Message Magazine Online - Vol. 54, No. 02, Summer 2006

In This Issue

• See All The People
  By Angela Shuff
• A Little Taste of Heaven
  By Michael G. Loftis
• Canadian Editorial
  By David W. Smith
• The Canadian Mosaic
  By David W. Smith
• A Bend in the Road
  By Bill Commons
• Redirected for a Purpose
  By Phil and Barb Klumpp
• From His Eyes
  Ton Alcantara
• Trading Places
  By Chuck Frerichs with Angela Shuff
• Emergency in the Amazon
  By Ruth Scheltema
• Building Relationships with International Students
  By Mallory Parmerlee
• In Their Own Words
• A Little Church Meets a Big Need
  By Ron D. Lindholm
• Support for Prefielders - Introducing Brad Winkler
• Partnering to Provide a Creative Way of Giving
  By Spencer Jackson
• The Missionary Family: Re-entry Realities for Third Culture Kids
  By Russ E. Ebersole, Jr.
• Pray For The Home Office
• ABWE 2005 Annual Report
  (PDF Document)
  

A Bend in the Road

By Bill Commons, International Vice-President for Strategic Initiative and Research

Dr. David Jeremiah, founder of Turning Point Radio and Television Ministries, wrote a book by the title A Bend in the Road describing his struggles when a battle with cancer forced him to restructure his life and ministry. Such unscheduled struggles invade all of our lives in unexpected ways and at inconvenient times. Missionaries are not immune to personal tragedies and family traumas, either. What should they do when—

• critical health needs make it impossible to continue on the field?
• their elderly parents back home need care and nobody else can help?
• their young child is diagnosed with severe emotional/behavioral problems that will require years of specialized care unavailable in their region?
• their teenage child gets in trouble on the field and their family is forced to return home for an extended time of counseling and stabilizing?
• local violence causes injury to a family member, sidelining the family from overseas service until recovery and rehabilitation is complete?
• a missionary husband or wife dies suddenly and the spouse with small children is unable to continue alone on the field?
• conflicts in their marriage or on the missionary team bring heartbreak and result in their family returning home?
• breakdown or burnout sidelines them for an extended period of time?

These and other heartaches sometimes invade missionary experience, forcing an unwanted “bend in the road” of life and ministry. When Christ’s international ambassadors are forced to return home, these wounded soldiers of the cross are often written off by their constituents as casualties. After initial shock and concern, their supporters and friends move on with their busy lives, and the sidelined missionaries struggle alone.

Our regional administrators, in partnership with the missionary’s sending church and ABWE’s new Missionary Care Ministry led by Ron Berrus, labor together to debrief, counsel, and encourage these wounded soldiers in short- and long-term planning for recovery and renewal. Sometimes the problems require the missionary to take a leave of absence or resign from the agency. This is an incredibly difficult decision for everyone involved. Others will take a pastorate in their home country or switch to an evangelistic ministry in the homeland. Sadly, they often assume that the “closing of the door” to their previous cross-cultural mission means that they should revert to a ministry among the majority (Anglo) culture where they grew up.

Praise God for those who, returning to their homeland, never abandon their adopted language and culture. Numerous Hispanic churches in the US have been planted by missionaries who had to leave the field but never left the precious people whose culture God had given them to cherish and serve in Jesus’ name. Some returning veterans from Asia and Africa have sought ministries to immigrant populations from their region, resulting in many coming to Christ.

But all too often the years and resources invested for a missionary to acquire a new language and culture overseas are lost upon returning home. This deprives the North American church of the rich experiences and cultural insights of those who could be used in multi-ethnic outreaches and daughter church-plants.

Tragically, many of our American churches continue to be culture-bound and ethnocentric, content to ignore the changing communities around them and to remain mono-cultural in their multicultural environment, which God has given them for Jerusalem-Judea-Samaria ministry.

Just think what could happen if our churches embraced returning missionaries and prized them as resources God gave the local church to expand intercultural outreaches. Pastoral staffs could include these veterans as specialists, helping them to reach out to the mixed community and embrace local minorities and immigrants with Calvary’s love as part of the local church’s missions strategy.

Cross-cultural evangelism/discipleship in church planting is no longer just “out there.” The ends of the earth have come to town, and bends in the road have brought to local churches gifted servants who could lead in historic local advancement of the gospel.

Imagine the impact if our American churches reached their local ethnic populations, discipling them and sending them as missionaries to reach their communities and home countries for Christ!

Let’s not squander the investments we have made in missionaries we sent, but for whatever reason God sent back to us. May our churches learn to use them and their unique linguistic and cultural abilities for strategic evangelism. Their “bend in the road” can lead to fruitful intercultural ministries back home. And the churches who receive them gladly, love them back to “normal,” and put them to work in the community could experience unprecedented gospel advance.