The Nerve Center

 

Four years ago, the Lord started speaking to me about a ministry of encouragement to missionaries. Since that day in April 2018, the thought has never been far from my mind. I have had lots of ideas and considered several different ways to do that. As I pursued them, each time, they came up short of what I was pushing for. Just this week, in the middle of feeling sorry for myself because I couldn’t seem to put it all together, the Lord spoke again. He said He had showed me an end and I tried to start at the end. The steps I have been pursuing were in the wrong order. Hopefully, in the next few paragraphs I will be able to explain the journey I have been pursuing. I am praying that a few of you are finding yourself on this same road I am travelling.

While I was in mission’s school in Reynosa, I had a vision of providing missionary retreats so missionaries could come together, share their stories, and encourage one another. The idea was not to do a conference or a provide hours of teaching crammed into each day, but rather to provide a forum where they could come together, and talk about the work they were doing, look for areas of commonality and for ways they could support and encourage one another. This would all take place in a nice setting, a beach resort, or a mountain retreat so they could bring their families and have a time of fellowship, relationship building and rest.

As I prayed about how to make this all work, the Lord directed me to a step that needed to happen before any of this could work. Churches needed to catch the vision for supporting missionaries in a new way. In this day of instant communication and easy travel to almost anywhere in the world, missionaries often feel isolated. They have traded the known for the unknown. They have left family, friends, and careers to pursue God’s purposes for people they may have never even met. On the occasion that they are able to talk with the people from their old life, they often feel that the world is leaving them behind. They have missed out on big family events. They have lost contact with most of their Church family, and they are usually living on a substantially diminished income. They need an advocate to encourage the Church to pursue them and encourage them.

From this, I came up with a plan to speak to Churches and to their missions’ committees and help them formulate a plan to intentionally involve themselves regularly in the lives of the missionaries they have sent or are financially supporting. It is a must for a missions’ success that the Churches that sent missionaries stay involved in their lives. I equate it with when a child leaves the nest. They may no longer live at home, but they still need to know that they have a family behind them to encourage and support them as they pursue their dreams. The Church needs to do this for missionaries.

I talked to a friend in Guatemala about this and he gave me some good advice on how to pursue this idea. As I went back to the U.S. and started doing what he suggested, I realized that I was premature. I have a desire, a goal that I believe God planted in me, but it is easy to jump the gun. I have continually wanted to jump to the finished product but there are in between steps that I need to take if I am going to be faithful to what God is calling me to, which is to build a network of missionary support, not to replace their missions’ organizations, but to supplement them. The missionary needs their home Church family to be involved and to encourage them as they pursue God’s call on their lives and the Church needs to be involved in outreach on a local level as well as in missions.

I have been sensing God say that the first step is to gather information to support what I am seeing and hearing from many of my friends in the mission field. It is time to collect their stories and share them. The last 2+ years of Covid have created a challenging environment for many of them. Several have even left the field to go back home and work. Many have seen their income dry up and lots of projects put on hold. The teams that used to come and support them have slowed to a trickle. For many, everything they knew pre-pandemic has changed. At the same time, they have continued to adapt and change so they can be faithful to the call God has placed on them.

Over the next few weeks, I would like to solicit stories from missionaries. I am praying for the best way to disseminate them, but I know the Church, as a whole, and not just the local Church that sent them, needs to know what missionaries are doing around the world. There are many people that would help and support ministries because they are doing something close to their heart, but they do not even know they exist. They would love to encourage, support and even work with them but first they have to be made aware of the work and the need.

God often speaks to me through pictures. The most recent picture He gave me was for the body and the role of missions in it. Jesus is the head. We are all parts of the body with our own roles to play. Every role is important but none of them work well if we do not communicate. If the body does not know the needs of one part, not only will that one part suffer, but soon, all the parts around it will suffer too. The central nervous system connects all our body and tells other parts to slow down when one part is suffering. It communicates the need of the foot to the head and every part in between.

I feel God is building a network to build, support and encourage the body. It begins with the various parts sharing their story, their call, and their needs. As one shares, another can offer up the needed support and encouragement to lighten the load of the call and to help carry the burden. Not only has Jesus sent Holy Spirit to encourage, guide and comfort us. He has called us to come together and support one another. Networking is a key part of Kingdom life. I feel He is saying that now is time to develop the network, the nervous system of the body so every part can be well supplied and strengthened.

Stay tuned for stories from missionaries in the near future.