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.

by Paul Nielsen

Eddie Landreth and his wife Rhonda are pointed towards the long-term mission field. They presently volunteer in many different ways at University Baptist Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, but their hearts are aimed at cross-cultural missions

Propel: Do you remember when and how this passion, this interest for world missions began for you?

Eddie: Rhonda and I felt God’s call on our lives at First Baptist Church McAlester, Oklahoma, in June 2002. It was during a missions festival we attended just a month after my first mission trip to Malawi, Africa. I knew that this was my purpose in life. God confirmed it by calling us both at the same time.

P: In what ways were you involved in missions this past year?

E: I went to India with the Washington-Madison Baptist Association last May to help with Tsunami relief work. We went to help build a “vocational/lifestyle rehabilitation” in Vidjayawada. I have taken the IMB’s Thessalonica training course taught by the author and IMB facilitator Bruce Carlton.

P: What obstacles have you encountered as you have pursued your interest in world missions?

E: My wife and I are currently and persistently working towards becoming debt-free so that we may pursue our calling to serve God wherever he sends us.

P: What would help you overcome the obstacle, the debt?

E: An outpouring of God’s abundant grace in providing a way for this debt to go away!

P: How has God used other people or resources to help you along as you continue to pursue missions?

E: We often find ourselves discouraged because we don’t see things happening fast enough. I personally get dejected at times. However, when this happens and never without fail God puts someone in our path to bring missions to the forefront of our thinking. I can be in a poor frame of mind and will come home to find that I have received emails from many friends in four different continents, eight different countries. This is my silent confirmation from God. He has called us to this undertaking. Why should I doubt that he will not provide a way to make it happen? I must remember to remain in Him and we will receive these things in His time, not ours.

P: How would you like your missions involvement to look ten years from now?

E: I fully expect to be on the field. If not we will continue to serve locally, wherever He leads.

P: You’re a member of a Southern Baptist Church, correct? How has this influenced your missions vision for good or bad? Or has it influenced it at all? I’m interested to know your thoughts on the IMB, the way they function and the work they are currently involved in abroad, perhaps in particular where you see yourself serving with them.

E: As we are Southern Baptists, we will apply as missionaries to the IMB. If for some reason the IMB doesn’t share in our being sent, then we will simply find another sending agency. We believe God has called us and that He is currently preparing us. He will send us out. I believe that the The Cooperative Program that is currently in place is a wonderful way for all churches in the Southern Baptist Convention to participate in God’s plan for missions. I also can appreciate how IMB missionaries are allowed to spend all their time serving in the field. Most other sending agencies require that their personel spend up to half of their time raising their own support. I think that would be most distracting and disheartening as I can see that this might require a lot of time and energy that could be spent on assignment. It is our prayer that God would use us wherever and however He sees fit.

Eddie on a mission trip, in the back with the straw hat

by Paul Nielsen

Casey and Traci Letellier are on a mission to serve with Innovista. For the past four years, Casey — a Minnesota native — has been the graphic designer for a mission organization based in Denver. Traci — born and raised in Arkansas — is a writer and folk musician.

Propel: You are in the midst of fundraising for a term in the United Kingdom. Did you receive any type of training before beginning the funding process?

Letelliers: Yes. It was fairly informal training. Jason Lane, the director of Innovista International, spent a day with us to help strategize a fundraising plan and an initial time table. We’ve also received lots of good advice from our missionary friends and acquaintances along the way — something we really value.

P: How has the support raising process been different than your expectations?

L: We didn’t fully realize how many missionaries were already being sent from this area [northwest Arkansas]. Many of the people traditionally interested in missions work are already giving to their capacity and are unable to help anyone new. Some of our most generous support has actually come from people about our age who are just getting established in their jobs and are interested in missions. But then again, one of our most generous supporters is a World War II veteran.

P: From your experience, what word of advice or encouragement would you offer to others preparing to begin the support raising process?

L: At times we felt the expectation (and have received advice) suggesting that to be effective we needed to approach our support raising as we would a political campaign, and use carefully chosen emotive terms throughout our presentation. One time in particular, we received this kind of advice and went away really discouraged because taking an approach like that would be completely inauthentic to who we are. While the support-raising process is almost certainly going to be stretching, and some serious hard work no matter how you go about it, it seems to us that support raising shouldn’t require you to be people that you’re not. We’re still figuring out how this looks for us. One thing that we have found is that we usually connect better with individuals or small groups, rather than a crowd.

Another thing we would encourage other missionaries to do is to present your vision with excellence and sensitivity to the audience before you. There is an old stereotype that identifies missionaries as a certain hyper-spiritual sub-group of believers who tend to look a certain way and talk with their own insider jargon. This stereotype does a disservice to the Church by pigeon-holing a certain group and alienating Christians who might excel at some mission-related work but just don’t fit the look. Do your part to help do away with this dated missionary stereotype!

