| Missionary
Training By Daniel Kenaston
Many times during Jesus’ ministry here
on earth, Scripture records the compassion of God flowing through
His Son and into
the world. In many different situations, Jesus was moved by
compassion. This burden found its outlet in several different
actions on the part of Jesus. (John 5:17) But Jesus answered
them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Here the emotion
of God’s heart for the world is worked out in active
labour for His purposes. (John 4:34) Jesus saith unto them,
My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish
his work. Jesus recognized that the plan of God in redeeming
the world back to Himself was not yet complete, and He found
strength in laboring to complete the task. (Matthew 9:36-38)
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion
on them...Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly
is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore
the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers
into his harvest. Here we have a different response to the
burden for the world that Jesus carried. Jesus takes this emotion
and transfers it to the disciples, telling them that the practical
response to this need is to pray for laborers to be sent into
the harvest. In each of these verses, the burden and the passion
are the same though the practical outworking varies. Many different
responses are threaded together by one purpose: His heart for
the world!
I would like us to look at one more passage
which leads into the things that I would like to share with
you about the new
missionary training program here in Ghana. (Mark 3:8-14) …a
great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did,
came unto him. And he spake to his disciples, that a small
ship should wait on him because of the multitude… For
he had healed many... And unclean spirits, when they saw him,
fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of
God. And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him
whom he would: and they came unto him. And he ordained twelve,
that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth
to preach. In this passage, we see the Son of God pouring His
life out for the multitudes, healing, preaching, and cleansing
them from satanic bondages. Again this is a practical outworking
of the heart of His Father. Then, from this same burden, and
in the midst of His life work, Jesus starts a training school!
You may wonder at my reference to Jesus’ training of
His disciples as a school, but what else was it? It was a ministry
training school and what a school it was! Jesus sought to answer
the needs of the multitudes, not only through meeting their
needs himself, but also through training others who could meet
those needs. In this way Jesus set the pattern for future missionaries
by placing priority on training others who could carry on the
work to other places. The pattern of Jesus’ training
school was to live and work alongside His disciples, so it
might be called a ministry apprenticeship. Wouldn’t you
have loved to be one of the ones He called up into that mountain?
To learn from Jesus, not only His heart for the world, but
the necessary ministry tools to reach that world. In some ways
though, all of us have benefited from the disciples’ training,
for it is recorded in Scripture and we have all learned along
with them.
Fast forward to the year 2008. I know that I
risk trivializing Jesus’ training of His disciples by drawing comparisons
with our own envisioned training school with all of its weaknesses,
but I desire to show that there is a biblical pattern here
for working out the missionary heart of God by training workers
for the harvest. Also, we as missionaries and the board are
united in the vision which undergirds the SENT II School. We
want it to be a practical outworking of the vision for the
world which has captured our hearts for many years now. Personally,
we also feel the power of Jesus’ example in taking time
out of a busy ministry schedule to go up to the mountain and
train others for a ministry similar to His own, thus multiplying
himself.
SENT II
(Serving Every Nation Training, Advanced)
The spiritual motivation for this school flows out of verses
like the ones shared above and from the example of Jesus and
Paul, who put great importance on the training of those who
followed them. The practical motivations are several:
- to use the open door into an English speaking,
third world country as a training opportunity for other fields,
- to use the experiences of our missionaries
on the field as teaching aids to pass on the many life skills necessary
for
a life of missionary service,
- to hopefully cut down on the missionary attrition
rate by coming alongside new missionaries and coaching their
first critical
steps in missionary sacrifice, recognizing that right
patterns set early on in missionary service raise the
chances of
our young couples staying on the field long term, and
- to provide a safe place for new missionaries
to experience missionary life and experiment with it, without risking
life and ministry which may be the case in some of
the more closed
countries to which God is calling some of our families.
I think that the above includes most of the
practical burdens which have given birth to the SENT II School,
both in our
hearts as missionaries and in the hearts of the
board.  SENT II Overview
This two-year missionary training course includes the following:
- A hands-on missionary opportunity with lots of
practical ministry and cross cultural communication in unreached or barely
reached
villages.
