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Tag: C.S. Lewis

Crossing Cultures: Adding More Pieces to Your God-Puzzle

December 31, 2018December 31, 2018Leave a comment

Reading Time: 4 minutes

One of the fun parts of going overseas? Seeing new layers of your family show up.

When we first moved, my then-two-year-old–just a toddler–showed himself as one of our primary cultural ambassadors. read more

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to guide and equip prospective global workers for long-term success in leading others to follow Jesus. Headed overseas, or thinking about it? We’ve got your back.

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When your feet hit the ground after that 757, what

When your feet hit the ground after that 757, what's it look like, arriving well overseas? The Mission App shares its best practical tips.

#arrivewell #arrivingwell #begin #globalwork #goodstart #missionary #missions #overseas #practicaltips #start

http://www.goservelove.net/arriving-well-overseas/

I thought I had found it: My ministry niche. And

I thought I had found it: My ministry niche.

And then, it all fizzled.

What do you do when what you thought would be your ministry overseas...isn't?
#disappointment #discouraged #discouragement #ministry #ministryplans #missionary #missions #overseas

https://www.goservelove.net/ministry-plans/

In our quest to present you overseas fully-funded,

In our quest to present you overseas fully-funded, we’re happy to help you structure a support-raising presentation that works. Grab today's post by Support Raising Solutions to get headed in the right direction for your fundraising!

#fundraising #longterm #ministrypartnerdevelopment #missionary #missions #MPD #overseas #prayer #presentation #supportraising

https://www.goservelove.net/support-raising-presentation/

Years ago, my husband and I talked about how to he

Years ago, my husband and I talked about how to help missionary friends on the field in struggles they were working through in a marriage. The couple was fairly new on the field.

It was tough, we acknowledged: A missionary marriage was like a pressure cooker, intensifying whatever flavors were first lobbed in the pot. If basil, you tasted its nuance in the entire dish. If a sweaty gym sock? Well.

If you're looking overseas, your marriage is headed toward a pressure cooker. In the link below, straight talk on your soon-to-be missionary marriage.

#counseling #divorce #isolation #longterm #marriage #missionary #missionarymarriage #missions #overseas #relationship

https://www.goservelove.net/missionary-marriage/

Wondering what goes into a missionary budget (whic

Wondering what goes into a missionary budget (which, when you're raising support, can feel overwhelming)? We let you peek behind the curtain with some opinions of other global workers with thoughts like...

“A missionary Budget may cover all the costs of sending the missionary, not just what YOU need to live.”

“If married, both should get a salary."

“Your missionary budget is hopefully designed for your longevity on the field, from veterans who've realistically counted the cost."
Find out what's included in a missionary budget--and lots more helpful info--at the link below!

A missionary budget may include all the expenses of fielding the missionary.
#agency #budget #finances #fundraising #globalworker #longterm #ministrypartnerdevelopment #missionary #missionarybudget #missions #money #organization #overseas #raising #sending #support

https://www.goservelove.net/missionary-budget/

In our efforts at Go. Serve. Love to help you look

In our efforts at Go. Serve. Love to help you look overseas with eyes wide open, we actually like posting your "wish someone had told me about missions" stories. They help the rest of us, y'know, adjust expectations and avoid our own train wrecks.

Today we’re posting from one of our partners, the all-new Mission App–which allows you to search and apply to 30 agencies with one app, and one application.

> WISH SOMEONE HAD TOLD ME…YOU DON’T HAVE TO CARRY THE PRESSURE OF NEEDING TO BE THE HERO.

In fact, if you go to another culture with the attitude that you will help the poor humanity there who will then be grateful for you, you are missing the point. Remember God is already at work wherever you may travel.

People in your new host country live there and have a way they already do things. They may not even want the help you offer.

In fact, you may find you are the one that needs help. You do, however have the good news about Jesus to share!

So… spend time listening to people’s stories. Share your own.

And as you share your lives, share Jesus’ story. He’s the real Hero, after all.

> DON’T THINK YOU’LL ALWAYS AGREE WITH YOUR TEAM MEMBERS.

Missionaries are just people who may have experienced loss, who may have strong opinions, who can get tired, or discouraged or happy or sad or frustrated or jealous – just like you.

> SHARING THE GOOD NEWS OF JESUS DOESN’T MEAN YOU’LL DO NOTHING ELSE.

