Challenges and Joys in the Journey

Lessons from the Frontlines of Missional Business

In a recent M3 Weekly article, we met David and Grace, missional enterprise leaders seeking to honor God and bring his transformation to their own people group in a difficult part of the world. In the first part of the interview, we heard about how God led them to a biblical understanding of work and the opportunity of missional enterprise. We pick up on the interview today as they begin to share some of both the joys and challenges they have experienced. The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

M3 Weekly: What things would you say have gone well in your business?

David: Business-wise, it’s going okay. We’re growing and surviving, and we’re profitable enough to benefit our team. The teachers working with us are happy with their salaries.

Also, our teaching outcomes are really good: ninety to ninety-five percent of our children have their English at the top of their class. We have a good reputation among parents.

M3 Weekly: How do you balance business growth with relational depth with the families you serve?

David: Yes, in our strategy and business plan, we want to stay very intentional about that tension. If we have more students, that means more profits. But we want to cut down profits a bit so we can have fewer students and cultivate deeper relationships. At the same time, we need to watch the numbers so we don’t go bankrupt. So we’re trying to balance that.

M3 Weekly: What kind of challenges have you encountered as a leader of a missional business, especially regarding your own well-being and your family life?

David: Time is the first thing—it takes away a lot of our attention, scheduling, and personal availability. Personally, I used to be able to spend time meeting other people, but now that’s limited. It’s challenging for me to balance my graduate school assignments as well.

On the positive side, since our working hours are in the evenings, we have a lot of flexibility to manage our own time. Unlike other schools that take advantage of summer and winter vacations to make more money, we want to maintain a balanced life. We have roughly ten weeks of free time each year. Our number one goal is holistic development.

In past years, we especially needed that break from teaching because our daughters were young. The girls were always with us. They couldn’t go home to play with friends, and many times they had to come home late. They really sacrificed a lot for us.

I feel like I still owe my girls many “dates.” We used to have one date every week, but now we’re trying to schedule one or two family times together each week.

M3 Weekly: What are some of the other challenges you have faced?

David: We need to be sensitive to what we do and say. On the one hand, there are government regulations that make it difficult to conduct our business. That’s always a pressure.

And then there’s the cultural pressure. In our culture, people measure life by money or position. Sometimes I wonder how other people look at me. I don’t have any title or social status. You can be respected if you are teaching older people, but teaching children is the lowest position. And the money I make compared to my friends—it’s also at the low end. So, that can really cause me to question myself at times.

But slowly, I’ve started to feel like leadership is about vision and influence, and impact, not position and gaining resources. God will provide, and we lack nothing. It’s fun to live a truthful life in this situation.

In the third and final article in this series, we will conclude our interview with David and Grace, learning about the things that have helped sustain them in their journey.

Verse of the Week:

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.
— Psalm 37:3–5

May the Lord teach us to commit our way to him, doing the good work he sets before us without fear, trusting that he will provide what we need in his time.