member care – A Life Overseas |

When You Are in the Low

I am not prone to depression, but I am related to people who are. That is not to say that I haven’t had times of despondency related to situation, but I that I understand how for some, depression or seasons—long seasons—of being in the low are a part of life.

No one wants to be in the low.

In January 2024 Global Trellis conducted a survey asking people on field what they worried could jeopardize them being on the field. Out of the eleven areas reported, mental and emotional health were in the top three. (You can read the full report here.) Though mental and emotional health involve more than depression, what can you do instead of hiding your true state or pressing through in those seasons of what author Justin McRoberts and illustrator Scott Erickson call “the low?”

Their recent book In the Low: Honest Prayers for Dark Seasons is a welcome companion for those seasons. The book is divided into five sections with each section beginning with a short essay and then prayers and art related to that area.

The five sections are:

—Reconnecting to Where I am Today
—Reconnecting to What Happened to Me
—Reconnecting to What I am a Part of
—Reconnecting to What I Value
—Reconnecting to What is Ahead of Me

Here are two sample prayers. I love how each prayer includes an illustration (really a piece of art) to meditate on. When you are in the low it is hard to read long passages and concentrate, so bit sized words with an image to linger on, feels doable.

Whether you are prone to depression or not, this book is one that you should get now, before you’re in the low. We’re all going to be there at some point, how better to honor our humanness than to be prepared for it with resources that respect the reality and help connect us to God.

And if you’re in leadership or member care? This book needs to be added to your toolbox. Not “consider adding it”; add it.

As Curt Thompson said on the back of the book, “With In the Low, Scott Erickson and Justin McRoberts have offered the world an artifact of beauty and brevity, ushering us into that chambers of our interior lives that God has occupied from before the foundation of the world.”

Can You Ask Me Again How I Am?

At some point in my life I learned not to accept hospitality on the first offer. Even if I want something, I need two or three invitations.

“Would you like a piece of cake?”

“Thanks. I’m OK.”

“Are you sure? I’ve got plenty, and I can’t eat it all myself.”

“Oh, I don’t want to bother you.”

“It’s no bother at all. Let me go get you some.”

“Well . . . I guess I could eat a small piece.”

I’m not sure where this habit came from, and it really is a habit. I often turn people down at least once even before I give it any thought, even when I realllllly want some cake. Did it start when I was a child with me imitating the culture of my small midwestern town? Did I get it from advice in a Dear Abby column? Or did I pick it up in my host Asian country, where saying yes too soon can be seen as a sign of greediness? Is that it? Do I do it out of not wanting to appear overeager, or could it be because I know that I sometimes make an offer simply out of politeness, hoping I’ll be turned down but still get credit for my generosity?

There’s another offer—or invitation—that is over-easy to decline. It’s when someone asks, “How are you?” We all have our pat answers: Fine. OK. Not bad. Wonderful. Can’t complain. Or we simply repeat back, How are you? And then the conversation, or at least the greeting part of it, is over. Because it is just a greeting, right? They don’t really want to hear about the problems I might have—and I don’t really want to overshare.

Those of us in cross-cultural ministry can get around the risk of vulnerability by pretending we were just asked, “How’s your work going?” and jumping into newsletter or church-report mode. “Things are going great! We had two new visitors at our meeting last week and we’re getting ready to host a college team. How are things with you?”

Or we just go silent, with nothing more than a slight smile or shrug. And rather than being able to pause and listen to the uncomfortable silence, we quickly interrupt it with inconsequential talk. Theologian and author Frederick Buechner writes that “people are very apt to use the words they speak not so much as a way of revealing but, rather, as a way of concealing who they really are and what they really think.” That is why we often fill times of silence with what he calls “verbal camouflage.” It’s something that people in ministry can be very skilled in.

Why do we respond like that when we’re invited to share? Why do we hold back—often to our own detriment? Maybe it’s because we’ve been in situations where we told someone just how difficult things are and their response—Well, we all have troubles. Things could be worse. How about that weather?—lets us know that all they actually were saying was “Hi.” So when I’m asked how I am, my habit is to be polite right back and move on.

But what about the times when I’m struggling and realllllly want to tell someone? Even then, I usually don’t let loose on the first ask. If they’re truly sincere, they’ll ask a couple more times, right?

What if they don’t? Well I might keep the conversation going, feeling the person out to see if they’re invested in talking to me, to see if they’re willing to go beyond surface-level topics, to see if they’re safe. And if I decide those things are true, then I can tentatively, little by little, voice some of my pain.

But that dance takes time and can be easily misconstrued. And sometimes the person on the other side of the conversation can be tentative, too. (I already said I was “OK,” after all.) So I have a request that may be one of the best gifts we can give to someone‚ someone we trust, someone who’s safe, someone we have determined will listen with sympathy or empathy (take your pick). When the time and the place are right, it’s simply saying, “Can you ask me again how I am?”

What a vulnerable question. What a way to express trust. What a gift.

And because you’ve chosen the recipient well, they’ll understand, and they’ll accept the invitation and ask again, and then they’ll listen.

I hope you find at least one person you can honor with this gift, a person who understands just how valuable it is. And if right now you realllllly need to tell someone what you’re going through, I hope you get the opportunity to do it soon.

So . . . How are you?

(Frederick Buechner, “Sunset,” The Hungering Dark, HarperOne, 1985)
[photo: “conversation,” by Mario A. P., used under a Creative Commons license]

The Care I Didn’t Know I Needed

by Stephanie Gutierrez

It was the dead of winter in Minnesota. If you know, you know.

After serving in Peru for ten years, our family had moved back a year earlier—a move that had started as just a visit . . . until we realized, after a few months, that we couldn’t go back.

We had unexpectedly moved “home.”

Stranded in Minnesota, the place we swore we would never live again, we found ourselves with nothing more than a suitcase apiece, mostly filled with sweatpants. (After being confined to our home in Lima throughout 2020—and me leaving the house a whopping ten times—I had no concept of Americans so easily being able to leave their homes. Thus, as long as I had a few nice shirts for Zoom meetings, why would we really need anything nicer than sweats? Uff. You can imagine how well that worked.)

The story that unfolded is actually a remarkable one—confusion, followed by surprise and overwhelming gratitude, then heartbreak like we had never known, and after that, new beginnings, new opportunities, new learnings, and so much joy.

On one of those freezing winter days at the start of 2022, I walked through the doors of a university into the MC2 (Midwest Care Connection) conference, accompanied by my husband and our friend.

When I pulled the paper program from the blue folder handed to me, I kept seeing a strange phrase throughout the plenary sessions and workshops: “member care.” Who were these mysterious “members”—and what club did they belong to? Eventually, I pieced it together: it meant missionaries. (This was confirmed when, in all humility, I straight-up asked someone.)

Over the next two days, I learned new words like “debrief” and met dozens of people from organizations dedicated to serving missionaries. I was dumbfounded.

What was this new world I had stepped into? How had I, a missionary for ten years, been so completely unaware of this other language, this other space in missions, this other network of people and organizations?

The questions kept rolling.

Why had I—and every missionary I knew—never heard of them? How different might my life have been if we had?

Boy, would I have loved to know that there were organizations offering debriefs, counseling, ongoing trainings, communities, and resources. Why was I only finding out about them after coming off the field?

A fire was lit in me that day.

Little did I know that God was already weaving this discovery into a new assignment.

The friend attending the conference with us was Marvin Slaton, the executive director of Modern Day Missions—the missions-partnering organization that had, for years, so seamlessly helped us with donations and supporter relations. They had just offered me a position, serving 800 (now 1,100) missionaries worldwide, and I had said yes.

With a blank slate, they invited me to dream. As I surveyed our missionaries, my mind whirled with possibilities.

What do I wish I had known? Who do I wish I had known about?

If you know anything about StrengthsFinder, connectedness is in my top five. So, I became a curator. Not of art, books, or music—but of missionary resources.

And just like any good curator, I have so much more to discover, so much more to add to my ever-growing collection which I now share with missionaries everywhere through the Modern Day Missionaries podcast and our weekly resource newsletter.

And you, dear reader, are part of the only resource I knew existed while I was in Peru. I found A Life Overseas on the field, and it became a constant source of encouragement to me. What a full circle moment it is now, writing for the very blog that once whispered to me: You are not alone. There is more.

An Invitation

May I offer you an invitation? It’s an invitation to share what you know.

