

Grace in the Margins

Like many Latino missionaries, Graciana’s journey into missionary service is marked by persistent marginalization: family turmoil, a visionless church, poverty, no English, being female, and being single. Yet the God of grace empowered Graciana, because his heart dwells with the disenfranchised.

Family turmoil — Graciana’s family offered no prospects for education or for emotional and mental health. Nothing in her family background created opportunities for success in her future.

Church — Years of selfless service finally helped inspire her church to accept her call to mission and to help send her.

English — The mission information and training that she needed were, for many years, available only in English, which she didn’t speak. (Native English speakers also find more open doors in Asia and Africa because English is a global language.)

Poverty — Graciana could hardly have lived further from the resources needed to fund her education and mission work. Yet she sees the hidden advantages. “Poverty and hard work were all I knew in childhood,” she says with no shade of complaint. “That’s one reason I felt I could be a good missionary. I can understand the people so well.” Dr. Carlos Pinto, SIM Ecuador board member writes, “Their [Latinos’] lack of funds pushes them to develop more interdependent relationships between themselves as missionaries, as well as with people of their host country. This situation becomes precious as it is basic for promoting horizontal and mutual trusting relationships that are on a deeper level.” Admittedly, high attrition rates are often due to a lack of finances. But if Latinos are able to survive on the field, their lower standard of living can improve their effectiveness.

Gender and Singleness — Women have been key workers in mission for at least 200 years, yet they continue to experience prejudicial treatment. Like many before her, Graciana needed grace and tenacity to defend her calling as a church planter and evangelist, as opposed to the more traditional women’s roles of teacher or children’s worker. And she was initially turned down for mission because of her singleness. COMIBAM’s 2006 research asked Latino missionaries to identify their greatest difficulty. Twenty-four percent reported “discrimination because of being single.”

Ministry from the Fringe

Many lament the marginalization that threatens to limit mission prospects for Graciana and other Latinos. Yet, paradoxically, a perch on the periphery can be rich in opportunities. Ministry from the fringe, where few resources and no precedent exists, means that visionaries are both freed and forced to innovate. Having no script to follow, new strategies emerge from the fires of sacrifice and rivers of prayer. Graciana’s bold action is refreshingly free from the inertia that sometimes marks Christians who recoil at risk, get cozy in clichéd positions, or burrow behind layers of bureaucracy. In all her work, she perceives herself simply as obeying God. When asked about the risk of holding Easter services outside the Hindu temple, she says, “I have a vision of my city filled up with the Gospel. Like Peter, I must obey God, not men.”

Movements in the margins, when they survive, eventually flow to the center and revive it. Like a fountain rhythmically surging around a Gospel core, effective mission continuously re-emerges in new waves throughout history.

Today you cannot see Graciana’s face without noticing the stud in her nose—the visible mark of God’s presence with her as protector, initiator, and advocate. At this history-making moment we ask, “Does this new movement have ‘a stud in its nose’? Do older missions still have ‘a stud in their nose’?” If so, then God stands with us and we can partner together with joy in our mutual calling. With a stud in our nose and the Gospel on our lips, may we have eyes of faith to see the earth filled with the knowledge of the Lord!

Pray