Should missionaries hire household help in cultures with strong class distinctions, and if so, how can they do it without compromising their witness?

Hale acknowledges that missionaries will encounter entrenched social class systems in many cultures. Certain tasks are simply not performed by people of particular standing. If missionaries ignore these dynamics, they may unintentionally offend or confuse those they hope to reach. One of the most sensitive issues in this realm is the hiring of what Westerners might call “servants.”

Hale presents a balanced case for employing local help. Supporters do not send missionaries overseas so they can spend six hours a day preparing food under primitive conditions. Nor do they expect workers to waste money paying inflated “foreigner prices” at market. When a missionary hires a cook, gardener, or helper, that person receives needed employment and the missionary gains a cultural guide who interprets daily life and customs (Hale, On Being a Missionary, 190–196). In this light, household help becomes a tool for stewardship and contextual understanding, not an indulgence.

Yet the arrangement is fraught with challenges. Many workers will have no instinct for germs, sanitation, recipes, or consistent standards. Some may even steal. Hale suggests that missionaries first assume they have misplaced items, but when theft becomes clear, the worker must be released. He notes that household staff function as a “loudspeaker to the world outside your home” (Hale, On Being a Missionary, 195). What they observe of a missionary’s life and character will spread quickly.

In business dealings, missionaries should not expect written records; such documentation may feel foreign or even suspicious to nationals. Wages should be slightly generous but not inflationary. Paying foreign-level salaries brings hidden harm, driving up expectations and disrupting local economies. Wherever possible, the missionary should adopt local patterns of documentation and compensation, adjusted only as needed to reflect Christian justice and kindness.

When handled with humility, fairness, and consistency, hiring household help allows missionaries to steward their time, bless local workers, and broadcast a credible Christian testimony into the surrounding community.

Related Material

• Reviving Leadership Training in American Churches — Applies the same urgency to cultivating local leaders so churches can sustain gospel work. 
• Understanding Culture Shock in Missionary Ministry — Explores the emotional and cultural gaps missionaries must cross to truly partner with national leaders.

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Source: On Being a Missionary, by Thomas Hale & Gene Daniels

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