If you’re considering cross-cultural mission work, you’ve likely found yourself completely overwhelmed as you think and pray. Where do I begin? How do I know if I’m called to be a missionary? Where should I go? What will I do? Will I be any good?
It’s understandable. There are a lot of factors. It’s a lot of change.
Would it help you to know that even the people IN cross-cultural mission work are completely overwhelmed? Just maybe not in the same way.
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the monumental task of beginning your ministry. However, once you’ve begun, you’re overwhelmed by the scale. There is so much to do and you’re just one person.
Enter, God.
We delight in serving an overwhelming God. When you begin to take simple steps of obedience, you’ll stop being overwhelmed by your questions, worries, and fears and instead, you’ll be overwhelmed by Him.
We know, getting started in cross-cultural mission work isn’t easy. That’s why we’ve been helping people do it for 40 years. You don’t have to do this alone. We’ll be your team. We’ll get you ready. Just take one step.
With over 300 missionaries serving in 40 countries around the world, we get to hear some incredible stories. But I’m often struck by how God uses the simple moments, the first steps, to begin something awesome.
This is one of those stories.
From a missionary serving in Central Asia
“I want to learn how to share the Gospel”
This past month, 3 trainers from Team Expansion and 2 guest co-workers from Central Asia led a training here on how to start a “Disciple-Making Movement.” About 45 were in attendance. Half of these trainees were nationals. The training was translated from English into the national language. It was a practical training with many opportunities to put tools into practice immediately.
We learned how to find people who are open, share our testimony, share why we believe what we believe, start a small group, and share stories with others. One of the key elements of this training is the emphasis of obedience in discipleship. With this emphasis, we practiced on each other and then went out into the surrounding community to use the tools we were taught.
One of the things I felt like God was inviting me to obey was to go out and prayer walk with a friend. As we walked we prayed for the community. We also looked for people whom we could speak a blessing over and with whom we could share the good news. I’ll be the first to admit that my language ability is not at all at the level where I feel like I can effectively communicate with others. So, we prayed that we would encounter someone who spoke English.
God answered.
We had been walking for a while when I felt that we were being led to speak to a young woman reading a book in a park. We walked over and asked if she spoke any English. Turns out, she did! We asked if we could speak a blessing over her. “Religion? You want to talk about religion?” she asked. Here we go, I thought to myself, What did I just get myself into? I froze and made a few awkward comments, not really knowing how to respond to such a direct question (definitely not one of my most graceful or finest moments). We then decided it was probably best to sit down next to her and hear her story.
Throughout the conversation, it became clear through her speech that there was something very different about her. Some of the wording she used was not the way one would expect to hear a Muslim or non-believer speak. We learned that she actually is a believer and that her family does not know. She expressed her desire to learn how to share the Gospel so she can also share with her family and classmates.
I asked her if she would be willing to meet with me so I could share a tool with her that I had learned (from the disciple-making training). We met about a week later and I was able to teach her how to use something called the RAMP. This stands for “Resurrection, Apostles’ Testimony, Miracles, and Prophecies.” It’s a simple way to share with others why you choose to follow Jesus. She was very eager to learn and had many questions. Please pray for this young woman as she seeks to share with her classmates, her family, and the village where she is from.
Take your Step
What does a first step look like in your journey? Maybe you need to commit to pray daily with your spouse. Maybe you need to seek prayer and wise counsel from a trusted elder. Maybe you’re ready to reach out to someone from Team Expansion and begin a conversation. Whatever your next step might be, we’re praying you take it. May you be emboldened by the Spirit and take a step of faith into the arms of an overwhelming God.