Shopping for groceries, cleaning the house, fixing your car, organizing your tasks, heading for work – all these everyday life things still happen when you are a missionary.

Grab more at the link below!

https://www.goservelove.net/wish-someone-had-told-me/

Recently I sat with another missionary, stocking f

Recently I sat with another missionary, stocking feet curled beneath us. We were reflecting on some of the more painful parts of missionary life.

I'm talking things that were hard to understand if you hadn't been overseas, hadn't had moments in a foreign land defined by sacrifice or loss. They were like scars, covered by clothing.

It reminded me, actually, of pregnancy, then having children.

After my first child was born, I stood in my mother’s kitchen talking with my sister, who was at that time still childless. We discussed things that didn’t work quite as before since I’d had a baby. (There were more than one.) That conversation was even before a C-section scar frowned over my abdomen.

Let’s just say I lack some physical functionality, some beauty, some parts that will never bounce back to their taut little selves.

(And that’s just the physical side of having kids.)

My sister asked, her face a mixture of horror and disbelief, “Why would you do that to your body?”

She was asking the right question.

I recounted this to my friend before she went overseas. Why would we do this to our bodies, our souls, our emotions, our families, our careers?

Right question. Friends, he is so worthy.

You may well encounter disease or traffic accidents or lack of top-shelf care for your special-needs child. Someone may die in your arms. You may be bribed by police or even taken into prison. You may miss your niece growing up or your dad’s 60th birthday party. Friends will overwhelm your heart, and then you will say goodbye to them. Poverty may reveal itself in ways you can never un-see.

And it’s likely you’ll come home both in awe of who you’ve seen God to be…and with God-sized question marks only to be answered in Heaven.

I told my friend that having my old body, my old self back could never be worth the trade. (It wasn’t that spectacular in comparison anyway.) My scars mark where G https://www.goservelove.net/going-overseas-scars/

I cram more things into the suitcase, carefully wr

I cram more things into the suitcase, carefully wrapping breakable items in shirts and sweaters. Piles of our life slowly disappear into the large box that will zip closed and be wheeled through the airport. The items of our life pushed and squeezed into 10 pieces of luggage: We are leaving tomorrow.

I have trouble carrying the weight of this.

We’ve known the date for 12 weeks and yet it still seemed to surprise us in the end. The rush to buy the last-minute items, to see if we had all that we needed. Did you buy a gift for that person? Do you think we need an extra one of these? The careful planning and eleventh-hour buys all jumble together, pushed and prodded to make space.

We are leaving tomorrow and I am ready and I am not. The time has been so sweet, the visit so right.

Yet my life, our life, is somewhere else right now and we long to return there. This would all be much easier if we didn’t have to say goodbye.

A fitful sleep, an incessant alarm, and now we leave today. Find all the small details, the hair bands and playing cards. Make sure to clean up and straighten and organize. Eat a good meal, probably should be vegetables. Pack the toothbrushes in a carry-on. Did you pack the charger?

We’re leaving today. And as long as I only think about leaving, I will be sad. When I think about the going-to, what we are returning to in the place where our life really exists, then I have something to look forward to.

One last photo all together. We ride to the airport and we say again what a great time this was.

Next the suitcases, with all our things and our best-laid plans, are checked away. We are left with our backpacks, literally the packs on our backs, and our toothbrushes, and the hope that it will all turn out alright.

We say a last goodbye. It’s okay to cry, liquid emotion as evidence that this is hard.

The leaving doesn’t get easier. We always miss those we love. (More https://www.goservelove.net/leaving/

What keeps you going when nothing else is making s

What keeps you going when nothing else is making sense?

When you live and work in a country and a culture you didn’t grow up in, but have adopted? When everything is hard to understand? When you aren’t sure you are communicating? When the cost/benefit ratio of missions feels fuzzy or downright disappointing?

Missionaries wrestle with that question somewhat regularly. I wrestle with that regularly.

Our small team had been working with these rural pastors and lay leaders for a couple of years, attempting to bring them resources and training that would help them serve their people and teach their congregations to walk as Jesus would want them to walk.

Periodically in this ministry, we welcomed groups of youth and adults who came down from supporting churches in the U.S. to spend a week. It took a lot of thinking and planning to create a situation which we felt would be a blessing to the churches we worked with and to the group coming down.

The groups completed work projects for four hours each morning, then showed the JESUS film each evening where our churches were trying to plant a Bible study or home church.