- A discipleship program with lots of missionary
life coaching as we walk together through a life of ministry in a needy
third world country.
- A missionary school with several months of classroom
centered studies, covering subjects like language learning, cultural
studies, church planting, history of missions. We will
cover at least twenty-five textbooks and biographies
throughout the courses.
- An opportunity to teach English in government
schools with an innovative phonics-based course, thus establishing
a
viable role in the communities where trainees live
while practicing
ministry skills.
- It is, in short, missionary life with all of
its sacrifices and rewards, as all students will live in a village
ministry setting for seventy-five percent of their
time in Ghana.
SENT II Details
How is this all put together in a practical way?
Based upon the mutual vision of the mission board
and the
missionaries here in Ghana, we have rented a
facility which will function
as a base of operations for the school in Tamale,
Northern Ghana. This location is ideal in that
it is a city
large enough to have a good communication and
transportation infrastructure.
English is widely spoken here, although it is
within seventy-five miles of many needy areas which will
serve as our practical
ministry settings. We rejoice in the provision
of a large
workable
compound and feel that God’s leading is evident in finding
this building as it is uniquely suited to our needs and was
very reasonable in cost. Some basic adaptations are being carried
out on this building at this present time with more outfitting
to be done closer to our target date for the beginning of the
school around October 2009. This base will be a home for my
family as well as all for the students during their trips to
Tamale for shopping, rest, or classroom studies. From it, all
of our students will go out to their various home villages
where they will teach English, minister the Gospel, and practice
missionary life. It will be my responsibility to itinerate
around these villages, providing encouragement, coaching, and
accountability to our student pairs. Our study program will
roughly follow the school system here in Ghana with village
living and English teaching for three months, followed by a
month of classroom studies in Tamale. Following this rotation
for two years will allow us to cover most important issues
in the classroom as well as providing many opportunities for
practicing what we learn in the villages.
 How You Can Get Involved
Maybe by now you are wondering why we are sharing
all of this with you and what role you play
in it. You
might say
that part
of this is an attempt to recruit single young
people and newlyweds who have a life calling
in missions
to come and
join with us
in the pioneer stages of this school. My
personal desire in pausing active tribal outreach to
focus on this
school, as
well as the board in releasing me to this
work, is that we would invest this training in the
lives of
young people
with
a clear call of God to the foreign field.
In this way our missionary efforts will be multiplied,
not only
here in
Ghana, but across
a needy world. We are actively looking for
these young people and this forms part of that search.
Secondly, we are sharing these things in an
effort to bring all of you along with the
vision that
God is giving
to
the board and the missionaries here in
regards to training future
missionaries. We feel acutely how insufficient
we are for these things and certainly will
need all
of the
prayer and spiritual
support we can get as we move forward.
An effort of this size cannot be made singly-handedly
and we are
appealing
for others
to understand and pick up this vision,
to carry it along with us in various ways.
To return to some of the verses that we looked
at earlier, I remind you that Jesus processed
the burden
He carried
for the world in different ways at different
times in His ministry
here on Earth. Sometimes He worked out
His passion, other times He prayed or encouraged
others to
pray towards
the fulfillment
of that passion, and other times He trained
disciples who could carry the outreach
of His passion to
many more places
than
He could have gone Himself. In this I
see all of our roles combined in the work that
Jesus
did here
on this
earth.
We have been here working and you have
supported us in this
work in many ways including prayer. Now
we are shifting somewhat to training others
and we are
again asking
you to pray with
us while we work at assisting the Lord
of the harvest to send
forth laborers into His harvest.
In all of our hearts, regardless of where
we are physically, may the heart of
God for a
dying world
be our passion
and its fulfillment be our sole purpose
for existence. May
it find
its expression in appropriate ways
based on where we find ourselves, whether in
prayer, giving,
or living.
