Missionaries at Christmas featured in the newspaper

The backstory

This article was originally published in the Toledo Blade December 21, 2018.

When reporter, Nicki Gorny, found out we were in town for a few days, she asked us for an interview. We met at a McDonalds (so the kids could run around and play while we sat and talked). After asking Jenny and me some great questions about spending Christmas away from home, this is what she wrote…

The article

Diverse holiday traditions not always culture clash – by Nicki Gorny of the Toledo Blado

The Ashcraft family has one foot in Mexico and one foot in the United States. So at Christmas, it’s only natural that their celebration reflects both of the places they call home.

“It’s hard to say what we enjoy more,” Jonathan Ashcraft said, “turkey and dressing or tamales and frijoles.”

Mr. Ashcraft and his wife, Jenny, originally of Toledo, have been serving as missionaries in Monterrey, Mexico, since 2007. They’re among what some estimate to be more than 400,000 missionaries in the world, many of whom are set to celebrate Christmas in a country where customs and traditions look notably different than the ones where they grew up.

The Ashcrafts, for example, point to differences such as the local custom of opening presents at midnight on Christmas Eve, rather than early on Christmas Day. Día de los Reyes, or the day when the three kings are said to have arrived, is another aspect of the season there that stands out from the way that Jenny Ashcraft — then a young Jenny Gentry — celebrated at Lewis Avenue Baptist Church in Temperance.

Mexicans give gifts on this day, Jan. 6, as well.

“We never got accustomed to that,” Mr. Ashcraft said with a good-natured laugh.

In other ways, Christmas in Monterrey is similar to Christmas in Toledo. It might actually be the holiday where traditions here most closely reflect traditions there, Mrs. Ashcraft said.

And of course, from a religious perspective, the celebration is consistent from one to another. Whereas commercialization and secularization claim a big part of the holiday in the United States, “in Mexico, it is 100 percent a religious holiday,” Mr. Ashcraft said.

“It is very much centered on the birth of Christ.”

God’s path

Mrs. Ashcraft’s path from local girl to international missionary is tied to Mr. Ashcraft, whom she met and began dating when the two were students together at Hyles-Anderson College in Indiana. Mr. Ashcraft is a third-generation missionary in Monterrey, and, fairly early in their relationship, he told her that he intended to continue his family’s work there.

Mrs. Ashcraft wasn’t opposed; she recalled reacting with more an “oh, cool,” than an “oh, no.” She’d begun attending Lewis Avenue when she was 11 or 12, and by the time she was a teenager, had given her heart to God. So she trusted in whatever God had planned for her.

But Mexico wasn’t at all what she would have expected, she said.

“I flunked Spanish in high school — flunked with a big old capital F,” she said with a laugh. She graduated Start High School in 2000 and has since picked up Spanish. “God has a sense of humor.”

In Monterrey, Mr. Ashcraft pastors Mount Hebron Baptist Church, while his wife is involved in the church’s music ministry; she credits the music education programs through Toledo Public Schools. Mrs. Ashcraft also teaches in the associated Mount Hebron Bible Baptist Institute.

In addition to serving their local community with a church, their mission through the institute is in training and equipping locals to spread the gospel message, often by planting new churches.

While recent attention to John Allen Chau — the missionary who was killed while trying to spread the gospel to an isolated tribe on North Sentinel Island — might underscore a perception that missionary work demands a drastic change of lifestyle, Mr. and Mrs. Ashcraft said their lifestyle in Mexico isn’t all that different than it would be in the United States.

They live in a house just outside the city. They shop in grocery stores. They and their four young children FaceTime regularly with Jenny’s mother in Michigan.

Security is always on the back of their minds, they said, but that’s a reality of living in Mexico. It isn’t a particular reflection of their status as missionaries.

“Some people would think of missionaries as people who go out and give up everything to live a totally different life, and in some cases, that’s true. Some missionaries really have to give up everything,” Mr. Ashcraft said. “But most missionaries are normal people that want to do in another country what’s already being done here.”

He continued: “The definition of a missionary is someone who is sent from a place where the gospel is being preached to preach the gospel in a place where the gospel is being preached less.”

There’s a broad range when it comes to missionary work, including the type of full-time missions and part-time mission trips that regional churches like Lewis Avenue support. The Ashcrafts and others said their current lifestyle is pretty typical.

“I think nowadays [cases like Mr. Chau’s are] just part of the picture,” said Shahna Arps, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Toledo.

Dwight Haase, her colleague in the university’s sociology department, agreed.

“There [are] different types of ministries and different types of missionaries, and most of them aren’t going to those far-off countries,” Mr. Haase said. “Most of them are dealing with other Christians. Most of them aren’t even converting, or that’s not their main objective.”

The Ashcrafts are Baptists in a predominantly Catholic country. But in line with Professor Haase’s observation, Jonathan Ashcraft said conversion isn’t their goal.

“Our goal is not to make people Baptists,” he said. “Our goal is to make people saved.”

Celebrating Christmas

The Ashcrafts are looking forward to celebrating Christmas with their four young children: Jonathan and Tommy, 6; Lucas, 3; and toddling little sister Megan, who’s just 1½. Since their oldest sons were born, Mr. and Mrs. Ashcraft said they’ve spent only one Christmas in the United States; they’ve celebrated only two here since moving to Mexico as a couple.

So their family is quite familiar with the local customs and with the length of the holiday season in Mexico. Without Thanksgiving to unofficially kick off the season, the holidays effectively begin with Day of the Dead. In a reflection of the country’s Catholic heritage, the season also envelops the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12 and extends through Día de los Reyes on Jan. 6.

The latter is a big deal in Mexico, they said.

It’s important to mom and dad that their children retain their native language and heritage, even as they absorb the language and heritage of Mexico; while Mr. Ashcraft decided to return to Monterrey as an adult, he recognizes his children might not make the same decision.

So they celebrate a pretty American Christmas, prioritizing a tree and passing out presents early Christmas Day, rather than late Christmas Eve, as is typical for young children in Mexico.

But that doesn’t mean they won’t be celebrating locally, too.

They’re counting on tamales.

Our opinion of the article…

Nicki did a great job. It is refreshing for someone to notice missionaries, especially at Christmas. This time of the year is so important for many of us. Some people hace a really hard time being away from “home” around the holidays. Others acclimate to their new reality and find new ways to enjoy the season.

We wish you a very Merry Christmas!