We’ve mentioned the semester-long missions class called Perspectives on the World Christian movement a few times already in Propel’s short history. It’s well worth mentioning again as Spring classes begin in just a week or two. Register now using the link following this blurb from the Perspective’s staff:

If you want to live life with passion and purpose and discover God’s heart — Perspectives is the best course going. Find your place and time in ‘His-Story’ — take Perspectives. Perspectives is not so much a course as it is a “movement” involving tens of thousands of God’s people throughout the world finding their niche in God’s overall purpose to bless the nations. Since its beginning in 1974, dozens of other seminars, courses, and materials have been developed after the pattern of the course, both in the United States and abroad.

To find the class nearest you visit this link and type in your ZIP code.

If a smaller commitment is better for your schedule, give serious consideration to The Journey Deepens gatherings. Upcoming retreats are scheduled for March 7-9 in Oklahoma and April 18-20 in Illinois. From the website:

“This weekend will deepen your relationship with Jesus and help you explore what it is like to be a missionary, discover whether a missionary or sender role is God’s fit for you, and connect with mission agencies. The core of the retreat and the key distinctive is the discussion groups with six prospects and two mentors which meet four times throughout the weekend. The retreat has separate groups for college students and high school seniors, young professionals in their 20s and 30s, adults of any age, singles and married couples. Meet others like you and compare maps on the journey. Discuss your compass with mentors who have journeyed into missions already.”

This issue’s interview is with Stacy A., an aspiring missionary who grew up in Nebraska and presently lives in that state’s capital city, Lincoln. She addresses a few things here related to missions we’ve yet to talk about in Propel.

Propel: How long have you been interested in long-term missions?

Stacy: I have been interested in long term missions since I took Perspectives a little over two years ago.

Propel: When and how did this interest begin?

Stacy: I came to Christ in 1997. In 1998, I began to feel a tug toward missions, which I pretty much ignored for a while as I planned to go into politics, and missions would kind of just mess that up! But in late 1998 (I was still I in high school) I went to a youth conference in Denver. During the conference they did a presentation about different countries and people groups. I was fairly indifferent until I heard that “One Million Buddhists Die Every Year without ever hearing the name of Christ.” God broke me right there. I didn’t hear anything else during that conference; I couldn’t focus on the sessions, I was completely distracted by that statistic. Through a series of events during the conference that week, God really confirmed that he wanted me to go to Southeast Asia for missions work. He wasn’t clear on when or how long, just Southeast Asia.

Well, being young in age — and young in Jesus — I was ready to go that next summer. So, I got information from this conference about their trip to Southeast Asia My parents were not believers, but I was convinced that if God called me they would let me go. This may come as a surprise, but it didn’t work that way. I was promptly grounded and not allowed to go to church anymore. Some months passed and I was able to go back to church. I was greatly questioning this “call” I had received because my parents had acted so horribly against it. But this longing and ache for Southeast Asia, just wouldn’t leave my heart.

Finally, in 2002, the college group at my church was going to Southeast Asia. I applied and was accepted to the team. This trip confirmed my love for Southeast Asia more than any experience of my lifetime. It was pretty clear to me that even if God didn’t call me full-time that I would have to go semi-regularly to Southeast Asia. Perspectives was really the training ground in which God made clear that this was to be my life’s work. I still don’t have all the details of when or how, but as I have learned from previous experience, He’ll get me there in His time.

Propel: You’re interested in social issues and community development as missions, if I understand correctly. What are you doing now to specifically prepare yourself for this kind of work? (more…)

by the M-DAT staff

Missionaries aren’t sent on their merry way with a pine box in tow anymore. Thanks to modern medicine and its worldwide availability, the life expectancy of a missionary is less affected by life-threatening disease than it used to be. However, your health still plays a significant part of life anywhere, even if you’re not afflicted with such an illness. Will your health limit when, where or whether you should go?

What about health issues not serious enough to keep you from going, but may still affect your ministry strength and flexibility? What if you have asthma or diabetes? What if you’re overweight or blind or bipolar? What about depression, allergies or bad knees? Is it irresponsible to go overseas as a missionary if you aren’t the complete picture of health? Or must your problem just be reasonably treatable?

Mission history would say lack of health doesn’t necessarily eliminate you. Lilias Trotter, for instance, was rejected by the mission board she applied with because her health wasn’t up to their standards.