Maybe you, like me, know just the smallest whispers of what is out there for those on the field. Would you share those tiny offerings with someone else?

Or maybe you are one of the fortunate ones who have found the gold—retreats, communities, coaching, learning. Shout it from the rooftops. Don’t assume that what you know is known by others.

Would you also share them with me and with this community?

I invite you to post the missionary care (or, to be proper, member care) resources that have most impacted you in the comments below. Or, if you’d rather not have it attached to your name, email me at care@modernday.org.

Our heart is simple: we want to help you be well, so you can serve well.

How can you take a step toward being well today? What part of your life is crying out for care—your spirit, your soul, or your body?

I have one more invitation for you. It is the invitation to listen.

Whether that part of you is whispering or shouting, will you plug your ears and push on, or will you pause and breathe in the oxygen God has for your weary self?

There are so many who want to serve you. Let them. Breathe it in—for those you serve, for your family, and for yourself.

Know this: You are worthy of care. You are worthy of love. Receive it today.

A Blessing

May you be well, so you can serve well.

May you be well, so you can live well.

May you be well, simply because your Father wishes it so.

Because He loves you —

Not for what you do,

But for who you are.

Beloved, may you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.

Selah.

~~~~~~~

Stephanie Leigh Gutierrez served as a missionary in Peru for ten years and now cares for missionaries through Modern Day Missions. She is also a life and leadership coach, a spiritual director, a retreat leader, and the host of the Modern Day Missionaries podcast. When she’s not traveling, you’ll find Stephanie with her family in Minneapolis, Minnesota—book in hand, playing games, or sharing food around the table with friends.

The Harvest is Plentiful and the Workers Won’t Stay

Within three months of landing on the mission field, my husband found himself overseeing six departments at the hospital. Several factors led to such a sudden and taxing situation, but the underlying cause was the absence of nearly all other physician personnel at the time. Some had recently left for Home Assignment, others hadn’t yet returned from Home Assignment, and still others had left to make their final transition back to their passport country.

The all-consuming work and responsibilities my husband had to shoulder during that season hearkened back to a bygone era when pioneer missionaries were often entirely alone to bear all the work singlehandedly, enduring by pure grit and God’s grace.

It was the first of many times we’ve found ourselves remembering the words of Jesus: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” (Matthew 9:37).

There is nothing new under the sun. There weren’t enough workers when the disciples and Paul were traipsing around the Ancient Near East and beyond, preaching the Good News to whoever would listen. There weren’t enough workers when Hudson Taylor prayed and pled for more missionaries to serve in China. There aren’t enough workers now when the world has never been more connected and yet untold numbers still haven’t heard the name of Jesus.

The realities are not new – the workers remain few – but the reasons for that reality have arguably changed.

Although the lack of workers for the harvest has been a persistent problem since the time of Christ, nowadays there is a new and noticeable trend in missions: those who go don’t necessarily stay.

The definition of what it means “to stay” will differ from one person to the next. I won’t attempt to argue that point since I don’t have a concrete answer myself. What I’m pondering is the noticeable shift in less missionaries staying for an entire career or even a lifetime, compared to our predecessors throughout history.

Many missionaries famously gave the greater portion of their lives to living and serving cross-culturally. People like St. Patrick and Adoniram Judson spent decades in their place of service, ultimately living out their days there. Lesser-known servants like George Liele and Lilias Trotter also have incredible track records of spending more than half their lives overseas. Even in my own country of service, Kenya, a pioneer missionary named Johannes Rebmann served here for 29 years before eventually returning to his home country of Germany because he was so ill and blind that he was finally persuaded to leave.

There are still people who commit an entire career, or lifetime, to the mission field – we know several from our own organization – but the number of people staying for 20, 30, or 40 years is growing smaller by the decade.

Is that a problem? I’m not sure. The state of missions is much different than it was even a hundred years ago. No one boards a ship to spend weeks or months just traveling to a mission field, let alone knowing it will be an untold time before they might see family or home again. We hop on a plane and arrive at our destination in a time that can be measured in hours, meaning we can hop on another plane and return to our passport country in the same relatively convenient manner without much thought.

That is perhaps one of the most obvious reasons why not as many people stay long-term anymore: international travel has made it so much easier to come and go around the world that short-term and mid-term options have become plentiful and accessible for many. People can go without needing to commit to a career or lifetime of service. As missionaries who are regularly helped by short-term and mid-term volunteers, I can testify to how impactful that length of service is, meaning that although increased options for length of service have impacted how long people tend to stay, it also means that more people are choosing to go in the first place. Fewer are staying longer, but more are going than ever before.

What else has impacted how long missionaries stay on the field? Countless reasons exist, not least of which include required visas to remain in country (a concern of the modern era which neither Paul nor Patrick had to worry about), and prioritizing the health and welfare of our families (many great missionary heroes of the faith were faithless to care for the concerns of their families, who suffered greatly as a result of their missionary zeal).

All of these factors are part of the ever-changing face of missions. For various reasons, we’re seeing a trend that missionaries aren’t staying as long as they used to. Some of the reasons are troubling; some are good; all are interesting to consider.

Jesus was clear that the workers are few. That was true in His time, and it remains true in our time. We have personally felt that reality, but we also know that someday we’ll be the ones to leave (assuming we don’t stay here till we die), leaving others after us to feel that reality too.

What to do? First of all, we need to heed the words of Jesus: “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest fields” (Matthew 9:38). The first response is prayer.

Additionally, we need to consider how to increase the longevity of those who are already in the harvest fields. If some can stay longer, the number of workers will naturally increase over time.

Regardless of whether a missionary unit decides to stay for long or short, what matters most is whether their choice to leave could have been a choice to stay if certain measures had been put in place to increase their longevity. Sometimes there is nothing to be done. A denied visa signals a clear exit from the country. A medical crisis compels us to get the help we need, often off the mission field. Sometimes our length of service is completely out of our hands.

My question is how to increase longevity when we do have some semblance of control? There is no clear-cut answer, but I wonder what measures could be put in place to help us in this modern era of missions?

One response is the current rise in both the awareness of Member Care needs as well as an increase in personnel in Member Care departments across mission organizations. Member Care services seek to improve and/or maintain the well-being of missionaries, whether it be physical, emotional, mental, relational, or spiritual. Member Care departments that can help missionaries remain healthy can also enable them to stay longer.

Another response comes from an organization that has noticed the trend away from long-term missions and is making an attempt to reverse that. The Longevity Project, a ministry of MedSend, exists to help medical missionaries stay on the mission field longer. Medical missionaries are notorious for experiencing frequent episodes of burnout, often due to moral injury and little time for self-care, ultimately leading to high rates of attrition. To combat this, MedSend created a “multi-faceted initiative to provide professional, relational, and spiritual support to healthcare missionaries. The Longevity Project not only supports the welfare of the missionary family but also works to ensure they can continue in their service on the mission field.” Some of the services they currently offer include financial assistance to access counseling, retreats specifically designed for medical missionaries, and support for raising and educating TCKs.

The Longevity Project is one attempt to overcome the barriers that keep people from staying longer on the mission field. How else can we, as a broader missions community, as sending churches and organizations, and as people committed to sharing the Good News around the world, find ways to increase missionary longevity?

We need to ask this question because our hearts are aligned with Jesus, who, right before He spoke that famous harvest quote, saw the crowds of people in need of hearing the Truth and had compassion on them because they were “like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).

We care that the Gospel goes forth. We care that the name of Jesus is proclaimed. We care that the whole world has a chance to hear of the Savior. And this should lead us to care about how to help missionaries continue participating in the Great Commission for as long as possible.

Photo from Pixabay

Helping Cross-Cultural Workers Flourish through Member Care: An Interview with Josh Beck, Executive Director/CEO of Barnabas International

I’ve known Josh Beck for quite a while, having attended and being sent out for overseas work by the same congregation. We’ve had a lot of good conversations over the years, and now that he’s recently completed his first year as the Executive Director/CEO of Barnabas International, I wanted to ask him a few questions about the importance of member care for those serving abroad.

First question, Josh: What has caused you to value the role of member care in cross-cultural work?

When we were serving overseas, my family and I were the recipients of member care, mainly from our sending church. We have some incredible stories of how they shepherded us before, during, and as we exited our ministry overseas. This impressed upon me the important role that pastoral care plays in living out our calling.

Sometimes, we can take the view that member care is not particularly essential to missions. Strategic thinkers hash out methodologies for witnessing, identify key areas of the world the gospel has yet to penetrate, and whiteboard inventive ways to utilize tools and resources to “accomplish the mission.” What is often overlooked is the fact that flourishing missionaries birth flourishing ministries. Who we are becoming while we follow our call is just as, if not more, important than what God is calling us to do!

