Listening and Hearing

“Over my dead body!” The first time someone suggested Scott Taylor become a missionary, his refusal reverberated in an alcove off the church sanctuary. Scott grew up in a ministry-focused family, constantly on the move. By his late 40s, he finally had a church home, a stable job as a staff accountant, and a house where he’d raised four kids. He had no intention of leaving—ever.

Diane Taylor also grew up on the move in a military family. She learned several languages and developed a love for Europe. But she settled down in Texas with Scott to raise a family and work as an interpreter for the Deaf. For 35 years, she, in her words, “hid in churches, acting the part of a believer.” And then one Sunday morning, the Holy Spirit grabbed her heart, and she truly met Jesus for the first time. Almost immediately, Diane felt convicted that her stable life wasn’t what the Lord had in mind for her future. She told Scott, “I think we should go into missions.”

Scott dug in his heels— “It’s never going to happen while you’re married to me.” Diane thought, I’m new at this Christian thing. Maybe I’m not hearing it right. She knew God wasn’t saying, “Dump your husband and move away,” so she waited. One Sunday morning a few months later, as Diane interpreted a sermon from Acts, she found herself signing, “If you’re comfortable sitting in a seat right now, you’re not doing what God has asked you to do.” For her, it was just another sentence to sign. For Scott, it hit home. When Diane finished and sat down next to him, he leaned over and whispered, “Missions, huh?”

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Once Scott and Diane were both willing to consider overseas missions, they quickly decided on a Western European country where Diane spoke the language and Scott could use his accounting skills in what is often labelled as “marketplace ministry.” Instead of raising funds from donors, Scott’s primary ministry would be through a secular job. The Taylors joined a sending agency, took Bible classes, and prepared for a new chapter of life.

As part of their preparation, their agency asked the Taylors to attend an orientation at Pioneers, which had more experience sending people into marketplace ministry. Scott jokes they went as spies, but everyone knew they had committed to another organization and were only there to learn. Nevertheless, at the end of the program, the Taylors were invited to join Pioneers as a formality. They declined and left for Western Europe two months later, according to plan.

What didn’t go according to plan was Scott’s growing sense that they weren’t in the right place. He sparked the biggest fight of their marriage when he told Diane, “I don’t think we’re supposed to be here. It’s too easy.” This time, it was her turn to yell, and they were on a public sidewalk, not in a church alcove. In the end, leaving wasn’t their choice. After a few months in Europe, the Taylors became the first Americans anyone could remember having their visa application rejected. The Syrian refugee crisis had overwhelmed their city with foreigners. Scott and Diane were advised to return to the U.S., wait three months, and try again.

To make good use of their unplanned time in Texas, the Taylors’ church asked them to join a class designed to mobilize people toward the unreached. While much of Europe is considered unreached, Scott and Diane’s ministry focused on a community with a fairly strong Christian presence. They struggled to translate the principles they learned in class to their context of relatively plentiful believers and churches.

Near the end of the program, they met with their church missions pastor, who asked Diane a key question: “If God promised to give you one guaranteed ministry result, what would you ask for?” Without thinking, she blurted out, “I would ask that in 10 years the gospel would be in every household of a closed country because a Deaf person told a hearing person.” The pastor made her repeat her statement two more times before following up, “How does serving hearing people who have access to Bibles and churches fit with that?”

“Honestly, He probably didn’t change anything. We just listened to Him better.”
Diane

Scott says he leaned back at that point, braced for an eruption. He knew it didn’t fit. To Scott’s surprise, Diane didn’t erupt. “In that minute,” she says, “God reshaped my heart.”

Almost immediately, the Taylors began to search for a new ministry location where they could be witnesses among an unreached people with a significant Deaf population. As they applied to other sending organizations, Diane experienced significant hearing loss herself. Some agencies turned them down because of her partial deafness. Ministries focused on sending Deaf missionaries turned them down because Scott could hear. Eventually, the Taylors remembered they had once been invited to join Pioneers. They inquired, and within a few days received an email with the subject line, “Welcome to the Pioneers family.”

Clarity in Chaos

With ministry to the Deaf specifically on their hearts, Scott and Diane quickly connected with a team in North Africa interested in starting a Deaf church plant. Their coach at Pioneers recommended they visit two teams to have a point of comparison, so they reached out to a team leader in the Middle East. She offered to connect them with a Deaf congregation in her city if they stopped by for a few days on their way to North Africa. The Taylors’ youngest daughter, then 15, opted to stay home with her older brother.

Scott and Diane boarded a plane in March of 2020. As they flew for the next 24 hours with their phones turned off, the world shut down behind them due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When they landed in the Middle East, the airport was in chaos. Rumors swirled about closed borders and health screenings. The North African country the Taylors intended to visit closed its borders completely, leaving them stranded with the team that was supposed to be a stopover. Their travel agent said she could get them a ticket home in 19 days. The team leader quipped, “I guess I have 19 days to convince you you’re supposed to move here instead.”

In a span of 48 hours, the Taylors’ plans changed from a nine-day visit to an anticipated 19-day stay to renting an apartment for eight weeks, hoping flights might resume. Their kids reacted to the extension with, “Cool! Party at Mom’s house!” Their church offered to pay for the apartment rental. Meanwhile, the team leader listened in as they navigated the chaos on speaker phone in her living room. The day they stocked the pantry of their temporary apartment, the travel agent called back. “Be at the airport tomorrow at midnight,” she said. “You’re on the last plane out.”