But may
all of our efforts
be united by the same solitary focus;
the Glory
of God among ALL His created peoples
of the earth! -by Daniel Kenaston
 What will life be like for a SENT II student?
by Nathan Gray
“Again, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man
hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof
goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking
goodly
pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price,
went and sold all that he had, and bought it” (Matthew
13:44-46).
Some time ago, I was in a certain
village for an evening church service. That night we sang,
prayed, and then their
leader
preached for a while. As he was sharing, my mind was drawn
to these parables
and I felt this would be suitable alongside what he was
already sharing. After he was finished, he asked me if I had
something
to share as well. I was thankful for God’s direction and
began to share on these verses.
I explained that maybe the man
was working for cash labor in another man’s farm like many do here. After all, what else
would a man be doing in a field but farming? Perhaps as the man
was raising yam mounds or weeding, he found a treasure. After
seeing the treasure, he obviously knew that it was of great value,
more than all that he had combined and more than the value of
the land itself, even if it had a crop planted on it. He then
sold everything he had to buy the field from the man he was working
for. He did this because he knew that the value of what he would
receive far exceeded that of which he lost. I am sure someone
looking on would have called him a fool. After all, the man has
lost everything he has and has only gained a little field. The
man began by working a little so that he would gain a little,
but then lost everything so he would gain everything and more.
I encouraged the people there that
following Jesus is the same way. Even though we may suffer
for Christ in
different
ways
and will give up everything for His sake, we can have
rest and peace
in knowing that what we will gain will be infinitely
greater than a little suffering or loss. And although
others will
see us as nothing but fools, it is only because they
do not know
of the treasure that we do. We can know by faith that
we will receive something greater because God has told
us
and He cannot
lie.
Since then though, I have been
thinking more about these parables and applying them to my
own life, especially
in light of the
past two years. I thought about how from the outside
it may look terribly foolish. When I get back to
the States,
I won’t
have gained anything. I won’t have a hefty check to deposit
into the bank. In fact, my balance will be less. I won’t
have a college degree under my belt. To most of the world, there
really won’t be much to show for several prime years spent
of a young man’s life.
I was encouraged though to think
of God’s promise that
is given over and over in His Word in different ways. It was
said best when Jesus said, “He who finds his life will
lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew
10:39). When we think about only a little of what eternity with
Christ offers, it far outweighs the loss which is taken here
on earth in this life.
I am finding that the treasure
found by investing in the souls of others on earth and the
treasure
seen
by faith
in Heaven
is worth any loss taken to gain it. With that
perspective, I cannot
see these past two years as anything but gain.
Also with that perspective, what a treasure I
would have
missed
if I would
have simply chosen to give my life in building
a successful business,
or getting a better car, or anything else the
material world has to offer! I thank God for the privilege
of coming and
serving Him here for two years. After this small
taste of what this
kind of life offers, I am willing and ready to
spend the rest of my
life in service to Him in this way. I feel like
I have spent two years farming in a field in
which I have
found something
wonderful. To put a name on that treasure, I
think we can call it “God’s Name Glorified”. It is wonderful
enough to spend the rest of my life working for it. I am thankful
for the chance that I have had to taste this life and see its
sweet fruit. I would highly recommend this kind of experience
to other youth!  What have you learned in watching the lives of the missionaries?
by Lauren Keyes
It is a hot,
humid September afternoon. In my little mud
house here in Bunbonayili,
I swat a mosquito that just bit my
ankle
and then shift to a more comfortable position on my bench.
A drop of sweat hangs on my chin.
I wipe it away before it drips
onto my paper. I am trying to write a letter, but it is challenging
to keep my paper dry when it’s this hot. Our electricity
is off again which means no fans. It is at least 110 degrees
in here. I look out the window, wishing for a cool breeze. There
are some clouds building up in the east. Maybe it will rain tonight.
A sudden movement
outside catches my attention. It is Daniel,
pushing his moto out to the driveway. Christy is right
by his side. I know that he is on his way
to Tamale for the
second
time this week, to teach another class at the SENT school.