What is the path that led you from missionary to executive director of a member-care organization?

The path that led me into my current role is a bit circuitous. A lot of discernment, prayer, and surrounding myself with good advisors. Upon our return to the states, I joined staff at our sending church. I had the privilege to serve as the Missions Pastor where I walked with and provided care and oversight for the missionaries that we had sent out. My wife, Denise, and I were so honored to get to do this. We got to be intimately involved in the lives and ministries of these families. During this season, I was asked to take on the role of Executive Pastor at the church to oversee and shepherd our staff. I had crossed paths with my predecessor at Barnabas, Perry Bradford, in the missions world as we attended conferences and got to know one another a bit. I approached him to ask if he would meet with me every couple of weeks to talk through leadership, life with God, pray, etc. . . . a mentoring type role for a season. To my delight, he agreed.

We had been meeting together for about seven months when he officially announced his retirement. It was to be a two-year plan involving a search (internal and external), prayer and fasting, interviews, etc. (A complicating factor—Denise, as the Exec Director of Velvet Ashes was on the board of Barnabas). I was excited, from a mentoring standpoint, to get to witness a transition at the executive level of Barnabas from a unique point of view, learn what not to do and what to do, and see how Perry led through it. However, four months into the search, Perry asked me if he could put my name forward as a possible candidate. I was humbled and felt the weight of even being asked such a thing. The next day, Denise and I asked three couples whom we deeply trust to walk with us and advise us through this process, and they agreed. Of course, if I said yes, Denise would immediately have to step off the board until the process was finished. After a couple weeks of prayer, fasting, and listening to our advisors, I called Perry and said yes. This put us on a five-month journey of discerning with our inner circle of advisors and with the Barnabas Board of Directors; and I was offered the position in February of 2023.

So, I guess you could say I did get a unique perspective of executive transition, just not in the way I anticipated. I stepped in as the fifth Executive Director/CEO of Barnabas International on July 1, 2023, and Perry stepped away. However, according to the plan we put together, the first six months of my leadership I still met weekly with Perry in order to learn the organization, ask questions, and onboard. The Barnabas board, through prayer and diligent work, set up the transition to go incredibly smoothly. The Lord’s faithful guidance and grace through the process has been evident. As of July 1 of this year, I’ve been in this role one year.

If I could be “a bit circuitous” myself . . . I want to get back to the role of the local church and para-church organizations, but first I want to ask, As you look over your years of involvement with cross-cultural work, how have you seen member care grow and change? I’ve often heard veteran workers talk about training, pastoral care, debriefing, and the like and say, “I wish that had been available for us when we were on the field.” What are we learning about supporting missionaries and what are we getting better at?

The term “member care” can be a bit weird to many people outside of missions circles. It’s really only been around for about 30 years or so. It’s also true that different organizations and groups will define it in different ways as there is no recognized minimum standard of care across the industry. Additionally, we’ve seen a movement toward “specialized” care similar to the US healthcare system. Member-care providers specialize in a particular discipline or area of care.

However, as member care continues to evolve, we’re seeing a movement towards multi-disciplinary team approaches to caring for missionaries. This allows for a more holistic approach. Rather than compartmentalizing care, collaboration in care for the missionary or missions team is becoming more prevalent. What does this look like practically? It looks like a team made up of clinicians, pastoral caregivers, spiritual directors, and debriefers working together and collaborating in care. Maybe it’s a group of member-care givers forming their own peer consultation group that meet every month to walk through particularly hard situations they might be dealing with within their care ministry (confidentiality policies would apply). It can look a lot of different ways. The key question is, what care does the missionary or team really need?

Just like in evangelism or church life cycles, there are also trends and development of disciplines in member care. Over the past few years we’ve seen a movement towards spiritual direction, both one-on-one and group spiritual direction. This has really been an effective way to walk with cross-cultural workers as they try to discern what the Lord is doing in them and through them. Additionally, this adds to the avenues of care that the missionary has access to. And I would imagine there will be emerging trends and tools for care in the coming years.

Walking with and shepherding missionaries is not a formula that we can copy and paste in each situation. Different cultural contexts produce different wrestlings and problems. At the same time, there can be general emerging tensions and pressure points. At Barnabas, one of those pressure points that we’re beginning to dig into is spiritual and emotional abuse and how it presents itself in the missions world. This is a big one. We’ve seen this become more prominent in the Western church as sin is exposed. And missionaries, member-care providers, mission teams, and mission organizations are not immune to this.

Here’s the thing, as member-care providers, we need to be ministering out of an overflow of our own relationship to the Father. Tim Keller once said, “It’s not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch.” We need to put our faith and dependence in the right place, and that’s Christ. Our methodologies and disciplines are helpful tools, but if my faith is in my training or certification then I will have a hard time walking missionaries towards a flourishing life in ministry.

Could you elaborate more on the “pressure point” of spiritual and emotional abuse? It certainly is a big concern, and it can also be difficult to discern and address. What should people in the missions community be attentive to?

Frankly, this is something we are currently learning about and digging into. At Barnabas, this is something we see increasingly present in the missions community. So the question is, how do we walk with individuals, teams, and orgs to help assure that we are honoring Christ in the way we live our callings? I’m particularly interested in systems and structures that create soil in which abuse can grow. Christian leadership should never be lorded over those we are leading (1 Peter 5:3) and this includes on the mission field and in mission orgs, not just the local church. We are to be shepherds who are submitted to the Chief Shepherd. That same verse also talks about being “examples to the flock.” So right now, we at Barnabas are in the process of asking questions about our own organization and leadership first and foremost.

All of this to say, I am not an expert on spiritual or emotional abuse, so I want to be careful about speaking right now with an assumed authority on the subject. What we do want to do is submit ourselves to the Lordship of Christ as we minister to those we serve. This is so “real time” for us right now. If you ask this same question in six months or so, I hopefully will understand more about this dynamic and how to walk with people through this.

Thanks for your candor and your commitment to focusing on this issue. And yes, maybe we can revisit it here in the future.

So you talk about the member care you received from your sending church. Ideally, how can local churches, pastoral organizations—such as Barnabas—and sending agencies work together to provide needed care? How can they complement each in giving the holistic support you refer to?

This is a great question, man. I really think that first and foremost we have to engage the whole church/para-church tension. We are not competing. I love that you used the word “complement.” It’s important that local churches thrive at sending and that there are other orgs that help them do that.

After we’re able to resolve that tension, then we can creatively look at ways that partnership can happen. One of those ways is for us all to learn from one another. It’s relational and it is focused on sending, sustaining, and supporting those we send. As you know, different churches have different capacities when it comes to sending. But all churches are called to participate in some way in God’s global mission. Sending organizations and member-care organizations can aid in this. One great example is the organizations out there like TRAIN International, who have specific programs to train and equip local church leaders to send and care for their missionaries. On the flip side, sending organizations and member-care organizations have a lot to learn from local congregations also in the areas of generous care and investment. We need both during this season.

Something that’s also important to keep in mind is that the global center of Christianity has shifted from North America and Europe to the Global South. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. However, with this shift having taken place, there are growing pockets of sending churches in countries in Asia, Africa, and South America. I think there’s some real opportunity for those of us in the West who have lived through a few cycles of sending and caring for missionaries to come alongside these emerging sending communities to humbly offer what we’ve learned . . . in particular, what we’ve not done well. A focus on member care usually lags behind the focus on sending. However, there’s opportunity for these non-Western sending communities to grasp and implement member-care practices to help missionaries being sent out to really minister from a place of abiding and overflowing with Christ.

Finally, even with the many member-care resources available, some missionaries feel alone and isolated. What advice would you give to them? How can they best advocate for themselves?

I do think there are way more self-access member-care avenues that missionaries can tap into now than there have been in the past. Organizations like Velvet Ashes, VALEO, and others have paved the way for digital support, care, learning, and counseling. My advice would be to courageously pursue care through some of these avenues.

To be quite frank, I think sending churches and orgs have a role to play in this in the pre-field process. Many times, we send passionate but immature Christians to do ministry overseas. The process of member care starts before we even get foreign soil on our shoes. There is nothing magical that happens on a flight over an ocean. Who we are in our passport country is who we are overseas. So if we are abiding in Jesus in our home country, we’ll do that overseas.

But I do recognize that the missionary reading this now that didn’t receive that training and care ahead of time can feel disheartened in their situation. At Barnabas, to give a shameless plug, we have an easy starting point. If they go to our “contact us” page on our website, there’s a form there a worker can fill out. Our intake team will receive that form and within three days will contact them to refer them to a Barnabas staff member or to a partner agency for care and counsel.

