What time is it? #BestoftheBestFriday--the best stuff on global work from around the web. This week, practical tips for your first year over there.
Category: missions
Prayer: A Voice When Words Fail
Reading Time: 3 minutes
By Denise Rhoades
Arriving in your host country, you’re eager to get started. But it’s been six months, and language learning has been killer. Your new language has three different n sounds made with varying positions of your tongue.
It’s exactly what happened to me as I relocated to West Africa. I recognized that a deep sharing of Jesus as their sin-taker and life-giving Savior with my new Muslim friends was going to be more like a marathon than a sprint.
#BestoftheBestFriday: Answering the Critics; Language Learning Infographic; Africa & China’s Unique Dynamics
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Is Missions a Joke? Answering the Critics
There are some well-aimed critiques being leveled at global work lately, which may make you question the validity of this work altogether. Amy Medina from A Life Overseas addresses some of the most painful and poignant criticism by authors/bloggers/podcasters like Corey Pigg, Emily Worrall, and Jamie Wright–the latter of whom writes, “I came off the mission field with a new mission which is to burn down missions.” This one is a must-read…and may explain a tiny bit of why Go. Serve. Love has recently released our self-assessments. Well done, Ms. Medina.
My Story: Prayer like Oxygen
Reading Time: 3 minutes
I hadn’t been following Jesus that long when I wheeled my bags onto a West Africa-bound jetliner. For seven months, I lived with an unreached people group. Together with other global workers, we were teaming up to create an oral Bible.
Suddenly, I tumbled into a world where prayer no longer seemed like a “good” thing to do. It felt a little more like…oxygen.
How Ready Am I? A Self-Assessment for Global Work, Part I
Reading Time: 3 minutes
When I was 23, an editor position opened up at the publishing house where I was working. In the vein of having integrity, I approached my boss with my interest in the position.
“You don’t have the chops for that job,” he told me point-blank.
His blithe directness, to be frank, chapped my hide. But looking back now, there’s no doubt in my mind he was right. I’m not sure if I have the chops for that particular job now. Yet it did make me take a look at the job itself and gradually appreciate just how off my self-assessment was–as well as my understanding of the job itself. And honestly, I buckled down to eventually be the kind of person who could qualify for a job like that.
Your Last-Minute Medical Missions Equipment Checklist
Reading Time: 2 minutes
The lists when you’re headed overseas? Pretty much interminable–all the stuff from “take passport photo” to “can I get bedsheets??” Maybe you’re the kind whose life right now feels divided into a few overwhelming spreadsheets. Maybe your “to bring” sheet includes bug repellent, shot records, mosquito nets, scrubs, shoes for the shower.
Ready for a checklist for your medical equipment? We’ve talked with DRE Medical’s Amanda Cannady, who serves as Director of their Global Outreach Division. DRE Medical is owned in part by a former missionary and has supplied global medical equipment for the last 35 years.
Medical Missions: Ordering Your Equipment
Reading Time: 3 minutes
So you’re heading overseas in a medical capacity–as if the overseas part wasn’t enough, right? Hopefully you’ve got an experienced organization behind you. But you might feel thrown in the deep end a bit as you get things off the ground.
We’ve talked with DRE Medical’s Amanda Cannady, who serves as Director of their Global Outreach Division. DRE Medical is owned in part by a former missionary and has supplied global medical equipment for the last 35 years.
She’s got great ideas as you equip your trip.
#BestoftheBestFriday: Free UPG Prayer Guide; 8 “Ifs” to Reexamine; No One Mentioned That; Peru, the World Cup, and Global Work
Reading Time: 2 minutes
free prayer guide for the 31 largest unreached people groups
The William Carey Library has compiled this free daily prayer guide for the largest unreached people groups in the world. Download it here–and consider this free printable infographic for unreached people groups while you’re at it!
Eight “Ifs” I Don’t Believe So Much Anymore
Craig Thompson challenges “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well”, “If it’s important to you, then it’s important to God” and other phrases he’s put in perspective in his time on the field. Great words here.
#BestoftheBestFriday: Phases of Life Overseas; Wishing I Wasn’t a Racist; Time-release Culture Shock
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Forbidden Roots
Amy Medina writes compellingly of the seasons of overseas life. At the beginning,
the remnants of your old life stay with you for a long time. At first, keeping in touch with your friends back at home is a big priority. You get lots of packages in the mail. You grieve the loss of all that you left behind. But you are excited to be in this new place you dreamed about for so long, and that excitement keeps you going for a while. After the honeymoon wears off–which could happen in a week or a year–then it just takes grit. A lot of grit. As in, I’m going to grit my teeth and stay here even though I hate it.
Want to hear the happy ending? Guess you’ll have to click here.
He Said/She Said. You Say? “How can I know if God’s calling/leading me overseas?” Part I
Reading Time: 5 minutes
I’ve written before that my husband’s and my decision to shuffle our family of six overseas wasn’t perhaps as clear as we would have liked. But when I finally arrived overseas, y’know the funny thing? Everyone’s story and path on how they got overseas was completely different.
None of us had heard an audible voice, to my knowledge. That would have been nice, considering all the times you wonder what in the world you’ve gotten yourself into; all the times you’re second-guessing because the work and the results didn’t look how you thought. Did I hear you right?