The Gospel Hand-Off
After a setback due to illness, one missionary couple had to give their ministry away. Why they're happy about it.
[ posted 2/22/2013 7:57AM ]
"We need to cut down another tree!"
Simon and Lynn Caudwell were on the last day of a dusty trek toward Basketo, Ethiopia, in 1994. The road was blocked by yet another thick tree.
Their path had taken them through bogs that stymied their ...
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Steve Skeete
This is a wonderful account of how modern missions is working and should work. Turning the work of reaching a people group over to the people themselves and facilitating it until strong, sustainable local leadership emerges is usually a winning formula. It means accepting the fact that local leadership brings with it loads of advantages, including being more cost effective, as well as not having to learn the language nor the culture, both of which can take many long years for foreigners to get right. It also calls for a thick slice of humility, something from which all God's people can only benefit. Love the article CT. Thanks!
M Adisu
I thought the post below might interest one of you. http://ethiopianchurchdotorg.blogspot.com/2010/12/steadfast-translator-part -2.html
Michael Constantine
Ed, they stay because God did not tell them to go. When he does, most of them will. Some try to hold on too long, yes, but most of the international servants we know will leave when it is time. When they do there will be tears as well as joy; fears as well as faith. We live in that tension all the time. When God puts a people in your heart, it is never easy to leave, and you never, ever lose the love God gave you for them, even when you are away.
Ed Lauber
The tendency to celebrate long missionary service can work against the kind of missionary service this article portrays and which is so necessary today. We really ought to be asking hard questions when a missionary spends 20-30 years in one place.