Thanks, Craig, for the opportunity to engage in this. I really think care of the missionaries around the world is so strategic to the kingdom and to what Jesus wants to do in so many places. If we’re not exemplifying and embodying the love and grace of Jesus in our own lives, it’s pretty hard to point people in his direction. People smell fake from a long way off.

Thank you, Josh!

[photo: “Talk,” by Georgie Pauwels, used under a Creative Commons license]

Digging in the Dirt, a new book from Jonathan Trotter, is now available!

Hello, all!

I am so excited to announce the release of my new book! It’s called Digging in the Dirt: Musings on Missions, Emotions, and Life in the Mud, and you can find print and Kindle versions here.

Digging in the Dirt contains some of my most heartfelt writings, and addresses things ranging from depression and anxiety, to TCKs and what flying taught me about missions.

It addresses married sexuality on the field, as well as what to do when the thief steals and the power goes out. It’s got some poetry, some top ten lists, and some laments. It’s also got some seeds of hope, and it is my deepest desire that it would encourage and bless folks all over the globe.

I’ll post the text from the back cover and the preface below.

I’m so grateful for the community here, and I’m grateful for my editor, our very own Elizabeth Trotter! Have a wonderful weekend, and may the love and peace of God be very near to you and yours!

all for ONE,

Jonathan Trotter

From the back cover:

Welcome to ground level, to the dirt and the mess.

We like the mountain tops and the sunshine. We like green grass under a clear blue sky. We like victory and breakthrough and answered prayers. But sometimes it rains, the shadows deepen, and life turns muddy. Sometimes God seems quiet. What then? What happens when depression descends, or anxiety hangs like a sword overhead? What happens when loneliness suffocates, the thief steals more than stuff, and you get blood on your shoes?

In Digging in the Dirt, Jonathan Trotter delves into the disasters, the darkness, and the deluge, and he offers comfort, presence, and a gentle invitation to hope.

With humor and prose, with poetry and Top Ten lists, Jonathan welcomes us to the dirt, to the places where we actually live. He invites us to boldly see life as it is, with eyes wide open, and reminds us that even when the digging is scary, we are never alone.

To the ones who are dealing with devastation and distress, welcome. To the ones who need to uproot, to pull out, to clear ground, welcome. To the ones who seek desperately to plant seeds of grace and hope in once barren soil, welcome. To the missionary abroad and the believer at home, welcome. Receive the invitation, and join with Jonathan here at ground level, together.

Come, dig in the dirt.

From the preface:

Hello and Welcome!

I’m Jonathan, and it’s such a pleasure to meet you. I look forward to journeying with you through these pages. Together, we’ll delve into the dirt of life and relationships, of sorrows, pain, and loss. And maybe we’ll plant some things too.

Perhaps, along the way, we’ll see small, green stalks of life and hope begin to poke through, watered with the tears of the journey. Digging like this can be messy, but it can be good too.

These musings will meander from the hot dirt of Cambodia to the sticky mud of American politics. Some of these musings are inspired by international missionary life; some of them are firmly rooted in an American context. But whether you’re American or not, whether you’re a missionary or not, I hope that you find them all a blessing, an encouragement, and perhaps sometimes a challenge. I wrote them for you, and I share them with you with my whole heart.

Start reading Digging in the Dirt wherever you’d like, and feel free to skip ahead or go backwards. Are you a cross-cultural missionary? Start there if you want. Are you interested in developing emotional intelligence, or are you exploring whether or not Christians are allowed to have feelings? Consider starting in the Emotions section. Are you reeling from recent life events that have left you feeling like you’re choking on the mud and muck? First of all, I’m so sorry. Second, breathe a slow, deep breath, look over the Table of Contents, and start wherever you need to start.

Wherever you are, and whatever your story, welcome to ground level, to the dirt. It is here that the real work happens; the good, hard, sweet, healing work. It is my deepest hope that here, among these musings, you may find grace, peace, and a hope that just might be strong enough to crack through the crust.

All for ONE,
Jonathan Trotter

___________________________________

Check it out on Amazon here!

*Amazon affiliate links help support the work of A Life Overseas

A New Resource for Member Care Providers

by Geoff Whiteman and Heather Pubols

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article is excerpted from Essentials for People Care and Development: A Collection of Best Practices, Research, Reflections, and Strategies, an excellent new book on member care from Missio Nexus. ~Elizabeth Trotter

Since 2000, I (Heather) have served in missions and communications. These days much of my work is focused on equipping and encouraging other missionary communicators. I often tell them that the job of a missions communicator is more than just developing content and materials to promote a mission organization’s vision and programs. As we help our missionary colleagues share their knowledge and stories, in the process, we care for them as encouragers and advocates.

World Evangelical Alliance Global Member Care Network Coordinator Harry Hoffman has a category for people giving this kind of care. He calls them “people helpers.” Harry says this group includes lay counselors, mentors, peers, and spiritual mothers and fathers. I might add colleagues to his list. People helpers are an often untapped or overlooked source of peer-related member care.

In his book Renovated: God, Dallas Willard and the Church that Transforms, Jim Wilder decries the neglect of relational skills development in Christian organizations. Instead, he says, as we collectively strive to accomplish our organization’s vision, staff tire, disconnect, and become spiritually dead.

However, Wilder goes on to explain that when our organizations first cultivate healthy relational cultures, vision is implemented in a better way. People stop “burning out for Jesus,” mature spiritually, and exhibit greater trust in God. Member care in this model becomes a critical organizational strategy for sustainability, and everyone is invited to play a part in it.

This brings me great encouragement and was part of my inspiration in spearheading the creation of this book. My desire was not just to see member care professionals better equipped. I also wanted anyone involved in missions to have the chance to expand their view of member care and see ways they could apply the contents of this book as they cared for their fellow humans serving in God’s mission.

To achieve these objectives, I partnered with Geoff Whiteman. Geoff has served as a member care professional in private practice and with mission sending and service organizations (both as a resilience researcher and a marriage and family therapist) and currently advises member care professionals directly. Together as co-editors of this book, we bring our experience as co-laboring missionaries as well as our perspectives from different ends of the member care spectrum. Geoff gave leadership to this book’s topics and authors, while I worked with each author on crafting the content for a broad audience.

So whether you are a person who simply wants to be more aware of how to better care for global workers you know or work with, you are considering a ministry of care for God’s beloved missionaries, or you are a seasoned member care professional – welcome! This book was written for you.

Most of the contributors to this volume presented at the MissioNexus Mission Leader Conference in 2022 and 2023. The themes of those conferences were “Counting the Cost” and “Shift: Rapid Social Transformation and the Gospel.” The people care and development workshop track connected these themes with the needs of the missions community through a practical theology lens.

To develop this further, we asked several questions. What do member care professionals believe (theological and biblical reflections)? What do we know (research and case studies)? How can we respond (frameworks and strategies)? What will help (tools and resources)? And who can we join (kingdom collaboration)?

An axiom of missiology is that faithfulness to the universal gospel requires attentiveness to the particulars. We need exegesis of the text and ethnography of the context if the good news is to be good news here and now. This axiom is true for member care as well. There have been seismic shifts in the world that impact the world of missions and the discipline of member care.

I (Geoff) can think of many people who have lamented to me about what they are seeing. An executive director of a mid-sized agency explained, “We used to have a good handle on member care, but now we’re not so sure. Everyone coming is carrying so much trauma. We want to help them, and we also have a job we need them to do.”

A seasoned trainer told me, “We keep seeing major member care issues in our trainees. The people coming through training now need more training, but organizations are placing a lower priority on training. There’s a huge gap between everyone’s expectations. I’ve given my life to closing this gap, but it keeps widening.”

On another occasion, a senior pastor shared with me about texting with global workers on the other side of the world who were in a medical emergency with their child. He said, “I’m their pastor. I have to help them, but I don’t know who to turn to.”

I share Heather’s conviction that the invitation of member care to love one another well belongs to each of us. And I add my conviction that some of us are invited to become member care professionals who do so with excellence. This is because many of the perplexing and pervasive challenges are best understood as structural. These are places where our walls are not framed plumb and square to our foundation and where no amount of fresh paint will remedy the problem.

One of the more pervasive structural problems is the belief that the aim of member care is to eliminate preventable attrition rather than to see reductions in attrition as an outcome of a healthy system in which member care has a key role. Through research, we found that attrition is multi-faceted, complex, and rarely (if ever) clearly differentiated between preventable or unpreventable. Member care workers often play an essential role in helping global workers do well, but their work is often tertiary and occurs alongside friends, family, colleagues, supporting churches, and others.

To move forward we need to grow in awareness of how care fits across cultures in individual relationships and in organizational systems. And we need to approach this area with hearts and minds that honor those who came before us and are open to the diverse perspectives of those involved in today’s global mission environment. Reading and interacting with the content of this book can be one step in moving forward.

Our prayer is that this book will meet a real need you have now and provide you with resources you can return to again and again. We trust it proves to be a blessing to you and through you to those God invites you to care for. We hope you’ll share it with someone you know and the dialogue that follows will spark new insights.

May we each be a part of building healthy relational cultures in the organizations we serve!

