MISSIONS INSIGHTS
Below you will find articles to provide insight into missions, missionaries, and mission work.
WHEN MISSIONARIES COME HOME – reprinted from pioneers.org
The missionary life is full of transitions. In this final installment in the Practical Care for Missionaries series, we want to help you think through caring for your worker during home assignment and transitions from the field.
Q: What valuable things have churches done for you while you’ve been in the US?
“During our home assignment, our home church let us put our kids in their school at no charge to us.” – C, South America.
“A supporting church lent us an extra vehicle to use. This was huge because it expanded our ability to meet with different people and it gave my wife a lot of freedom to get out, which she’s been missing on the field.” – M, Asia
“Stocking our kitchen, hosting baby showers, offering babysitting, offering vacation homes for our use, hosting share times at their home.”
– J, Africa
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“We’ve really appreciated people who have taken serious chunks of time to interact with us over our experience overseas and tried to understand what it has been like for us.” -J & M., Asia
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Q: What do you wish people had asked you?
“How are your kids doing with all the transition?”
“What challenges are you facing that we can be praying for?” – J, Africa
“We were grateful for people to ask questions that showed they were truly trying to understand and relate to our reality, whether that meant asking how the plumbing works, what brand of vehicle we drive, how our kids are interacting with their peers at school, etc.“ – M, Asia
“I wish people had reached out more. I think people were worried they would say the wrong thing. Just saying “I’m here” isn’t always enough. Reach out. Check in on their hearts above everything else.” – K, Asia
Q: What has been meaningful or helpful for your kids during this time?
“Our sending/supporting churches have been really great about letting our kids be kids and not pushing them into the limelight, but also giving them the freedom to express how they’ve been experiencing our life overseas in non-threatening ways.” – M, Asia
4 WAYS TO SERVE – reprinted from pioneers.org
1– Prepare a house or vehicle for them to use. “We didn’t realize how much we were missing our own space until we had it!”
– M, Asia
2– “Take the time to ask good questions about life in their country. Most people don’t ask more than a simple question, if that.”
– C, South America.
3– Offer them opportunities to share their story with different groups. “We wish they’d asked us to share with the church how things went and what God did. But they didn’t.”
– B, Europe.
“The mission committee helped to set up some evenings where we got to have a meal with one family that we knew well and one or two that we didn’t. That helped because about half of our congregation had changed while we’ve been away.” – M, Asia
4– Give them space to process and refresh as a family. “My church has been so helpful by not having a ton of expectations on me when I came back.” – K, Asia