Your Missions Training: A Lot Like Pouring a Roof

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!)

Here, CVM shares their process, using metaphor from one of their host countries.

Trust us: Missions training takes a village.

In Nepal, when a multi-storied building is built, there is a very special process, called dhalan garnu, for getting concrete to the roof.

When this happens, dozens, or even hundreds, of people are employed for that day to make a concrete roof–and it’s fascinating to watch. 

You are Never an Island

The training work we do in www.cvm.org/ for missions is a lot like that process. Missions training involves dozens of people in different roles all coming together–to watch God make it happen. 

In Nepal, they start with carrying the raw materials or resources in heavy baskets with a head strap. In missions training, our resources are the people God sends us through recruitment–as well as the books, training courses and mentoring we bring to those who minister at home, those who go abroad and those who send and support them. (You can see this is already a community effort.)

Question to ask about your missions training:

How will I make sure my training and prep to go overseas is a collective effort by the Body of Christ? 

Missions training: Tailored to fit

The concrete is mixed with just the right proportions of cement, sand, gravel and stone. Sand is sifted to get the right size for the job. 

In the same way, the training we offer is tailored to each individual’s needs. Both goers and senders and those who minister at home benefit from understanding God’s desire for all to hear the gospel as presented in the “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement” course. We offer components alongside our books to those interested in further exploring their faith and discovering their call–resources like these:

• Cross cultural training
• Training of trainers
• How to learn a language
• Christian responses to poverty through community development
• Support raising
• Orientation to missions

Questions to ask about your missions training:

• Am I seeking training specific to my location, personal gaps, profession?
• Where do I most sense my need for help?
• Who could tell me about my current blindspots–and perhaps provide ideas for how I could gain training to make my missions experience something that will last?

Back on the dhalan garnu, a human assembly line forms to quickly pass the mixed concrete, one plate at a time, up a shaky bamboo ladder so it can be spread on the roof before it hardens. 

Similarly, once we “train” someone, we want to quickly facilitate them reaching their field. Our CVM mission statement encapsulates the first line of training: challenging, empowering and facilitating veterinary professionals to serve while living out their faith.

Enter the Experts

But the second line of training happens up on top of the roof, when the concrete, or trained personnel, arrive. 

The roof is the frontlines where the “real” work takes place.  After all the preparation and travel up that ladder, a team pours and smooths the cement as all work in a coordinated rhythm with those who hand up the plates.

So too, CVM vets in African villages, Asian towns, Latin communities, universities, and US vet clinics are our front line; passing on the knowledge, skills and spiritual truths in coordination with their teams at home. 

Question to ask about your missions training:

• How would I describe my attitude toward the experts advising me on preparation?
• Am I inviting experts’ honest opinion about my needs before I go?

And just like the roof workers, our vets can occasionally glance up from the urgency of the task before them and see the distant skyline with its eternal perspective.

Heads up: Christian Veterinary Mission has several online mission training resources available FREE to anyone at www.cvm.org/ 

Like this post? You might like

• Our Hands-on Training Page
• “I’m thinking about being a missionary. What trip should I take?” Part I