Though frail in health, Trotter was convinced that God had a place for her in North Africa, even if she didn’t meet the prudent standards of a mission board. So she and a couple of other women set out on their own in 1888 as the Algiers Mission Band. Her health did affect her work in Algiers from time to time. Occasionally her weakness even forced her to take extended leaves from the field.

Yet she accomplished so much, and for so long! Lilias Trotter served in Algeria as a missionary for 38 years, living to be 76 at a time when the average life expectancy was closer to 45. What’s that verse about God showing himself strong through our weakness?

The key point seems to be - know your limitations. How will your health situation affect you? Under what circumstances will it limit you? When will others have to flex and adjust their schedules and ministry to cover for you? Are there things in the job description or environment that will trigger your health problems? Could you serve just as well in another location or in a different type of ministry? Then again, if God sends you there anyway, you wouldn’t be the first
to sacrifice your comfort for the sake of the gospel. Each missionary sacrifices some kind of comfort as they go overseas.

While composing these thoughts I talked to two people with knowledge of different sending organizations and how they view the health of their missionary candidates. The first does not have a written policy, but it does require a full physical and a doctor’s note saying, essentially, that you will be able to perform all the duties of your job. The second agency appears to carry out a fairly meticulous evaluation of your physical and emotional health as you plan to go and
then regularly on home leaves. If there is a problem, the sending agency does everything in its power to fix it and get you back on the field. Sending agencies desire for you to be there as much as you do, but they also want to be responsible in the stewardship of their personnel.

It is impossible to predict every health issue you’ll encounter overseas. Hudson Taylor’s health failed him after his first wife died. An acquaintance of mine suffered terrible mold allergies after moving to Bulgaria. Know your limitations. Know your options – options of treatments and medicines, options of facilities, options of seasonal time frames. You might be called on to overcome those limitations as Lilias Trotter did. Or as the motto “planning to go, willing to stay” leaves open, your involvement may be from this side, helping to send others.

Peter Armstrong, M-DAT Executive Director

Becoming a full-time missionary is simple. Just join an organization, raise support, and go — right? While technically accurate, this summary glosses over the challenging decision making process. Serious questions and issues involved with each step can literally take years to solve.

In fact, the average length of time from when a person decides to be a missionary and when they join an agency is seven to ten years. A look at a list of factors which heighten the decision making process gives a clue as to why it takes so long:

• An overall need for a sense of God’s direction or affirmation of timing, type of service, sending organization, and geographic location
• The weight of responsibility for the impact of decisions on immediate family
• The seriousness of the commitment
• Public scrutiny of decisions by friends, family, and church leadership
• Known and unknown risks and personal sacrifices
• The complex planning and logistics involved in moving a family to another country and switching to a job requiring support raising.

Here at M-DAT, we are working on a resource that will make quite a difference. It is a website with guidance and advice to encourage and assist aspiring missionaries in a fresh and relevant way. Currently under the name PreparingToGo.com, we released an initial version last year with basic helps for people interested in becoming a missionary. This Spring, we will expand the website to include video content and a more interactive version of the mission readiness quiz. We aim to gradually ramp up to a weekly release of five varieties of video clips:

1. Interviews of on-field missionaries about pivotal moments in their journey to the mission field.
2. Missionaries answering common questions asked by potential missionaries.
3. Snapshots of specific mission fields which report ministry strategies, describe unique challenges, and highlight current needs.
4. Short tours of mission headquarters with an overview of the mission and vision of the organization and glimpse of the organizational culture.
5. Interviews with people who are in the process of getting to the field or who have just made it to the field.

All of these videos will be topically indexed and easily available for future missionaries to access advice when they need it, or just to watch and be encouraged as they see how God has worked in the lives of others on the journey. The long range plan is to grow the website “organically” by adding content in response to needs expressed by visitors.

If you are on the path to becoming a full-time missionary, we need your input to help shape this new web resource! Please help us out by taking this survey. Thanks!

I’ve known David Armstrong for five years now. We’ve shared office space for more than three years.

David served with OC International for 20 years, most of that time overseas in Latin America. After three or so years back in OC’s home office he co-founded Mission Data International (proprietor of this publication) with his son and eventually moved to Arkansas to work in the M-DAT office full-time. In this interview I tried to draw on his lifetime of knowledge on mission involvement.

Propel: What events or interests led up to your decision to pursue missions?