~~~~~~~~~

Heather Pubols is the editor of Evangelical Missions Quarterly (EMQ, emqonline.com) – a professional journal for North American missionaries that has been continuously published since 1964. She is also the founder and principal communications consultant for le Motif (lemotif.org) – a communications consulting firm focused on global mission. She has served in missions for more than 20 years.

Geoff Whiteman, ThM, LMFT, serves member care professionals as the director of the VALEO Research Institute (valeo.global/research) and the MissioNexus People Care and Development track co-leader. Since 2000, he has served in vocational ministry and has supported the care and training of global workers in Christ since 2007. Those experiences piqued his interest in how global workers could persevere with joy which led him to research resilience (resilientglobalworker.org).

Let’s talk about sin (It won’t be that bad, I promise!)

In November we asked for your help on a “Sin Survey.” The survey came about because an organization that provides prefield training noticed a concerning commonly held belief.

In short, “Sin won’t be a problem for me/us on the field because God has called me/us.”

In the anonymous survey Global Trellis gathered your collective wisdom and put it into two resources: one for people new to the field and one for people who have been on the field for a while.

As a brief refresher, the survey involved 4 questions:

1—How long have you been on the field? Or how long were you on the field?

2—In what ways has being on the field had no impact on the ways you sin? (In other words, you are you wherever you are in the world?)

3—In what ways has being on the field “positively” impacted your sinning? (In other words, how has being on the field helped you to sin less?)

4—In what ways has being on the field “negatively” impacted your sinning? (In other words, how has being on the field contributed to you sinning more?)

Reading the responses was both encouraging and heart breaking. One of the clear results is that we are regular people in harder situations. While sexual sins were mentioned, want to know what was mentioned far more often? Pride.

The encouraging part of the survey was the reminder of how very much God loves us. How very much God loves you. Sin is real and the results can be far reaching, but God’s love is even farther reaching. As God reaches into the parts that seem too dark to share, too entrenched to hope for a change, or too common to need to take that seriously, he has life for you!

We’ve recently celebrated Easter. I love the refrain, “Christ has risen” and the response, “He has risen indeed!” The same refrain can be said of us because of the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit alive in us. “That which was stuck in sin has been brought to life!” . . . “It has been brought to life indeed!”

Can I get an amen?!

So, to those of you who took the survey, thank you! You might wondered what happened and if anything was done with your input.

We’ve created two workshops—for the newbies and old hands—for you to use in training, personal development, and member care.

For the newbies:

Summary of the survey answers,
A list of practical suggestions for your first year,
3 “simple” takeaways from the survey for first term,
3 questions to ask yourself during your first term (and download home art)

For the old hands:

Summary and themes from the survey,
How to handle the “respectable sins” many of us wrestle with,
3 “simple” takeaways from the survey,
3 questions to ask yourself when it comes to sin (and downloadable home art! Not what you think of with sin . . . but Jesus came to bring life! We’re so excited about the art!)

Resources for you:

Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges (book)

Sin and Resiliency for the First Term (workshop)

Sin and Resiliency for the Long Haul (workshop)

Bundle of both workshops

Last week I was talking with a friend about these workshops and she said, “I’ll be interested to see how much actual interest people express in these resources because sin doesn’t sell. We know we’re sinners and Christ died for us, but we don’t really want to talk about it.”

I’m hoping that she’s wrong. That we do want to talk about sin because it’s when we don’t talk about it, downplay it, or have the grand plan of “hoping it’s not a problem” that sin’s roots can grow deep.

Spend time reflecting on the questions in the survey. Remember past sins that were a struggle and no longer have the grip they once did. Invest in your own soul with one of these resources.

Friend, hear this good news today: Jesus loves you. Jesus is at work in you. Your sin is serious. Jesus will help you with current sin and better yet, help you avoid future sin.

A Pocket Guide for Talking to Missionaries: Dozens of Missionaries Open Up About Questions They Love and Questions They Don’t

“Soooo…..how’s Mongolia?”

Let’s be realistic here. There really is no perfect way to start a conversation in the church foyer with someone you haven’t seen in three years. Especially if that person has been living in Mongolia.

Uh, Mongolia’s good. All good. Cold, but good.

Cue awkward silence while both parties are nodding and fake smiling.

But hey, at least this person remembered the name of the country. That counts for something. Especially because any missionary will tell you that the awkwardness of “How’s [fill in the blank country name]?” is eclipsed only by the even awkwarder question “How was your trip?”

My “trip” that took three years and included a child being born, another almost dying of malaria, a church plant, five moves, one flood, a new language, and an unfortunate incident involving a police officer and a scorpion? That trip? Um, it was good.

We know you mean well. We’re thankful you’re even talking to us. It’s far worse standing in a church lobby with no one to talk to (because that’s happened too). We’ve got gobs of grace for awkward questions. But may we offer some suggestions?

We asked some cross-cultural missionaries which questions they dread (and what they would love to be asked!). Want to make a missionary’s day? Keep reading.

The Church Foyer Questions (a.k.a. Small Talk)

Don’t ask questions that assume they feel at home.

Ashleigh: One question I dread is, “Aren’t you happy to be home? or “Do you miss it here?” How do I answer either one of those? I can’t explain myself because often I don’t know what home is or how I feel about either location. I love both, but I also miss the other when I’m not there.

Meredith: When they come back to their sending country for furlough, don’t say, “It must be great to be home!” The place where they serve is becoming home.

Instead ask questions that reconnect.

“We’re so happy to see you! It must be so disorienting to be back here after so long. I’m ____, in case you forgot.”

“Can you remind me of your kids’ names and ages?”

“How long was your plane ride? What airports did you pass through?”

“What weather change did you experience when you got on a plane there and arrived here?”

“Who are the people you’ve been excited to see?”

Or ask about something specific from their recent newsletter or social media post.

Don’t ask how their vacation is going.

Lynette: Although I may be home on furlough, it’s still not a holiday! Many missionaries spend their “holiday” in their home country, but it’s far from restful. Fundraising, updating, and meeting sponsors simply have to be done and are vital to continuing the mission, but it’s not a break from the work. Only a different environment.

Jenny: Don’t assume their furlough or stateside visit is restful or that they are on an extended vacation.

This question is so discouraging that we wrote a whole post on it.

Instead ask what this time looks like for them.

“I know you’re working hard while you are here. What does your time here look like?”

“Will you be able to take a vacation?”

“What fun things are you looking forward to doing while you are here?”

“What’s the restaurant everybody in your family wanted to visit first?” (Bonus points for following this up with: Can I take you to lunch there after the service?)

Bottom line: Assume your visiting missionaries are feeling awkward and disoriented. Keep it light. Keep it welcoming. Don’t monopolize their time. Introduce them to others. Save the deeper stuff for when you have more time to chat.

The Coffee, Dinner, or Small Group Questions

Don’t ask questions about a “typical” day or week.

Joshua: [I dread being asked] “What does a typical week look like?”

