Confession: I’ve never been that trendy of a person. (Maybe you could have guessed that from my regrettable personal trends in the last post?) I have never actually been cool. I have just been a person cool people liked.
But missions trends, see, aren’t on par with whether you listen to Maroon 5 or wear maroon skinny jeans.
I don’t know about you, but I do have regrets over some trends in which I was a willing participant.
They include teased bangs. Polka dots. Crispy, overgelled, permed hair. Tight-rolled jeans. White eyeliner.
Do you remember your first exposure to global work? At the risk of dating myself, mine involved slideshows, prayer cards for your fridge, and talk about jungles, huts, canoes, and a Peace Child. In third grade, I told Mom I wanted to go to Japan as a missionary.
The great news? Along with our speed-of-light world, missions has changed, too. Missions trends reflect that as a Church, we’re learning from our mistakes (like missions that whiffs of colonialism or cultural appropriation; check out Does Christianity destroy culture?).
Editor’s note: Tucked away in my family room sits a box made of exotic African wood, lugged back using precious luggage weight when my family returned from Uganda. It is one of our most beautiful possessions–not physically, but in its emotional cargo. It was fashioned by hand in the workshop of our organization as one-of-a-kind. Tucked within are loads of letters and laminated photographs of lives we loved and shared in our efforts to build community overseas.
You likely share the goal of my family: to dig in deeply enough to love well, intimately enough to change each other. To work toward the brand of enduring, life-on-life love that models God’s Body.
www.cvm.org/ equips and encourages veterinary professionals and students to build relationships with others through the use of their veterinary knowledge and skills so that lives are transformed. (Get to know them at their Meet an Agency post here!)
Peek into a day in the life of a vet’s career overseas.
Ever wondered how missions training becomes effective?
www.cvm.org/ equips and encourages veterinary professionals and students to build relationships with others through the use of their veterinary knowledge and skills so that lives are transformed. (Get to know them at their Meet an Agency post here!)
We heart this ongoing series–a virtual trip to the coffee shop with organizations to help you go there, serve Him, and love them even better.
(For more thoughts about why you might join an agency–and a handful of reasons you might not–make sure to check out He Said/She Said/You Say? “Should I go overseas with an organization?”, both the pros and the cons.)
Dotsie and Gary are the second couple from the left–both wearing blue.
By Dotsie Corwin
Go. Serve. Love is excited to welcome Dotsie Corwin. She comes from a long line of missionaries and Christian workers, but it was the illustration of an unbalanced number of people carrying a telephone pole that impacted her and her husband to commit to a career in mission. Thinking of only one carrying the pole on one end with the rest on the other, it made sense to spend their lives where there was greater need.
