You don’t become a missionary by raising money and flying to a foreign country. You do it by being obedient to God. Tell people about Jesus where you live. Get out of your comfort zone. Sell something precious and apply it to your debts. Make a sacrifice. Develop better friendships. There is an old saying: “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” While this is not to be taken literally in this sense, (please, don’t start wearing the national garb of the country you want to go to just yet). However, somewhere in the process, we have to make a conscious decision that there is no going back.
Dan and Joy West have had a rich missionary career, yet at a time in their career when they might be tempted to stay in their comfort zone, Dan and Joy are starting over.
More than 30 years ago, the last evangelical church in the municipality of Bergen, Netherlands, closed its doors, leaving no evangelical witness for two generations. But a small yet passionate group of Christians believed God for a miracle in their community.
For most of his life, one of missionary Rich McLane’s passions has been hunting. His wife Lori enjoys playing the trumpet. When they became missionary church planters in Poland years ago, who would have guessed these passions would converge to reach more than 120,000 hunters throughout the country?
With a robust inquiry, she asked, “Are you okay?” I quickly replied with some apprehension in my voice, “Yes, dear, I am fine...but our Speed the Light car is in the middle of the Danube River.” The questions gushed like a freshly opened fire hydrant. “Are you okay? What happened? Did you get your computer out? What about your suitcase?”
A Gambian who has been coming to Casa di Rifugio for nearly two years has grown greatly in his faith. One week he asked, “How can one man pay for the sins of the whole world?”. The week after that he said, “Could you teach me to pray?”. The week after that he sent me an SMS and said, “I believe in the Lord”.
As Mike and Cara Tyler, missionaries to Germany, began to explore ministry needs in their region, they heard the same thing over and over again: “We need more churches in Weil am Rhein.” A town of about 30,000 people, Weil am Rhein (also known as simply Weil) is an ethnically diverse suburb of Basel, Switzerland, and is situated on the Rhein River at the juncture of Germany, Switzerland, and France.