Fred: [I dread being asked] “What does a typical day look like?” I love the heart behind this one, and it’s heading in the right direction! You are trying to get a picture of what life looks like, and that’s awesome!

Most missionaries don’t have a typical day or week. Instead ask more specific questions.

Marilyn: “How is life different for your family there than it is in the U.S.?”

Joshua: “What do you love about your city? (Or about the people where you serve?)”

Jean: “What breaks your heart?”

Linda: “Where have you seen God at work?”

Kimberly: I love any questions about what we see as cultural differences, church differences, ministry differences. I love explaining that I feel both cultures can learn from each other.

Don’t ask questions that assume the worst about their host country.

Amanda: Don’t ask about the weirdest food we eat. It’s not “weird” in our host country—it’s normal and cultural.

Matyas: I don’t like questions about politics through the lens that the person asking already has a “right” answer. For example: “Is Hungary a dictatorship?” This assumes they already think Hungary is, and they aren’t open to changing their perspective after they hear the answer.

Heather: “Doesn’t it make you thankful for how blessed we are here (meaning America)?”

Angela: “Is it safe?” I hate this question. Most people don’t understand the complexity of answering this question as a single female in the field. [For thoughts on safety overseas, go here.]

Instead ask open-ended questions about cross-cultural life.

Ashleigh: One question that I love is, “What was your first/biggest culture shock?” And I think it is a great question because it is always so unique to each person, and so incredibly different depending on the cultural context.

Stephanie: Missionaries appreciate humor and being asked about normal life things! It’s lonely out there, and we want everyday-type of connection.

Matyas: I like questions about people. “How are the people thinking or how are they different?” I like to talk about different cultures and different worldviews.

Rachel: “What makes London [or host city] feel like home? What are your favorite local places/people, etc.?”

A.W. Workman: “How have you changed since you went overseas?”

Don’t ask why they aren’t serving in their home country instead of abroad.

Peggy: “Why are you helping kids in Africa when so many kids in our own country need help?” I get this question surprisingly often.

Megan: “Couldn’t you do that in America?” (‘that’ being coaching, cross-cultural outreach, immigrant work, etc.)

When it comes from Christians, this question is demoralizing since the Bible makes it clear that reaching the nations should be a priority. If you’re not convinced, take a Perspectives class.

Don’t get too personal.

Kendra: Don’t put pressure on the single missionaries to talk about being single on the mission field. There’s so much more to a person than their marital status. You wouldn’t ask any other secular professional about their personal life…it would be considered very inappropriate and crossing a lot of boundaries. Chances are their work and their people are what they’re in love with currently anyway.

Rachel: [I dread] questions to or about our teens/kids that assume they are spiritually ‘solid,’ or consider themselves to be missionaries, without realizing that (like most kids) their faith may be still developing.

Beth: We’ve been asked, “How’s your marriage going?” How can we possibly answer that question in a group setting with people we don’t know well (or could remove our funding!)?

Instead, save these questions for close relationships or a member care/debrief setting (see the next section below).

Bottom line: Be curious. Yes, ask about their ministry, but also ask the non-spiritual questions.

Questions for Missions Care Teams and Close Friends

Bottom line (but at the top because it’s that important): Most people don’t have to worry about losing their job when they share about personal struggles. Missionaries do. Only ask these questions if you are ready to be a supportive, safe space for missionaries to be transparent. Be prepared to give them grace, not condemnation, and to help them get the help they need.

Don’t ask for numbers.

Jocelyn: Please don’t try to quantify work down to how many baptisms, healings, conversions we have been part of. We are broken and walk alongside broken people, and we are not responsible for numbers. We are responsible to love people. The complexity of the life situations and injustices we walk through with people as we work overseas are immense. We feel misunderstood by others when the validity of the work is quantified by “conversion stories” and “how many baptisms.”

Instead ask about the highs and lows of ministry.

Meredith: “Where have you seen the Lord at work? What’s the most encouraging (or discouraging) thing about your ministry right now?”

Brook: Ask questions about real people, like having the missionary choose one person they are working with and share either disappointments or exciting things they see in that person’s growth and maturity.

Jonathan Trotter: “What are your dreams? What are you looking forward to? How can we support you in the future?”

Do ask about their health (physical, mental, spiritual, marriage & family) and support systems.

Matt: Senders in a position of responsibility should ask very direct questions about their missionary’s future. Are they planning well for future financial needs? Do they have adequate life insurance, and are they investing appropriately in their physical and mental health?

Audrey: So many missionaries deal with [trauma] and I believe it’s because people don’t know what to do that they tend to ignore it. Many things we face overseas are beyond the comprehension of those who live in our sending countries. Big issues are ignored, not because we are not loved, but because no one knows what to do or how to help. Civil wars, coups, abuse of power by those in authority, constant goodbyes as people come and go in your community — the trauma can be big or small, but it is very real.

Laura: Leave room for conversations about the hard stuff — marriages falling apart, frustrations with ministry, discouragement, feeling out of place in our passport countries, etc. We’re human, too. We’re not “saviors.” Treat us like regular folks and listen to our stuff, too.

Deanna: Is their children’s TCK identity being adequately cared for? Spousal relationship, prejudices toward the people/culture, and how God is working in that? These can be pretty invasive questions, but it is necessary for missionaries to evaluate these hard topics and for those sending to help them with that, especially if their sending agency is hands-off or lacks resources.

Bottom line (repeated from the top because it’s that important): Most people don’t have to worry about losing their job when they share about personal struggles. Missionaries do. Only ask these questions if you are ready to be a supportive, safe space for missionaries to be transparent. Be prepared to give them grace, not condemnation, and to help them get the help they need.

Like everyone, missionaries want to be seen, heard, and understood. They want to be cared for and prayed for.

So our last word of advice is to please listen and pray.

Benjamin: Listen well, be curious, laugh lots. You don’t have to completely understand every nuance of the culture they’re serving in to be a great listener, empathize, and pray for them.

Judi: Listen . . . Don’t talk. Don’t ask too many questions. Just listen. With eyes intent and an open heart.

Karin: Ask about their joys and their sorrows — really listen — and pray with them right there. Being heard, especially in our areas of grief and sorrow, means the world when we are travelling and speaking and sometimes feeling like everyone thinks we are better than we are!

Anna: Don’t talk. Listen. The end.

Angie: The question I love is “How can we pray for you, your family, and the pastors you work with? Give us specifics.” (When someone wants to know the specifics, it makes me feel truly cared for. They are not assuming they know what we need; they are asking for the details.)

We really don’t have words to express how grateful we are for those who love us and partner with us in taking Christ’s hope to the nations. Thank you for caring about missionaries!

Paul and the Corbels of Member Care

There’s something in architecture called a corbel. Even if you’ve never heard the name before, you’re probably familiar with what it is. A corbel is a bracket, sometimes ornamental, that projects out from a wall, providing support to a structure above. It allows that structure to extend out to where it couldn’t on its own.

Cross-cultural workers are the kinds of people who want to reach out far from home, who dream of going where no one has gone before. They’re often pioneering spirits who’d even go it alone, if that’s what it took—empowered only by their calling and their grit, gristle, and God-given abilities. That’s how the Apostle Paul did it, right? If I were more like Paul, I’d rely on God more and on people less . . . right?

Yes, at times, Paul stressed his independence. In his letter to the Galatian churches, he affirmed that his role as an apostle came directly from Jesus, not from his association with the other apostles:

But when the one who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I could preach him among the Gentiles, I did not go to ask advice from any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me, but right away I departed to Arabia, and then returned to Damascus.

But Paul wasn’t a loner. He took partners with him on his missionary trips, and he also recognized the need for flesh-and-blood corbels to hold him up as he reached out, bearing the gospel. He valued the encouragement and comfort of others. He understood the importance of member care (pastoral care, nurture and development, tender care, that one safe friend).

When Paul finally met with the apostles in Jerusalem, Barnabas helped him by being his advocate, vouching for his dedication to Jesus. Later, Barnabas sought out Paul for his help in working with the church in Antioch, and the two were sent out by the church on Paul’s first missionary journey. It was during his trips and while he was a prisoner that Paul wrote his New Testament letters, often mentioning those who served to encourage him.

Near the end of his first letter to the church in Corinth, he wrote about “the household of Stephanus” (or Stephanas), who “devoted themselves to ministry for the saints,” and added,

I was glad about the arrival of Stephanus, Fortunatus, and Achaicus because they have supplied the fellowship with you that I lacked. For they refreshed my spirit and yours. So then, recognize people like this.

