“What does it take to e m b e d among secular people? Well, whatever it takes. Some days that means having a phone conversation about canned salmon with someone in Poland, because that’s the lived experience of the lost person in front of me.”
Andrew and Jess Foster have served together in Granada, Spain, since 2017. Over the past four years, they have built relationships allowing them to know and be known, demonstrate and receive love and hospitality, and walk with people in their journeys of faith.
Their ministry to secular Spanish people is rooted in the example of Jesus, who modeled what it means to embed among people. Jesus took on a specific culture and language, was deeply involved in the community, and proclaimed and embodied the gospel in a contextualized way people could understand. For this reason, the Fosters strongly believe the most basic step in missions is literally to move into the neighborhood.
Andrew explains, “The gospel message, carried by the missionary or the national pastor or believer, must be embedded among people like the seed is embedded in soil in Matthew 13. And as we do the work of embedding the gospel seed, we trust the Holy Spirit to do the work of transforming the soil and bearing fruit.”
This life embedded among secular people is costly, and not just for missionaries themselves. Jess is 32 weeks pregnant with their first baby, and not only have she and Andrew had to process the cost of raising their family overseas, but their families have as well. They know they’re signing up for a lifetime of hard goodbyes, FaceTime holidays, and life milestones celebrated thousands of miles apart.
“We feel for them,” says Andrew. “And if we weren’t totally, deeply convinced that this is what the Lord has for us—if we really didn’t believe that the Lord is in this—then we wouldn’t do it, because that cost is so great for us.”
For the Fosters, they are convinced, and the cost is worth it because 99 percent of Spaniards do not know Jesus and most will never meet someone who can tell them about Him. Rather than believing, Jesus needs the two of them and their family specifically, Andrew and Jess know they have been invited, and they feel urgency in the invitation.
“In our view,” explains Andrew, “access to the gospel is the core issue concerning missions among secular Europeans, because is it not simply that people are lost; it is that there are so few access points where a lost person could even have the chance to hear the gospel.”
Sometimes access to the gospel comes in unexpected ways, such as that conversation about canned salmon. One of Andrew’s friends was trying to start a food business, and Andrew interpreted from English to Spanish (and back) as he spoke with a man in Poland about salmon from Norway being canned in Germany shipped to Spain.
This is certainly not the type of thing you read about in brochures about global missions, but as Andrew says, “The experience of doing something as part of my ‘ministry’ that feels odd or unexpected happens all the time, because oftentimes that’s what embedding among lost people requires.”
By partnering with national churches to plant communities of faith among secular Europeans, Andrew and Jess are creating opportunities for their neighbors to find faith in Christ, be discipled, and proclaim the gospel to their own secular family, neighbors, and culture.