He climbs
onto his moto and straps on his helmet. The engine starts
up and he is off, bouncing down the rocky driveway, away
from
his family again. As I watch, my attention shifts to Christy.
She
is standing there on the driveway, waving him off with
both arms, her hands in the sign language “I love you” position.
As always, she has a sweet smile on her face. She waves until
he is out of sight and then goes back to the house alone.
I turn away from
the window with tears in my eyes. My mind
is not on my letter anymore. It is on the sweet scene
I just witnessed.
To me, it has not just a husband and wife saying goodbye
to each other. I know the lives behind the scenes. I
have seen
both of
them lay down their lives for Christ’s kingdom over and
over and over again. I know that now Christy will face this long,
hot night with three children by herself and Daniel will be in
Tamale missing his family. Their life is not easy by any stretch
of the imagination. But I know that they have a blessed life;
that in laying down their lives for Christ, they have surely
found them again.
That beautiful
picture of Christy, head up, eyes shining,
smile on her lips, waving goodbye with both hands to
her dear husband
is forever etched in my mind. One of the biggest privileges
of my two years here in Ghana has been to sit at Daniel
and Christy’s
feet. They have shown by their everyday lives an example of walking
in the grace of God like I have never seen before. They have
proven that God’s grace is real, that it can be depended
upon to keep us joyful in the midst of suffering, and that it
is always sufficient.
Watching Christy’s example of standing by her husband and
helping him to fulfill God’s call on his life has been
beautiful. It has lifted the standard in my heart and given me
something to reach for. Daniel and Christy have both taught me
the joy and fulfillment of a poured out life. Yes, by their words,
but even more strongly by their lives behind the words.
I will be forever
grateful for the opportunity they’ve
given me to be here and learn from them. It has been life changing.
I praise God for the privilege of knowing these dear people,
and pray that I would faithfully follow in their steps. How
have these two years prepared you for church
planting?
by Kevin O’Connell
Working with an
indigenous church planting movement under Brother
Daniel Kenaston
has done a lot to prepare me for future
ministry
and for missions in general, but specifically for church
planting work. Living and serving alongside
a seasoned missionary has
been a great help in experiencing and walking through the
spiritual and practical issues involved in
planting an indigenous church
among a tribal people. These past two years have helped me
to realize that living with and on
the level of the people is the
most effective way to plant churches in these circumstances.
This is in contrast to the typical mission compound with
air conditioners, satellites, nice cars, and
watchmen. Eating their
food, sleeping on their hard floors, speaking their language
and understanding their culture opens the hearts of the people
to whom you are ministering to hear what you have to say
(the Gospel) and makes your ministry example
one that they can follow.
How can I encourage a local leader to get on his bike and
bike for twelve miles to a village and preach
when I only do it
on a motorcycle? I can encourage him,
but will it be effective?
I bike twelve miles
to a distant village and upon arrival, I sit
down with the
church leader or just a hungry contact
in that
village. I greet him and make small talk in his own language
with the limited vocabulary I have. After a bit we enter
the
house and eat supper, the same food he eats day in and
day out. At that point I am no longer a strange
white American.
I am one
of them. The laying down of my life, as I attempt to live
at his level, yields wonderful fruit
as it raises my credibility
and aids in my communication of the Gospel! His heart is
open to listen and accept the Word
of God that I will preach later
that night.
 A major key in
church planting work is the concept of working
yourself out of a job; i.e. to disciple the church to
a point of self propagation. About a year ago
I had the awesome
opportunity
to preach in an unreached village. This village is about
thirteen miles from the main dirt road and about eighteen
miles from
the nearest town with lights. The people in that village
have heard
the name of God before, but had no understanding of His
love for them and what He did in sending His Son so they
can share
eternity with Him. To me, it was an unforgettable experience.
I couldn’t just keep this opportunity to myself. I invited
another church leader to go with me so he too would get a burden
for the unreached people of his own tribe. My mission there was
twofold: (a) to preach the Gospel and (b) to disciple a local
leader. I am thrilled to hear that he has returned to this particular
village on his own to follow up on our initial contact!