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul told about how he even turned away from a God-sent opening for ministry because he needed to hear from Titus:

Now when I arrived in Troas to proclaim the gospel of Christ, even though the Lord had opened a door of opportunity for me, I had no relief in my spirit, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said good-bye to them and set out for Macedonia.

Then, in Macedonia,

our body had no rest at all, but we were troubled in every way—struggles from the outside, fears from within, But God, who encourages the downhearted, encouraged us by the arrival of Titus. We were encouraged not only by his arrival, but also by the encouragement you gave him, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your deep concern for me, so that I rejoiced more than ever.

While under house arrest in Rome, Paul wrote to Philemon, “I have had great joy and encouragement because of your love, for the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother.” He went on to address the subject of Onesimus, Philemon’s slave who had run away, had come to Paul, and had become a Christian. Paul was sending him back to Philemon, not as a slave but as a brother in Christ, even though Paul wrote, “I wanted to keep him so that he could serve me in your place during my imprisonment for the sake of the gospel.” Paul also looked forward to spending time with Philemon in the future, telling him to “prepare a place for me to stay, for I hope that through your prayers I will be given back to you.”

Still a prisoner, Paul wrote to the Colossians and the Philippians. He told those in Colossae that Aristarchus, Mark, and Jesus (called Justus) were the only Jewish Christians still working with him, saying “they have been a comfort to me.” And to the Christians in Philippi, he told of his plans to send to them Epaphroditus, whom he described as

my brother, coworker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to me in my need. Indeed, he greatly missed all of you and was distressed because you heard that he had been ill. In fact he became so ill that he nearly died. But God showed mercy to him—and not to him only, but also to me—so that I would not have grief on top of grief. Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you can rejoice and I can be free from anxiety. So welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, since it was because of the work of Christ that he almost died. He risked his life so that he could make up for your inability to serve me.

Later, imprisoned in a Roman dungeon, Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, saying, “As I remember your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy,” and then,

May the Lord grant mercy to the family of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my imprisonment. But when he arrived in Rome, he eagerly searched for me and found me. May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day! And you know very well all the ways he served me in Ephesus.

Alone, except for Luke, Paul told Timothy, “Make every effort to come to me soon,” requesting that he also bring Mark, because “he is a great help to me in ministry.” Paul even mentioned some items that he wanted (a care package?), asking Timothy to bring along a cloak that Paul had left in Troas, as well as his scrolls.

Even Paul needed member care, not just for the sake of his work, but also for his personal well-being. Or maybe we should say, given the hardships that he faced, especially Paul needed member care. He needed it, and he appreciated it. And if Paul needed it, so do today’s cross-cultural workers, every one.

A version of the post originally appeared in ClearingCustoms.net.

[photo: “Corbels,” by Peter Grima, used under a Creative Commons license]

Beating the Drum for Missionary Care: An Interview with Neal Pirolo

In her post “Closer to the Truth about Current Missionary Attrition: An Initial Analysis of Results,” Katie Rowe looks at the findings of a recent survey of missionaries, showing that respondents rated “lack of missionary care” as one of the most common reasons for leaving the field. One of those who commented on the post was Neal Pirolo, author of Serving as Senders—Today: How to Care for Your Missionaries as They Prepare to Go, Are on the Field and Return Home, and The Reentry Team: Caring for Your Returning Missionaries. The current edition of Serving as Senders—Today is a revision of the original, first published in 1991. Since then, it has been translated into 20 languages and has nearly a half million copies in print.

In reference to missionary/member care, Neal wrote, “I have been ‘beating this drum’ since 1976!” I contacted Neal to get his long-term perspective, and he graciously agreed to answer my questions (and along the way, with his wife’s help, remembered that the year was actually 1978).

Why was 1978 a starting point for you to begin your drumbeat for missionary care?

Oftentimes, telling a story communicates better than “just the facts.” Let me tell a story:

I went to Brazil to administer the five schools Wycliffe/SIL was using at the time for missionary children. My wife was given the responsibility of overseeing the Group House in Cuiaba. We had a choice: move our family of six in with all the singles or move from house to house every three months as translators went to their villages and back. We moved in. We looked in the refrigerator. Every item had someone’s initials on it. We looked at each other. “This will not work,” our eyes said to each other. But how do you change a group of people so entrenched?

On the second evening, we were all in the kitchen trying to quickly clean up and get to a meeting. Someone pulled hard on the fridge door. It came off its hinge! It fell forward, dumping all the contents on the floor. After the clean-up, my wife said, “We will be doing things differently now.” We became a family.

To make a long story short, in those two and a half years, we lost all sense of personal ownership. Everything became ours. Even our bedroom became the crying room for several single women who were being teased beyond reason about getting married.

Well, in 1978, we came home. At the office, a working partner was using a new Bic extra-fine felt-tipped pen. (They had not been around when we went to Brazil.) I admired it. He let me try it. It made such a smooth and clear script. I liked it. The next day he brought one and gave it to me. He gave it to me! It was mine. I owned it! Every so often, I would stop writing and just look at that 79-cent Bic pen and realize that I owned it. It was mine! His first look at me was quizzical. Then he smiled an understanding smile. And we went back to work.

There is a chapter in The Reentry Team titled “Silly Little Things.” Silly little thing after silly little thing can create an apprehension in returning missionaries making them wonder “what next?” Bit by bit the reservoir of resistance to the uncertainty of these silly little things can become “the final straw.” Only those trained in missionary care will see the need to help them process even those silly little things.

After returning from ministry in Brazil. I was given the position of director of the San Diego School of Evangelism and missions pastor of the sponsoring church. SDSE was a ministry school with a very strong emphasis on cross-cultural outreach (missions). Even as the students made their application to the school, I encouraged them to develop a team of ten people who would be supportive of them, for they were entering this school with a life of ministry before them. Then, to those who wanted to minister cross-culturally, we gave further training in living and ministering in a second culture, with the support team becoming more fully developed around the areas of care Paul commended the Christians of Philippi for providing for him.

You’ve had 40-plus years of watching the missionary landscape and listening to missionary stories. From what you have seen and heard, how have the member-care needs of missionaries changed—and how have they stayed the same?

Missionary care is multi-leveled and diverse. In its fullest sense, it brings to play four levels of involvement: church care, partnership care, agency care, and crisis care. Each level is good at certain aspects of need and not so good at other aspects. But it is interesting that as the first three function at their strength, the fourth level is less needed. It is diverse in that each member of the family, as a unique individual, has different needs, and different needs at different times. It is quite intense. Thus, there’s the need for a cooperation between all parties, including the missionary, in providing missionary care.

The need for missionary care has not changed through the years. The enemy who raised havoc in Paul’s day is the same enemy who is waging war with the saints today. Through world travel and communication networks people may be more aware of the needs of missionaries. However, Paul, the Apostle, in writing a letter to the Philippian Christians, acknowledged their care for him in six areas: encouragement, prayer, logistics, communication, finance, and reentry. He opens the letter by calling them “partners in the Gospel”! And every missionary today needs “partners in the Gospel” to provide care in those six areas.

What has changed is a greater awareness of that personal/relational/partnership level. It is a group of people who have come together as a team and have taken “ownership” of the specific work of a specific missionary. With this level of commitment, they are more likely to see the mission through to its completion. They are as concerned as the missionary is about the outcome of their efforts. They see the missionary as their “field representative,” but they, in their respective roles, are equally vital to the end goal.

The prayer coordinator of one partnership team saw a photo of a young lady with her head on the shoulder of a missionary she and her team had sent out. When she saw it, she said, “I want to know if this young lady is distracting Byron from the work that we sent him to do!” That’s ownership. That’s commitment. That’s missionary care.

Partnering in that way takes trust. What can missionaries and senders do to develop that kind of relationship?

