photo courtesy of imb.org
Ramadan began this week–and there’s still time to pray along with us (c’mon! Everybody’s doing it!) for the 1.8 billion Muslims around the world. So you’ll be seeing a little more from us about these painfully unreached people groups around this third rock of ours.
That’s why we’re honored that the International Mission Board has allowed us to reprint a super-informative article about community in Islam–one of the most significant obstacles to Muslims coming to Christ.
I’d say–and most sites agree–as soon as possible. Your goal is well-adjusted kids who have ownership in your decision, and who can eventually follow God courageously in their own life decisions.
If your kids keep secrets as well as mine did didn’t, I know it can be hard to discern (“What if they tell people in Sunday School and our cover is blown? We’re not ready to tell the whole church”). But even before you tell-them-tell-them, you can start planting seeds in your kids’ heads.
We’re excited to welcome back Sheri of Engineering Ministries International. EMI mobilizes architects, engineers, construction managers, and other design professionals–including those through an incredible internship program–to provide design services for those helping the poor. We’re talking water projects, hospitals, schools, orphanages, you name it. Meanwhile, they raise up disciples and trained professionals in-country.
Sheri applies these cross-cultural points poignantly to the elements of designing cross-culturally–but we believe you’ll find inescapable parallels to any cross-cultural work. Hopefully it will help jumpstart real solutions for cross-cultural sensitivities, and help any culture manifest Jesus Christ according to its own cultural icebergs.
One of our most popular posts ever kicked over some of the missions myths we’re all prone to: I should have the gift of evangelism. I should plan on leading Bible studies, prayer, service projects, and all that 24/7.
So we’re still messing with (or just scribbling out) some of our stereotypes of missionaries: the fetching jumpers-with-tennis-shoes combo, the slideshows, the mud huts, the untrimmed hairstyle, the image of white-person-hugging-cute-brown-child.
(Wanna help identify our weird stereotypes? Comment below.)
You might think, Well. If I go over there and bite it big time, this is going to be pretty embarrassing. Not to mention expensive.
(If you haven’t thought that? Just ignore those last two paragraphs.)
Scrolling through Facebook that day brought a bit of sadness, glimpsing all those photos of a white Christmas in Little Rock, of all places. I’d prayed for that so many times for my kids. Well, and myself.
But a few minutes later, I was playing Christmas music while I spread mayo for sandwiches. Some old lyrics belted out:Haul out the holly/ Put up the tree before my spirit falls again… And I realized, that was why I wanted to be there, enjoying the snow (not to mention the family!). I longed for the emotion of that holiday sparkle; the cozy magic that, with all the right elements, seems to frost everything with light and togetherness and fun, muting the rough edges.
Your first year overseas has a way of rearranging your life, your brain, your family, your body. So it makes sense your holidays would follow.
You may be wondering what Christmas looks like away from the lines to meet Santa, the obnoxious Black Friday ads–but also far from the welcoming hugs from mom, the family clustered around the tree or piano belting out carols.
My experience? Like most of overseas life, there were notable griefs and clarifying, memorable triumphs. Here, thoughts from my first Christmas season in Africa (edited from the original post on MomLifeToday.com).
Maybe you were corn-fed on stories of missionaries who brought their coffins with them, or like Amy Carmichael, said goodbye to their families and homelands for life. Now, we’re pretty sure you’re familiar with FaceTime, Kayak, Marco Polo, and all sorts of amenities shrinking your distance around the world. Your folks and friends may well come to visit you, and your parents won’t be kissing grandbabies goodbye for life.
This ain’t your mama’s mission field.
Moving to Africa was like seeing a new version of my husband.
Sure; in some ways it aged us and strained us in ways we could have never experienced. But it was also extremely cool to see my husband as the guy tooling around an African metropolis, learning to navigate the streets to care for his family. I would have never anticipated the overwhelming generosity he possessed; the crazy-cool gifts of cultural understanding and helping Africans through heartbreaking conflicts and difficulties. What if I’d never seen the African version of him? And as I at last realized my dream of moving overseas, we laughed out loud about the “Afro-disiac” it was for our marriage!