David: Mary and I have always been interested in missions, and supported missionaries since we were age 12, but I never thought about being a missionary. It wasn’t until after two years of college, four years of electronics in the Air Force, and I was in Seattle working that I wrestled with what I what going to do with my life. I’m not the kind of person who can work eight to five and then sit and watch TV or spend my weekends fishing. I needed something worth putting my life into. After a couple years of thinking during which we had our first child and bought our first house, I thought “anything I do in electronics or home remodeling (both interests for me) is going to be gone in 50 to 100 years. The only things that are going to stay around forever are people and God and His Word. If I want to be involved in something that is going to last, that where it needs to be.

That was in essence a decision to be involved full time in ministry. The decision to be involved in missions was almost simultaneous as we asked “where is the greatest need?” Having grown up in a good Bible teaching church, that answer was obvious – overseas. And since we had always been interested in missions, it was a fit. With that we sold our home after only a year and headed to Multnomah Bible College in Portland.

Propel: What did you and your wife do to prepare for long-term, cross-cultural mission service?

David: Looking back, the best preparation for missions was being involved in a good church as we grew up. We learned the Word, we worked with people, we taught kids and worked with youth, we experienced church life and we learned to walk with God.

Bible School was a good review of what I believed and rounded me out well. Seminary exposed me to the breadth of “Christian” thought, and prepared me for the many heresies that abound.

The life experience of having and raising three kids while working my way though Bible School and Seminary while also being involved in a church kept my feet on the ground, rooted in reality.

David is on the left — the one without the nametag.

Propel: How important are college level Bible classes to a cross-cultural missionary? Can certain kinds of mission-workers get away with little or no formal training?

David: The type of missionary activity largely determines the amount of formal Bible training one needs. If you are going to do evangelism and church planting, you need to be a life long learner of the Word. Bible School and/or Seminary will give you an overview and organize your thinking. But they are only a beginning. If you are flying a plane or doing relief work, a consistent growing walk with the Lord is essential, so that you are ready to respond to questions and situations. You will still be walking by faith – so your relationship with God has to be growing.

Propel: What would you have done differently in hindsight?

David: Spend more time hanging out and talking about life as I grew up. I am more task oriented – but ministry is about people.

Propel: How did you decide on a sending organization to serve with?

David: We heard dozens of missionaries speak in our church as we grew up so we had a couple organizations in mind due to the kinds of ministries and types of people they were. In Bible School and Seminary we met many more at the annual missions conferences.

We came up with a short list of three or four that we kept tabs with and checked out. We had decided on one before we finished school.

Propel: What obstacles did you have to overcome as you planned and prepared to go overseas?

David: Getting through school with a family. God was very faithful in providing as needed. We learned live with a lot of stress.

Propel: What were the biggest struggles for you and your family in the first year of living overseas? What were the greatest joys of the first year?

David: The first year was great! It was language school and we had no other responsibilities. We got up at the same time, had three meals a day together and watched Dukes of Hazard in Spanish in the evening. We memorized verses in English and Spanish and enjoyed life. And we all learned Spanish. It was a wonderful relaxing year after all the stress of school!

We were over 30 with kids aged 8 to 13 by the time we moved to Latin America.

Propel: How has preparing to be a missionary changed in the last twenty years? What’s more difficult than it used to be? What’s easier?

David: If you are going to do church planting, Bible translation or evangelism, it hasn’t. If you are going to a part of the world where you can’t get a missionary visa, you have to think creative! You still need a solid Bible base and a growing relationship with the Lord, without an “I’m a missionary stamp” on your transcripts. You will need a legitimate reason for living in the country to which you are going, i.e. a reason understandable to the common person there. A reason which you intend to live out.

Propel: What can people do to prepare for career missions even if they are four or five years from actually being in ministry?

David: Talk and talk and talk. And read and read and read. The more stories of Godly lives you hear and see the better prepared you will be for life in whatever setting you end up. My varied experiences in jobs and education, and my varied interests have all helped me connect with people everywhere I go.

Get to know God! That is what it is all about. It is his show that you are getting involved in. The better you know him and the more clearly you hear his “voice and leading”, the better.

And learn to appreciate people and the differing ways they see life. Learn about different styles of personalities, hear their values and view of life. You will have to live and work with every kind in the ministry. Learn to communicate; to hear others, to resolve conflicts, to encourage others, to live with differences, yet live with boundaries. Most everyone loves the culture and nationals they go to. It is their fellow missionaries they will have trouble getting along with.