During the holidays, family and home are themes that warm hearts and invite hugs. But Tara Greene, a 23-year-old Alabama Baptist missions volunteer was 7,500 miles away from those this Christmas and New Year’s, until a visitor showed up on her doorstep.
The story goes back to Satsuma, near Mobile, where her close-knit family was preparing for its own holiday celebration as they had done since Tara’s childhood. A warm fire, laughter and holiday baking likely resounded in the minds of Tara and her mother, Barbara Greene, as Tara sat in cosmopolitan Japan and her mother in small-town Alabama.
Tara had rarely been away from home. When attending the University of Mobile, she lived at home and spent every Christmas there. She also had many local friends. The longest time she had ever been away was when she attended missionary training in Virginia for seven weeks this summer. She was commissioned at an International Mission Board (IMB) service at the First Baptist Church of North Mobile in Saraland.
Tara is a first-time IMB journeyman missionary and represents many Alabama Baptists who have served in a similar role. She left for Tokyo Sept. 7 to be there for two years, so Christmas in Satsuma would be different for her immediate family.
But amid the holiday preparations, an idea rose up within Tara’s mother, Barbara. She, who had never flown before, would shed the fears of Sept. 11, 2001, and board a plane during the predawn hours in Mobile on Dec. 18 to become a warm, heartfelt hug on Tara’s doorstep.
“When she (Tara) left it was so hard on everyone and she’s been homesick the last couple of weeks. So my husband and I talked about it and I decided on Dec. 8 that I would go,” Barbara said. “By getting on that plane, I’m either going to see my wonderful daughter or my sweet Jesus.”
During a phone interview two days before she left, her mother said, “I think I can fly anywhere, but having to leave her will be the hard part.”
Recalling her decision to become a journeyman to Japan, Tara said, “It was tough for me.” She said that her mother had asked her last summer if she really felt that God was calling here there. “In tears I told her that I felt like He might be,” she said.
Tara said, “I went through a time of culture shock when I woke up crying and went to bed crying. I know now why they call it homesickness, because you really do feel sick. When it’s been the hardest, [God] has been the closest. If I didn’t have that confirmation I would not have been able to stay.”
“When I’ve been riding the train one and a half hours to go to (language) school, I kept thinking that I’m going to see my mom and tears would just fill my eyes,” she said.
Anticipating the visit with her daughter, Barbara said, “We’re mainly going to spend time together. We’re going to do some of the home things like baking, and there’s going to be lots and lots of hugs,” she said.
“You’re talking to a mom who has known all of her life what would happen (ministry) with Tara, but when the time came for her to tell me that she was going to be a journeyman, I was not real receptive to that. It took two weeks of God dealing with me to accept it,” Barbara said.
It was on Oct. 28, 2001, less than two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack that Tara told her mother that she was definitely going into the journeyman program. That meant flying and foreign countries.
“She told me and I just came unglued,” Barbara said. “But God showed me that it was not going to be my way, but His way. When I finally gave Tara completely to God, and I mean I told Him out loud, a sense of peace became a part of our family. We know that she is doing what God has chosen for her.”
“Our love and support is with her each and every day,” Barbara said. “We miss her but we do talk to her almost every day to hear her voice and see if she needs anything.”
As a journeyman, Tara will be on the missions field for two consecutive years without leave. She is one of 532 IMB journeymen serving as 2003 begins. Of these, 38 list Alabama as their home state, according to Cynthia Miller, report analyst with the IMB.
Tara’s testimony began bringing spiritual changes close to home before she left. Her dad felt God speaking to him while she was giving her testimony at their church, First Baptist Church, North Mobile. The following week he was saved.
Tara finds ways to minister by establishing contacts for personal ministry and doing graphic design missions projects. “We experiment with different ways of reaching the Japanese people, so it’s really exciting because the Lord just opens new doors and contacts every day.”
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