Editor’s Note: This piece originally appeared on Rebecca Hopkins’ blog, “Borneo Wife,” when she and her husband served in Indonesia. She now blogs from her new American home at rebeccahopkins.org .
It’s almost like the deep, dark secret of overseas work. That confession, usually made by a woman, sometimes with reasons, other times with self-chastisement hanging onto the words.
Editor’s note: We’re stoked to feature this article from another one of Go. Serve. Love’s round table partners, Support Raising Solutions. (Yes! That organization is a thing.) In our quest to present you overseas fully-funded, we’re happy to help you structure a support-raising presentation that works.
Here’s what Support Raising Solutions has to say.
It’s the first step, and one of the hardest to discern: How can you tell if you’re experiencing the call from God to be a missionary? How does God speak, and guide people overseas?
At Go. Serve. Love, we’ve explored this idea a lot, with both warning and affirmation. How would one even define the call?
My husband and I, kids in tow, were maneuvering at a snail’s pace through a traffic jam in our trusty high-clearance minivan. Our speakers happily trumpeted the Christmas CD my mom had sent, and we chatted, our energy high for our Christmas shopping in the city and the Christmas party of our non-profit (which, with the barbecue and kids running around in shorts, tends to look a little more like the Fourth of July).
It was sometime after “Let it Snow” that our heads all swiveled to the driver’s side, where a man was banging—hard—on the outside of our van. Never a good sign in Kampala.
The dust, fine and red, coated the plants lining our roads. Sweat beaded on my upper lip. As my children lay awake in bed, I stuck my head in and reminded them to keep guzzling plenty of water, after a friend of theirs landed in the clinic due to dehydration.
Unfortunately it paralleled my parched insides. So many tasks to which I put my hand seemed to droop, languishing and limp. The cost-benefit ratio of my parenting, my ministry there in Uganda, and a handful of relationships seemed tilting precariously in the wrong direction.
We were heading into the mountains to hold workshops for lay leaders and pastors.
But I had a problem. I needed to talk with four different men: one to set up a team coming from a supporting church to show the Jesus film. Then three others for details about the very workshops we had come to give that weekend.
Editor’s note: Go. Serve. Love knows the decision and process for becoming a missionary can very quickly become complicated–even overwhelming. It’s why we’re thrilled to partner with the brand-new Mission App, a 15-20 minute application sent for you to mission agencies who match your chosen criteria!
We’re excited to welcome the Mission App today as they hand you their ultimate preparation checklist for becoming a missionary. Drumroll, please.
As we recently wrote, according to the Joshua Project, the world’s population of Muslims is estimated at over 1.8 billion. (With a “B.”) That’s 23.9% of the globe. Out of 3,734 people groups, 3,191 (85.5%) remain unreached with the love and hope of Jesus. Yet a brilliant, beautiful church in the Middle East grows steadily.
And more Muslims have turned to follow Jesus in the past 15 years than in the previous 1400 years combined.
With Ramadan upon us, could we as God’s people lift up the church in the Middle East?
