This past week, we traveled through a Middle-Eastern country where several workers are being denied renewed visas. In a symbol of continuity during a special sending-off ceremony, one of the long-term veterans there handed a track baton to some newly-arrived workers. But the question remained… From where will those workers come? In countries like these, where Americans, Canadians, and/or Irish are being uninvited, who will take up the torch for the future… to tell the untold story, to disciple new believers, and to connect today with *tomorrow*? Do you have an opinion on how or where we could find new workers? Because… it was the cry of Jesus’ heart in Matt. 9:35-38. Is it the cry of yours?
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New workers are and should be coming from Latin America among other countries. Latin’s look somewhat Middle Eastern/Arab, don’t have the North American political stigma, are eager to go, are trained and just need financing (maybe from N.A. Churches who can’t go!) TEAM and the Impact Church Network target the middle/upper class of major Latin America cities in church planting to train church planters to go to the Middle East and the Arab World. In the years to come, this model can help with the problem of “where will the workers come from.”
The most strategic resource in any country is a local believer who is committted to reaching his/her own people. They need to support of others who may be outside of this country who will pray for, intercede for, provide finances for (always less expensive then trying to maintain a foreign missionary)provide added training and help. The next plan is to reach those people who live in your own country as a local foreign mission field….building relationships and friendships and sharing and breaking the strongholds in the safety of your own homeland and the laws that will give you proper protection. Example, there are over 3 million Muslims living in the USA, and they represent Muslim counties and cultures around the world. We can touch the Muslim world in the USA.
Let’s send Asians! Filipinos are the greatest missionaries, learning languages quickly, totally non-threatening to those in “unreached” countries. There’s tons of good training available already, but they just need the financial resources to go.