If we only reach
the villages we can personally go to, we may
have failed in the overall vision of reaching
this tribe
with
the light of the Gospel. If we can disciple leaders
with
a vision for reaching their own people and watch them
replicate the work
they have seen us do, then we will be on our way to
reaching this tribe which is spread out over
maybe 1500 villages!
I
have been thrilled to observe this working out practically
here in
the young Konkomba churches.
These past two
years have been an excellent experience and
a very good training school for ministry, missions,
and church
planting. I have gained a wealth of knowledge and
understanding
in the spiritual and practical workings of church
planting. I
believe it is well worth it for every young person
or young married couple to go through two years of
training
like
this. You won’t
be the same; surely I am not. How have these two years in Ghana prepared you for cross-cultural
ministry?
by Lysanne Kouwen
Farming season is
here! Konkombas are subsistence farmers so their
lives center on this,
and for the past two years ours have
too. To be a Konkomba is to go to farm, so...
One morning I set
out to spend the day with one of our friends
on her farm. It is about a fifteen minute walk
into the bush.
She carries her baby on her back; I carry the bucket with
drinking water on my head, trying not to splash. My friend
laughs but
encourages me, “You are trying!” We run into several
neighboring compounds. “Hey, Nwele!” (my Konkomba
name) “You are going to farm! Can you farm?!” they
give me big appreciative smiles. “When you are finished,
you should come help us, too!”
Today we plant okra
and greens. I watch my friend carefully and try
to copy her. Walking erect, she drops three seeds
at a time
into little holes she made with a stick and then closes
the holes with her feet as she moves on...fast! It is
embarrassing
how
many times I have to bend over to pick up seeds that
landed beside the hole. But my friend is gracious
and just laughs.
It is a month or
so later. I am sitting in my friend’s
house, talking.
“
Nwele!” she says. “You should come and see the okra
you planted. It is doing so well!” So one day we shoulder
our hoes and go weed her farm. It’s true! The okra looks
beautiful. We work side by side and my friend teaches me Konkomba
words for ant, slug, worm, centipede, and more... Some of them
are true tongue twisters and we laugh at my pronunciation.
The greens are also
growing nicely and my friend knows that I love
eating them. So some evenings when
she
comes home
she brings
me a bunch. “For your soup!” she says. The tizet
soup made with groundnuts and these leaves is my favorite, so
I try to cook it just the way they do. One night I bring a bowl
of tizet and soup to my friend. I’m a little self-conscious
because it is not easy to make tizet just the way they do and
they are very particular about it. But my friend shrieks when
she sees me, “Nwele! You are truly a Konkomba now!”
That is one of the
nicest compliments I have ever had. I know only
too well that it is very far from
the truth,
but
what
counts is that they recognize that I want to
be one of them. I want
them to know that I value their way of doing
things because over the past two years I have
seen over
and over how
eating their
food, doing their work, and trying to learn some
of their language really builds relationships
and opens
a wide
door for the Gospel.
It also gives me insights which help me in sharing
Biblical truths with them. My daily life among
them gives me credibility
as I
share with them, much as Jesus’ life as a “normal” Jew
gave him the ability to speak with clarity into the hearts of
His Jewish audience.
It is not always
easy. Usually I am way outside my comfort zone
and feel very foolish; even the
little
girls know
how to do everything
much better than I do! And trying to communicate
in a strange language does not exactly make
a person feel
intelligent
either! But it is all right to feel small and
it does not hurt to learn
to laugh at yourself. I want to be “...all things to all
men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the
Gospel’s sake…” (1 Cor. 9:22, 23). These past
two years have been an excellent opportunity for me to walk through
cross cultural ministry with mentorship from missionaries with
experience. I have watched and tasted the work of incarnating
the Gospel into Konkomba lives! I am praying daily for a chance
to work out what I have learned in a long term context wherever
God may call me!