The Taylors did connect with the Deaf church on what turned out to be only a three-day stay in the Middle East. And it was enough. Walking down a busy street on their last afternoon, they each sensed the Lord say to them, “This is where you’re supposed to be.” On the way to the airport, their host team leader told them, “Based on the way you handled the last 48 hours, I want you on my team.” Diane assumes she was impressed by how they, their church, and their kids all stayed calm and problem-solved. “No one freaked out,” she says. “It may have had a lot to do with gray hair.”

Ready, Set, Go Again

The Taylors’ second round of preparation lasted over a year. Scott’s dad passed away, and his mom asked them to stay close as she adjusted to living alone. They also decided to take the more traditional route of raising funds from churches and individuals. They met with a stream of people in the parking lot of their church during the COVID-19 lockdown, explaining their plans and needs. Scott says they wanted to meet potential partners in person rather than online “because we’re old.” Occasionally, the pastor would drive by and yell, “You rock!” out his car window, offering a measure of validation.

Fundraising required a mindset shift for Scott. “Our generation has always been so independent. Relying on somebody else for a living requires a lot of trust.” Diane thinks it’s extra hard for Gen Xers. “We grew up hearing our Baby Boomer parents say, ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.’ That’s ingrained in us from early childhood because our Baby Boomer parents were raised by Great Depression parents.”

In addition to fundraising, the Taylors used the year to transition their youngest daughter out of their home. She didn’t want to move internationally again, so they arranged for her to live with Scott’s sister while she finished high school. Even before her parents left the U.S., she moved in with her aunt and attended her new school. “We could get to her if we needed to,” Diane explains, “but we couldn’t see her on a daily basis.” Living separately allowed the Taylors to practice long-distance communication and ease into the separation.

“It takes courage to expect someone to invest in what God is doing in you.”
Scott

Just before leaving for the Middle East, Scott asked his cousin, an experienced missionary, for advice. He answered, “Leave the romanticism behind. It’s tough work. You’re not going to understand a lot of it.” Hardly a pep talk, but it proved true.

Leaving Romanticism Behind

The Taylors settled into a city they describe as “like New York City in the 70s.” They both studied Arabic. Diane’s multi-lingual background helped her quickly become conversational, despite her hearing loss. Scott’s Arabic is more basic— “I tried. I worked. I can understand when somebody talks to me, sometimes.”

The generation gap between the Taylors and their teammates complicated their orientation to their new team. “I worked for 30 years,” Scott says. “I had my routine down pat. Then I came to a team where all they wanted us to do was study language and culture. They had a mindset that you have to die to everything in America. But us being older, our roots are deep. We have adult children at home and elderly parents. How do you function in two different worlds? How can you do well where you’re at ministry-wise and let the Lord work, but also be responsible for what He gave you at home?”

Right before the Taylors left for the Middle East, a friend asked Scott, “What Bible character are you most like?” He responded, “I’m Deborah’s husband. The Bible says, ‘Deborah, comma, and her husband.’ That’s all we know about him.” Diane had excelled in Arabic study and quickly found a fit with ministry to the Deaf, but Scott didn’t have an obvious place. “I was lost in myself,” he says. “At our age, I have to find something for me.” The loss of identity affected Scott significantly enough that his sending church asked him to do some counseling in the U.S. The Taylors then returned to the Middle East more prepared for the unique pressures of cross-cultural ministry.

From Diane’s perspective, “We were ill-prepared to go back to being entry-level workers, to be really honest. Or, in our case, going back to being college kids because we were learning Arabic. On the opposite side, our leaders were oriented in a particular way when they arrived, and that became a pattern. We arrived and didn’t fit the pattern. Nobody knew how to move forward without a little bit of iron sharpening iron.” Navigating the tension required a lot of grace from both the Taylors and their team leader.

Looking back now, Diane shares, “We all went through growing pains together on our team. We knew all of us were here because God put us here together at this time for a purpose. We accepted that we won’t always agree and learned to accept the other person’s strengths and weaknesses. We worked together through the bumpiness, and now it works beautifully.”

“I’m trying to set this up and leave it as a legacy for someone to pick up the mantle when I can no longer do it.”
Scott

Through contacts at the Deaf church, the Lord opened a door for Scott to start a non-profit sports organization. He never imagined his hobby could become the core of his ministry, but coaching clinics enable him to engage with athletes all across the country. Before the Taylors ever arrived in the Middle East, an experienced missionary told them, “You’re not going to see the fruit of your labor. You’re laying the groundwork for somebody else.” Scott has embraced that attitude. “I want it to be a beacon for others and a voice of reason—what we did wrong, and what we did right.”

The Power of Gray Hair

When the Taylors credit their invitation to the team in part to their gray hair, they mean it metaphorically. Decades of life experience helped them establish well-worn and effective decision-making and problem-solving habits. “We just celebrated 37 years of marriage,” Diane says, “so we know how we work.”

Literal gray hair also comes with benefits in the Arab world. Age brings automatic respect, and gray hair is a symbol of age. Diane still hates it. “Not coloring my hair has been hard for me.” But she realizes it’s worth it. When she makes embarrassing language mistakes, people give her more grace than her younger teammates. She doesn’t get harassed on the street, and she and Scott can hold hands in public, which would be considered inappropriate for younger couples. “I don’t like my gray hairs,” Diane says, “but they’re useful, and I earned every one of them.” Scott and Diane aren’t quite old enough to qualify for a retirement visa, but that’s another perk of older age they look forward to taking advantage of soon. In the meantime, they already describe themselves as retired on their immigration paperwork, and their tourist visa is renewed every 6 months without question or hassle.

When the Taylors visit the U.S., they miss that cultural respect for elders. During a missions conference at an American Christian university, one of the students asked Scott and Diane, “Aren’t you too old to be missionaries?” Diane thinks she could have fielded the question more gracefully, but I like her immediate response: “Moses was 80!”