Obviously, any missionary raising their own funds would like it to be finished as quickly as possible. We initially hoped to leave for the field in January, so we found places for our stuff and moved out of our home in December. It is now April. We’ve been living out of a suitcase without the privacy of our own home for about four months. This has been hard at times, but we still think it was a good decision. We think it was a clear demonstration to our community of our determination to go as soon as possible. It has also been good to make a clean break from our ‘former’ life and focus on support-raising full time.

Neither of us are big risk-takers by nature, so embracing this time of transition as an adventure has been incredibly helpful. The word “adventure” does such a great job of communicating the feeling of discomfort and occasional peril, but also of joy and occasional triumph. As silly as it may sound, it has really summed up our experience so far.

Finally, as you embark on this adventure, make your plans and set your time-frame — but beyond this, trust God. When things don’t go according to your plan or time-frame, try not to lean on your own understanding or limited perspective. Like we’ve been discovering, you can’t know exactly what God has in store for you. No matter what kind of successes or set-backs come your way, acknowledge that God has not left you to wander aimlessly. He has a purpose for you — even now — even during the times of transition.

P: What has discouraged you the most in the fundraising process?

L: We’ve been discouraged to encounter many people who are just too busy and their schedules too full to even take the time to hear about what we’ll be doing. This is especially discouraging because we’ve pretty much dismantled our former life in order to go. Sometimes we’d just like people to get excited with us about this adventure God has us on, even if that’s as much as they can offer right now.

P: What obstacles have you encountered as you have pursued your interest in world missions?

L: Since our missions focus is Europe, we’ve occasionally encountered a traditional view of missions that doesn’t quite know how to categorize us. Britain is not a third-world country or a tribe without a written language. Our roles will also be professional in nature: graphic design, writing and editing primarily to develop relational evangelism training material and resources geared toward 16-30 year olds. On the surface, our field and focus just aren’t what people think of when they hear the terms “mission” or “missionary.”

P: How have you overcome these obstacles?

L: Once we get the chance to sit down with somebody and explain the nature of our work at Innovista, they usually get it. I think a lot of people enjoy and are even encouraged by having their idea of missions and, even more specifically, their idea of evangelism expanded.

P: How would you like your missions involvement to look ten years from now?

L: Ten years from now we see ourselves on the sending end again — praying for and giving to other missionaries. The whole experience of being one of the sent has been so valuable for us! We’ve discovered just how vital it is to have a team of people who are willing to stay on the home front and do the work of sending others.

by Steve Shadrach
Director of Mobilization for the USCWM

After college, I was in a self sufficient “survival mode” stage of life where I dared not ask anyone for anything. My buddy and I lived in a $56 a month ($28 each!) second floor room, sharing a bath with two other rooms. It was so low rent we took a marker and wrote above one door the number “2”, above another door “2B”, and above our door “Not 2B”. Bringing visitors upstairs, I would point to the door numbers, and proudly proclaim, “2B or Not 2B, that is the question!”

The question we ponder today is whether or not Christian workers who raise their support should ask others to invest in them and their ministries. I am puzzled, though, why some Christian workers feel free to ask people to pray, but not to give. Where in the Bible does it say “prayer, good; giving, bad”? If I went into an appointment, laid out my ministry vision, and “the ask” was just to pray, and not to give, I think it would be dishonest — even manipulative. Isn’t it obvious to all parties the missionary needs support to go do their ministry?

In my years in church, I have heard many more sermons on giving than praying. Why would it be acceptable for churches to challenge us to give, but a “no-no” for missionaries to? Are we still living in the 1800’s, still exalting George Mueller as our role model? Mueller technically never asked for a penny, but instead spent the final decades of his life preaching every night to packed out audiences all over the world. He told story after story, all with the same punch line: “And I have never asked anyone for one single penny!” So much money was pouring in he had to give away huge surpluses. Now — unless you have a worldwide pulpit ministry like Mueller — you might want to use him as a model for faith, prayer, or preaching, but not necessarily fundraising. Two passages might help:

We have not because we ask not. James 4:2

Could it be that if we really got in touch with our motives, we would find that a basic fear of asking has colored our theology and our approach? There is a reason the root word “ask” is found 147 times in the New Testament. God wants us to ask Him and others. I believe it takes more faith to pray and ask, then simply to pray.

Where your treasure is, there is your heart also. Matthew 6:21

You may have a different experience, but I have never had someone I sensed was praying for me who chose not to give to me. If they are willing to give to me, they are more likely to pray for me too.

Donors are not mind readers. I heard one of my long time supporters recently tell someone, “Unless the missionary asks me, I assume they don’t need any support.”
Having said all that, once in a blue moon, I seem to hear a small voice say, “Don’t ask right now, just pray and love.” Discerning whether that is God’s voice or my fears is the secret. E