 Testimony of a SENT Student
by AY serving
in Asia His
unkempt beard announced the fact
that he hadn’t shaved
for days. A strong odor clung to his clothes. He hadn’t
bathed either. Why? Because Mephibosheth knew that the king had
been dethroned. Until the kingdom was restored to its rightful
dominion, Mephibosheth couldn’t go on with business as
usual.
As I listened to the
passionate retelling of this Old Testament
account, my heart was stirred. How desperate am I to see the
King resume His position as rightful Sovereign in the hearts
of individuals?
At SENT our systematic
study of missions through the Bible
kindled a spark of motivation to engage ourselves in the
advance of God’s
Kingdom. While listening to Jeremy Wollman’s sessions,
we became increasingly convinced that missions is not an optional
activity for God’s people. This perspective provides a
much-needed focus for me as I decide how to invest my resources
such as finances, time, and energy.
Now that I’m here in an Asian country, which relationships
should I focus on? How do I budget time for personal spiritual
nourishment, teaching responsibilities, language learning, and
relationship building? Should I spend this afternoon studying
a book about reaching Muslims, or should I go out and chat with
some in the neighborhood? Refocusing my attention on God’s
ultimate purpose of receiving glory from all peoples helps me
to channel my energies where they can be most effective.
Not only was this initial
spark of motivation kindled, but it
was also fanned into a blaze through
practical messages
about
missions. Daniel Kenaston taught us many important principles
as he re-told Bible stories using gripping word pictures
and illustrations. These stories moved missions from
the realm
of idealistic adventure to a world saturated with the
reality of
death to self. I remember the sense of awe I felt as
he preached
about the widow filling her pots of oil. Suddenly I realized
that I didn’t have to carefully calculate the oil that
I pour into the lives of others. I don’t have to fear that
my energy or strength will be insufficient. Unless what I’m
pouring is God’s grace flowing through me, it will never
satisfy the needs of even one person. If it is God’s grace
flowing through me, it will be overwhelmingly sufficient. I can’t
experience that miracle unless I pour out my life for others
with carefree abandon.
Throughout our training
at SENT, we received a toolbox with
some basic tools of the trade. Although
we just
scratched the surface,
the empty compartments in our toolbox helped to define
our
need for further study and preparation. My experience
thus far in
an Asian country underscores the importance of study
prior to missionary service. Our minds must be disciplined
and
exercised. Furthermore, our role as teachers requires
us to be competent
in English grammar, as well as understanding and utilizing
appropriate
teaching techniques. The Teaching English as a Second
Language (TESOL) course I had taken was very useful
preparation. We also continue to study
missiology, culture, and the
religion
of this
people group in order to determine the most effective
way
of reaching them.
Some of the tools I
found particularly useful have been
language learning, cultural awareness,
and cultural
sensitivity.
The
language learning sessions were very hands-on, allowing
us to experiment
with innovative methods of language learning. Our
language sessions here often follow
the pattern we learned and
practiced at SENT.
As I relate to people in this culture, I often think
of Daniel’s
analogy about adjusting our dials to the radio frequency of the
culture in order to perceive the subtle differences in communication
and behavior patterns.
Last week I committed
a breach of etiquette because of tuning
in a little too late. While eating
at a
restaurant with some
of my students, I accepted an offer to sample my
friend’s
bowl of noodles. Based on the response of the group, I realized
that I had made a social blunder. Although mistakes like this
might seem minor, what a shame it would be to alienate our friends
and destroy our witness through a lack of sensitivity or an attitude
of cultural superiority! Honing our powers of observation is
crucial to building bridges to people.
Relating to about twenty
people in the confining proximity of
a single compound knocked some rough
edges off our
personalities. This experience was excellent
preparation
for real life
on the
mission field. Prospective missionaries should
strive to develop interpersonal skills, become
adept communicators,
yield rights
to privacy, and respect others. Whether it is
being patient with a family member
who does not pick
up after himself
or understanding
a co-worker whose convictions are different than
mine, I need God’s grace to live in harmony with others. Working together
in a ministry setting has a way of exposing our weaknesses. If
I am to thrive here I must cultivate a teachable attitude and
a willingness to bend to suit the preferences of others.