Here is the first part of Byron’s story:

Byron had just come back from a short-term ministry trip to China, and he believed God wanted him to return long term. Very quickly, because he had been active in his home church, the leadership confirmed his call. The missions pastor brought him that news with a copy of Serving as Senders—Today. “Byron,” Dan said, “read this book and begin developing your partnership team.” Byron’s reply? “I’m not gonna read dat book! I’ve got the Bible and that’s all I need!” Gently, but firmly Dan responded: “Byron, we can’t keep you from going to China, but if you want us to send you, you will read this book and develop your partnership team.” He began reading. One by one, he sought out and gained a commitment from a core leadership team. He began having meetings on the last Sunday of each month. No pressure. No commitment. But at each meeting, as Byron shared his enthusiasm and God-directed commitment to this ministry, more and more people prayed and decided it was something they wanted to be a part of. Byron was allowing them to “own” this ministry. As each made a commitment to provide care in one or another of the six areas, they related with the core leadership for that area. These commitments were not on a “management team” level. These people had prayed about their decision. A trust in the Lord and in each other was being developed. In nine months, Byron was ready to be sent by his home church. Though 14 years have passed, and many changes have taken place in his ministry (he did marry that young lady), many on that original team are still partnering with him.

Byron’s is a success story of beginning—and continuing—cross-cultural ministry with a partnership team. There are some missionaries, though, who’ve been on the field for several years and who find themselves, for whatever reason, without such support. Maybe they’re feeling distant from the people “back home.” What advice would you give them for taking steps to fill this need?

Craig, you are making this so easy for me! Another story:

Maria was sent out (more like . . . said “good-bye” to) by her church. They and she knew nothing about partnership teams. She struggled. (That’s an understatement!) She was observing another missionary family who was doing so well. One day, they invited her to a Bible study. Their missions pastor had prepared a study—just for them. He had flown to their city only for this reason: to share the Word with them and encourage them.

Maria was aghast! “How? Why? What?” she wondered. She drew up energy to ask them. In the conversation, she discovered how they had developed a partnership team. Their finances were in order; hers were almost nonexistent. They had an active prayer team; she doubted anyone remembered where she was. Their missions pastor had made a special trip to encourage them; she didn’t know if her church still had a missions pastor.

She came home. Yes, there was a missions pastor, but he was busy with 35 missionaries out around the world. Her name was on the list, but she had never received anything from the church, except one time: They had sent her a USA bank check. It had been returned for additional postage and sent again. In her country, she could not cash it.

Well, another one of the pastors heard her story and decided to do something. He arranged for her to share at all of the home fellowships to educate them about partnership teams. Then he sent a copy of Serving as Senders—Today to each of the 35 missionaries, with a note: “Read this book. If you would like me to help you develop a partnership team, pray, then send me the names of two or three you believe could become the core leader of your team.” For those who responded (When I heard this story, I couldn’t believe that some did not respond!), he went to the people named and asked them to prayerfully consider taking on this responsibility. From there, the core leader wrote to the missionary, obtained the names of their friends, and asked permission to write to them. A team was developed.

This way is a bit more difficult than if the missionary develops the team before going. For Maria, it worked by her taking the drastic step of coming home and God leading her to a pastor who would “carry the ball.” It would be even more difficult if there were no one in leadership to assist the missionary or for the missionary to manage it from the field. However, all missionaries have someone who has shown interest in their ministry who could help facilitate it from their home country. I cannot over emphasize, from my experience with missionaries who have a developed partnership team and those who don’t, it is clear: Whatever it takes, it is worth your effort to develop this level of missionary care.

This is not to negate the need for the other three levels of missionary care. There are functions that the agency can do well that the other three cannot, likewise, for those at the church and crisis levels of care. When each level functions well at what they are best equipped to do, a missionary is well cared for, to the glory of God!

Neal serves as founding director of Emmaus Road International, which provides many member-care resources through its website. They include Byron’s complete story, “I’m Not Gonna Read Dat Book!” and the audio of a talk Neal has given entitled, “Partners in the Gospel,” both at ERI’s Free Media Library.

You can purchase Serving as Senders—Today from ERI, with discounts for bulk orders. And to those missionaries now on the field wanting to set up a partnership team, Neal extends this offer: If you email him the names of two or three people you have prayed about who might be willing to take on the leadership of a team, he will send them a copy of Serving as Senders—Today, with a letter encouraging them to “step up to the plate” and assist you in developing your team. You can reach Neal at Neal_Pirolo@eri.org.

[photo: “Drum,” by André Prata, used under a Creative Commons license]

When Debriefing, Leave Your Shoes—and Socks—at the Door

When we first moved to Asia, one of the customs we needed to learn was not wearing shoes in someone’s home. It’s one of those cultural things. But starting out, we had our reasons for wanting to leave our shoes on. It’s convenient. What about the holes in my socks? I don’t want you to smell my feet—and I don’t want to smell yours! It just doesn’t feel right.

But it didn’t take long for going shoeless inside to become our habit, and even our preference. Then we’d fly back to the West and upon landing we’d again be in the land of most-people-wear-shoes-in-the-house. Of course, we still could take ours off, and we often did. But sometimes it was easier just to leave them on. Then it was back on the plane (where, a recent headline proclaims, you should never take your shoes off), and we’d start to reset our minds about a whole range of things.

Back and forth. Back and forth. It can all get pretty confusing. Sometimes we need help sorting things out—things much bigger and deeper than clothing choices. A great opportunity for processing those issues, whether you’re finishing a term, or a lifetime, overseas, is a set-aside time for in-depth, personal debriefing. And for that kind of debriefing, regardless of the location, shoes, and socks, don’t belong.

OK. Now I’ve moved to speaking figuratively, so let me continue in that vein and talk a little about feet. Most of us aren’t that crazy about how ours look. There are crooked toes, calluses, bunions, blisters, and unclipped or ingrown toenails. And then there’s that smell. Yes, missionaries may have the beautiful feet of Romans 10:15, but they don’t always seem that way to the ones who own them—thus the socks and shoes. Debriefing, though, should be about openness and trust, showing your feet, so to speak, as they truly are. But that’s not always easy.

Maybe you’d like to keep your running shoes on. Debriefing is just another mile marker in your race from agency to church to summer camp to appointment. You’re on a tight schedule, and while you’re tired and thirsty, the most you can do is grab a paper cup of water as you run by. Even when you stand still, you’re jogging in place.

Or maybe you don’t want to take off your work boots. You come to debriefing only reluctantly. This is your spouse’s idea or your team suggested it or maybe your agency told you you had to come. So you make phone calls during the breaks and answer emails until late at night. Mental multitasking keeps your thoughts half a world away.

Or maybe it’s your dress shoes that you don’t want to take off. You’re ready for the debriefing questions the same way you’d be ready for a job interview or performance evaluation. It’s like when your boss asks you “What’s your greatest weakness?” The trick is to come up with something that sounds honest but doesn’t reveal too much, maybe even sneaking in a strength, all the while avoiding the too obvious “I struggle with being a perfectionist” or “Sometimes I just care too much.” When you’re asked how you are, you say “fine” and tell how well your ministry is going.

That’s not the way debriefing should be. Effective debriefing requires barefoot honesty and vulnerability. But I do need to add here that that’s not solely on you (no pun intended). You need to be in the right environment, the right culture, to bare your feet. Not everyone can offer that.

You probably don’t share everything with your agency, church, supporters, or family, because they’re, well, your agency, church, supporters, or family. And that’s what makes the debriefings offered by independent member-care individuals and organizations so valuable. Yes, debriefing can cost money and time that you could spend elsewhere, but it also has so much to give in return.

It has experienced facilitators who know the right questions to ask and who know how to listen, even to words unsaid. They see beyond your status as a missionary, knowing how much your vocation impacts you, yet knowing that there is much more to your identity. They won’t decide your future but can help you figure out the path ahead. They are safe. They are encouraging. They won’t report to others what you tell them but, if needed, can guide you to those who can give you more care.

And if you join with a group of other missionaries for debriefing, you get the extra blessing of forming a community that speaks the same language (and I’m not talking about English here), that can relax around each other, that can laugh at shared jokes and cry over shared losses, that can find comfort in each other’s quiet presence.

No one can demand your trust, but your trust can be earned. No one can make you take off your shoes, but when the ground below you becomes holy, removing your shoes becomes a natural response. And it will invite those around you to a deeper level of honesty.

When you travel abroad, pick up on the cues where you are and follow their shoe-wearing customs. When you fly, you should strongly consider leaving your shoes on (seriously, here’s another article on that topic). When you go to debriefing—and I encourage you to do so—I hope you’ll be able to leave your shoes, and socks, at the door. It’s one of those cultural things.

[photo: “Shoes,” by Long Road Photography, used under a Creative Commons license]