Abbas was 19—only a few years younger than we were. We joined an Indian church plant, and when Gil started inviting the boys on his volleyball team to the youth group, Abbas jumped right in. Gil and Abbas quickly became fast friends. It wasn’t long until Abbas spent nearly every afternoon at our little house—playing chess or volleyball and arguing with Gil over soccer teams.

Abbas got used to my American cooking and developed a special affinity for cheese. I can still remember him imploring me daily, “Hey, Amy, do you have any cheeeeese?” He’d also scold me for throwing away the chicken neck because “that was the best part.”

He had eyes that danced and an infectious smile. During the regular greeting time at church, he’d make us all laugh by personally greeting every person in the room. He was smart, he was a jokester, and he was hungry to know about Jesus.

Abbas began meeting with Gil twice a week to study the Bible. We didn’t want to pressure him, so we let him set the time and determine the length of study. “How many weeks do you want to meet?” Gil asked. “Until I understand,” was Abbas’s reply.

Not long after Gil and Abbas began meeting together, through tears Abbas said he desired to become a follower of Jesus. A few months later, he asked to be baptized. The Indian congregation gathered on the nearby beach, our toes curling under the warm sand while the breeze tousled our hair and rustled the palm fronds. After his baptism, Abbas leaped out of the water and ran ashore, radiating joy.

But Abbas’s Muslim community was furious when they found out about his newfound faith. He was excommunicated—forbidden to attend the mosque or other social events. One day, Abbas woke up to find that someone had poisoned the tropical fish he raised to sell to pet stores. 

Another morning, I got into our car at 6 a.m., ready to make the long commute to the school where I taught. Abbas gave me the fright of my life when he suddenly popped up in the backseat, still with his ready smile. His family had kicked him out the night before, he explained, and he had nowhere to sleep. It had been too late to wake us up, so he’d spent the night in our car. Despite all this, Abbas remained eager to grow in his faith. We were amazed at all he had learned and asked ourselves, “Who taught him that? It wasn’t us.”

Abbas told us that he was willing to die to see his family come to know Christ. We were awestruck . . . but maybe not all that awestruck. After all, wasn’t this how missions were supposed to go? Hadn’t we expected this? We’d read about miraculous missionary stories and now it seemed we were living one. So we filled our newsletters with reports about Abbas; he became the shining star of our ministry. This was why people were sacrificing to send us to Africa. This was why God had called us there.

So we were incredulous when another youth group member told us she suspected Abbas was stealing money from us. It wasn’t possible. No, there was no way! But she gave us enough details that we had to consider her accusations. 

Because we lived in a cash-based society, we always had cash in our house. We kept it locked up but had become careless about where we left the key. So we started paying closer attention and, after a few days went by, we could not deny it: Abbas was stealing from us. When he realized we were onto him, he made a partial confession. This revelation came only a few weeks before the end of our two-year term when we’d return to the United States so Gil could finish seminary. Our realization about what Abbas had been doing was too much for our young minds to process. The confusion, the disillusionment, the sense of betrayal was so overwhelming that we couldn’t even talk about it—with Abbas or anyone else. Our identity as missionaries had become wrapped up in Abbas. Shame and failure threatened to strangle us, and both of us fell into depression when we returned to the States.

After we left, we learned that Abbas stole from another youth leader. When he was confronted, he slunk away from church gatherings. The seed that had so fervently sprung up seemed to have withered under the hot sun. Eventually, Abbas immigrated to Europe and, from what we could tell, he hadn’t returned to Islam but wasn’t following Christ either. Over time, we lost contact.

We never told our supporters what had happened with Abbas. We never told our teammates. It took years before the two of us could even talk about it between ourselves.

We’d absorbed the unwritten rule in missions: Failure is unacceptable. I’d grown up immersed in missions culture, yet I couldn’t remember a single time that a missionary story, presentation, or newsletter ever included failure.

I know better now. But even today, missionaries are reluctant to share defeat, depression, or despair. Maybe there is too much at stake. Hundreds of people are donating thousands of dollars for you to do this work. Everyone craves numbers: numbers of converts, numbers of churches planted, and so on. 

The “successful” missionaries always have lots of numbers. They fill their newsletters with compelling stories and photographs of large groups of believers. But nobody gives presentations about evangelistic events where no one showed up, or posts a picture of the local pastor who abused his daughter, or writes a newsletter about the exciting convert who just slowly disappears.