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Sent Out from the  Developing World

By Craig Kennedy, Philippines

Can churches in a poor country, struggling to support their pastors and Bible school students, afford to send foreign missionaries? Missions-minded churches have been struggling with this question for many years. Some would answer, “Foreign missions is not practical for churches in developing countries but is better suited for the wealthy countries.” Others say the Scriptures teach that all churches must be involved in evangelism efforts both near and far.

Several key Filipino leaders in the early 1960s saw the Great Commission as their responsibility, and they began a missions movement from the Philippines to other Asian nations. Missionary candidates were trained in Bible schools and sent as full-time traditional missionaries. Today, nineteen gifted Filipino missionaries serve in Thailand and Cambodia.

In the late 1990s Filipino leaders discovered another avenue of third-world missions—mobilizing professionals in their Filipino Baptist churches to become bivocational missionaries, taking the gospel to their Asian neighbors. Their new organization is called Creative STIR-Asia Initiatives, Inc. (Strategic Initiative and Research), which is a nongovernmental organization created to help churches send their professionals to strategic ministry opportunities in Asia. STIR-Asia offers financial and ministry accountability between the sending churches and their missionaries, and ABWE missionaries from North America help train the Filipino leaders.

STIR-Asia associates are Filipino bivocational missionaries who believe the Lord is leading them to leave their home country in order to share the gospel in another culture. Their professional credentials make it possible for the gospel to penetrate places where traditional missionaries are not welcome. We call these difficult places Creative Access Nations (CANs). These missionaries utilize their professional skills in medicine, education, agriculture, and community development as legitimate platforms for serving people both physically and spiritually.

The Filipino missionaries leave their country with a temporary visitors visa and trust the Lord to provide employment for them within the first three to six months while they go through initial language study and cultural adjustment. In most cases, STIR-Asia associates generate their own personal financial support by receiving a basic salary for performing needed services. However, churches in the Philippines are also challenged to take a part in the ministry by providing needed airfare to the host country and by contributing monthly to a basic ministry fund.

Philippine churches may not be prosperous by western standards, yet they are rich in faith. The churches are populated with godly professional men and women who are gladly stepping up to the challenge of taking Christ to Asia. Pray for Filipinos as they serve in places where security is often a daily concern and where evil forces are great. 

A Filipina lady left the Philippines in August 2005 to begin ministering in one of Asia’s megacities. She joins three other STIR-Asia associates serving as English teachers in a society that is desperate to learn English. Pray for the individuals God brings into her life, and pray for her as she studies the language and assimilates to the culture.

Another Filipina lady left in September 2005 for her second year as a secondary science teacher in an international Christian school in South Asia, which may be the only Christian school in a predominately Muslim country of 150 million people. Pray for this teacher as she reconnects with her unbelieving students and builds a foundation for their faith in Christ.

A Filipino family recently left for another Creative Access Nation in Asia. They will use their many years of expertise in agriculture and local church ministry to assist tribal leaders in making better use of the steep terrain surrounding their villages. In future visits, they will introduce stories in the Old Testament to prepare the way for a presentation of the gospel. Pray for adjustment, wisdom, and grace for this family as they home school their three children and minister to this tribe of people.