“More is caught
than taught,” the saying goes, and this
was evident in our experience. We observed the pattern of selfless
lives as we watched the missionaries deal with major crises like
dangerously ill babies and minor crises like power outages, bug
infestations, and flat tires. They were willing to live outside
their social comfort zone, to lay down personal comforts, to
sacrifice their health, and to risk their lives for the sake
of the Kingdom. As they interacted with us personally, they spoke
insightfully into our lives. They were humble, open, and honest.
Their passion to reach souls for Christ was captivating and challenging.
When I’m walking down the street here after a hot, tiring
day of teaching and someone calls out “Hey, mister!” for
the seventeenth time that day, I can either launch into frustration
and self-pity or smile sweetly and follow the example of those
who respond graciously to undesirable situations. Small annoyances
will either squelch my joy or cause me to experience God’s
abundant grace.
Finally, we got our
feet wet in real-life outreach. We
preached and gave testimonies, had
personal
encounters with Muslims,
and participated in the work of the growing
Konkomba church. As we
watched the passion of the missionaries and
experienced the joy of being ambassadors,
we longed to throw
away our lives
in this
kind of service. Although we recognized our
insufficiency, we knew God only asks for
our availability. God’s work is
addicting. What else is there to live for? There is nothing more
fulfilling than participating in God’s universal plan of
reconciling humanity to Himself.
Testimony of a SENT Student
by JE serving in Asia
We were sitting under
the shade of some scrub trees with
several
Africans when our host said, “Eh, are you monkeys? That
is the way the monkeys eat. Don’t you see the way we eat
the corn?” My partner and I were in the “bush” on
our village survey assignment. Our host had just taken us out
for a little farming experience and we were all gathered around
making a meal of roasted corn and yams. I started eating my corn-on-the-cob
the only way I was used to. I was jarred to reality by his sudden
comment. After some observation, I discovered that there is more
than one way to eat corn. So I had to choose either to eat it
like they did or to obstinately continue eating my way. I chose
to shell the corn off into my hand and then pop it into my mouth.
The decision did not come without an internal battle. As we were
preparing to leave, we felt immensely rewarded when our host
said, “Now I trust you because you eat the food the same
way we do.”
Some of the most thought
provoking times at SENT came from the
teaching on Islam and interactive periods
that we had
with Muslims.
The way I viewed them radically changed. Although I was
praying for a Muslim tribe, I did not
really have any interest in
reaching them in a personal way. How am I to relate to
someone when
I have the subconscious thought of “terrorist” every
time I see one of them? The easiest way out was to avoid them
and ask God to bless those who were among them. One little statement
made by one of our teachers stuck with me and did more to bring
about a change of thinking than anything else. “Islam is
a religion, Muslims are people.” This little thought, when
it broke upon my mind, removed all distrust.
At the time of this
writing, I am serving in an Asian country.
I often get asked if I am a Muslim or a Christian. Sometimes
they respond with a sense of aloofness, almost hostility,
when they find out that I am not one of them. I have
been able to
look beyond that feeling of cool rejection as I realize
that they are just people like I am and this is all they
know
to do.
The people here feel
the rejection of others because of
their identity as “a Muslim people”. They appreciate someone
who is willing to trust them. I have been asked different times
whether I am scared that someone will try to harm me. I can honestly
say that I trust these people. I often find this trust being
reciprocated in surprising ways. Sometimes they open up and share
a bit of their hearts with me. One time I had an unexpected invitation
to go with some boys to their Islamic boarding school. I did
not know what would happen when I went with them. Would I be
kicked out by the authorities? I accompanied them, praying as
I went, and the door opened to have a short, candid discussion
with one of the teachers. He spent five years studying Islam
in Egypt in order to teach at this Muslim boarding school.
There are so many opportunities
to build relationships that it is difficult
to know which ones to relate to
in more than
a casual
way. The doors are open; the key is in understanding
them. I appreciate all the teaching and training
we received at SENT to prepare our
hearts and minds for
the work
of
reaching
others.
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