The churches indeed followed up with the people who they had seen at the showings of the Jesus film. And at each location they’d added 3 or 4 families to the Bible studies or home churches they were trying to start--and wanted to know how to do it year-round.

When you get to see results that clearly, it keeps you going for a good long while. It did for me!

And even today when I think back, it is a constant encouragement. God calls us to serve him and others, and he is the one who creatively weaves the threads of ministry to produce what he calls success. (Photo: IMB.org)

https://www.goservelove.net/what-keeps-you-going-the-successes-we-remember/

It's the first step, and one of the hardest to dis

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"?

One of our partners, the Center for Missionary Mobilization and Retention–using podcasts, training, and other resources–aims to increase and retain the number of long-term missionaries sent around the world.

They’ve developed a free webinar to help you sort out the call…and whether you have it. Find it at the link below.

#calling #CenterforMissionaryMobilizationandRetentionclarity #decisionmaking #discern #discernment #explore #free #globalwork #Godswill #longterm #mentor #missionary #missions #overseas #pray #prayer #resource #thecall #webinar #wisdom

https://www.goservelove.net/the-call/

Stuffed animal on the kitchen counter. Dirty soc

Stuffed animal on the kitchen counter. Dirty socks by the back door. Laundry on the couch. Empty coffee cup on the bathroom counter. Wagon on the driveway. Library books on the floor.

What do all of these things have in common? (Besides the fact that they might all be true about where we are living right now.)

All of these items are out of place. They are not in their designated spot.

Many situations can cause displacement when you’re overseas. It might be political unrest in a country, medical needs that can’t be met in a particular country or that happen while traveling, visa issues. And COVID-19 certainly displaced many people away from the field or trying to get back to the field.

And so we will stay. Without our winter clothes or our Christmas PJs. We are displaced.

Do not mistake this displaced for misplaced, dear reader.

Even when my emotions twist and turn and threaten to spill out of my eyes and down my cheeks, I know that I am not misplaced.

My Great Father knows exactly where I am. He hasn’t lost me or forgotten to move the mountains that needed to move.

And what’s more, He knows why we are here.

His purposes are not my purposes. Though I hope mine align with His, I cannot claim He will align His purposes with mine.

And that’s a good thing. My vision only goes so far. It tends to blur around the edges of what I understand.

I may not have to the opportunity to understand His purpose in this time. However, I always have the opportunity to trust. To trust His purpose, to trust His divine will, to trust His provision, to trust His love for me.

Perhaps, as I offer up this time and press into investing well where I am located, it will seem we are not so out of place after all.

#COVID19 #displaced #go #missionary #missions #outofplace #overseas #purpose #wait #waiting

https://www.goservelove.net/out-of-place-when-youre-not-where-you-thought-youd-be/

“They are going to put Bo in jail.” The phone

“They are going to put Bo in jail.”

The phone call comes from my wife Leah around 6:45. “Bo pulled onto Entebbe Road after we thought the presidential convoy had finished going through, but it hadn’t. He was pulled over and now they want to impound the car. Can you come and get us?”

Bo (our son) and Leah had taken one of our staff girls to the doctor and were on their way back.

“They are going to put Bo in jail.”

The phone call comes from my wife Leah around 6:45. “Bo pulled onto Entebbe Road after we thought the presidential convoy had finished going through, but it hadn’t. He was pulled over and now they want to impound the car. Can you come and get us?”

Bo (our son) and Leah had taken one of our staff girls to the doctor and were on their way back. They just so happened to be on the same road at the same time that Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were traveling from the airport into town.

Typically, if a traffic cop in Uganda pulls you over, they either take your license or impound your car, or both, to ensure you will pay your traffic fine.

Once the fine is paid you can get your license and/or car back. I imagine this is what my wife means. I hop in our other car and head up the road to go and get them.

About 15 minutes later, I receive another call from Leah. Through tears, she says, “They are going to put Bo in jail.”

“What?”

She repeats, “They are going to put Bo in jail.”

I tell her I will be there soon, and start accelerating through the traffic.

I pull up to the police station, enter and see my wife seated in a chair in front of a desk, crying. Bo is surrounded by 4 or 5 police officers.

I start asking questions:

“What did my son do wrong?”

“Why do you need to detain him?”

“Isn’t this just a traffic violation?”

“Who is in charge?”

Today, we listen to Brent's story about when things overseas...go wrong.

http://www.goservelove.net/jail

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