Hi everyone,
I posted about this before on my blog, and it didn't get much response, so we weren't able to do it. I'm hoping that posting it here will generate a little more response, and we can get this thing going!
So what I posted about was supporting a missionary. This might sound kind of impossible. Missionaries are expensive, right? Well, American missionaries to foreign lands tend to be pretty expensive, but what I want to do is support a native missionary in India. A native missionary is someone who goes to the lost in their own country/culture. This is highly preferable to Western missionaries for several reasons.
First, native missionaries are often better received by the people they minister to, because they are automatically accepted into the culture. They already speak the language or can learn it much faster because it is similar to their own, they look and dress like the people they are sharing the Gospel with. They eat the same food, and there are very few to no cultural barriers.
The second reason is acceptance of the Gospel message. When Western missionaries come to people who have never even heard the name of Jesus, like people in the 10/40 window, Christianity is often viewed as a foreign religion. For example, what would we think if an Indian Hindu or Buddhist came to us in America and tried to convert us? We would automatically reject it. The same principle applies the other way around. Christianity is seen as American, and consequently both the religion and the bearer of it are rejected. However, when the Gospel is presented by someone culturally accepted, it is seen as a universal religion. Christianity becomes Indian, not just some Western religion! This combined with the cultural acceptance of native missionaries makes them an ideal way to spread the Good News.
Another reason is cost. A Western missionary costs between $4,000 and $6,000 per month to fully support. Contrast that with the $60-$120 per month it takes to fully support a native missionary and their entire family, down to food, clothing, and all of their missionary work, and you'll see why native missionaries are an ideal choice where consideration of stewardship of God's money is involved.
K.P. Yohannan is the founder and president of Gospel for Asia (GFA), a ministry dedicated to raising up and sending an army of native missionaries to reach the lost of Asia. But even though native missionaries are less expensive to send, they still need to be sent. GFA is recruiting sponsors to help support a native missionary for only $30 a month. GFA has several Bible colleges in Asia to train native missionaries, and also uses excess donations to install Jesus pumps (used by entire villages), to buy vans and bicycles for transportation, to purchase projectors for the Jesus video they show, and to print tracts about the Gospel that are vital to the native missionaries' ministries.
God has laid it on my heart to support a native missionary, but I can't afford to by myself. When I posted this on my blog, only Anna responded. We'd like to do it, but together the cost is still a little too much. With a few more people, I'm sure we can work together and do this for the Lord! Please pray about this and ask God if this is a way He wants you to serve Him, and comment if you're interested. We'll receive a picture and biography of our missionary, plus information on what to pray about for him. I'll give more details if you respond positively!
Joseph, a native missionary in India, once asked a woman if she knew Jesus. She replied that she didn't know him, but maybe he lived in the next village.
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
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14 comments:
I think it's a great idea. I've been thinking about doing SOMETHING like this since thanksgiving... but i haven't put much energy into it. So if we found, say, fifteen people to put in five dollars a month, we could prolly support a missionary, right?
Well, it's only thirty dollars a month, so at five dollars a person that's only six people. If more people were interested, we could probably support two missionaries, or we could do this thing called Bridge of Hope that is supporting a child in Asia to go to one of GFA's Bridge of Hope schools, and they'll learn about Jesus and have their needs met at the same time. If you want more info about either (I don't know very much about Bridge of Hope yet) go here:
www.gfa.org
We'll see how many people are interested, and go from there. Thanks!
BTW Bridge of Hope is $28 a month.
oh, right, i see. sorry. Wow, that would be awesome.
I don't know. Supporting a missionary is a good idea, but I don't know if I would be willing to support a missionary with a different doctrine and theology than what I believe. Please don't be offended.
I'll think about it though.
I'm not offended, but I don't understand what you mean. What do you mean by different doctrine or thoelogy? They believe exactly the same absolute truths as we do - that the Bible is the infallible word of God inspired by Him, and that the only way to heaven is through Jesus and His sacrifice for us. They don't put any Hinduism or Bhuddism or anything else into it; it's the same as a Western missionary going to Asia, except that the person is Indian, and therefore more culturally acceptable to anti-Western Asians.
If you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them. Please pray about it, I'm really excited about this!
I looked some more at the Bridge of Hope program, and it looks really neat. I don't want to put too much in the goal area right now, I'm just shooting for a missionary, but if there are a lot of people interested in the future it might be neat. I'm looking at more stuff on the missionaries right now. gfa.org/about has stuff about their main mission, and if you go from the main page to stuff about missionaries by clicking the link at the bottom you can read a little more about that.
Also, gfa.org/send has all of their previous issues of their SEND magazine, with awesome stories about native missionaries, Bridge of Hope programs, etc. that always give me goosebumps. I have a few of their issues (they're all free) if anyone wants to look sometime.
I meant as in, I know that me and you have different believes to some extent, that is, our theology is different. We can both be Christians, but we don't agree on somethings, such as a few things in the TULIP. (Five points of Calvinism.)
no offense, beth, but i hate it when this happens. this is exactly it. in history, people start fighting over theological differences and split up the power of missionaries.
calvinism/arminianism gets elevated to a place i think it doesn't belong. i know people like my dad disagree, but when it comes to actually living lives and jesus and heaven, it's exactly the same.
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this is exactly what happens whenever I don't save the dumb comment. bogger is evil.
Ok, sooo, the gist of what I wrote was just echoing what Sam said. These missionaries probably believe different things themselves about the gray areas, and many of them may never even have heard of most of the things we Christians debate about. Their main task is to bring the Gospel message to as many of the lost souls in Asia as they can, and so fulfill the Great Commission. The main thing God wants is unity in His church body, not for petty squabbles about things that aren't conclusive to divide and defeat the purpose we're on earth for: to fulfill the Great Commission. This was Jesus' last command to us before He left earth, which is why it's so crucial that we obey it. I respect your wish if you don't want to support a missionary and I won't argue with you, but I ask you to please consider first how small of a deal it really is. We wouldn't let our differences about Calvinism break up our friendship, so how much more should we make sure it doesn't stop us from spreading the Gospel to people who may never have any other chance of hearing it!
Please pray about it and see what God's will is for your decision in this situation. My last wish is for something like this to hinder the Gospel from being spread. Like I said, I'll respect your decision whatever it is. We can talk more about it tomorrow if you want to, and I can show you some materials about GFA. One thing I'd highly recommend is reading their book "Revolution in World Missions" by the founder, K.P. yohannan. I have it and you're more than welcome to borrow it. It explains a lot more about what native missionaries do, and tells a few of their stories.
Sam what do you think about helping to support a missionary?
i'm in. let's do it.
I think you are right Sam and Verya. I think I do agree with you. So let me think about it some more and talk to mom and dad . . . and I'll let you know.
blogger is dumb. it just did it again. :( this is bad bad bad.
Anyway what I said was that there's me, Sam, Em, Anna if she's still interested, Eowyn if that's the conclusion she comes to, so that makes possibly 5 of us at $6 a month. I was wondering if MJ would be interested to if Eowyn does it. I'll talk to you guys tonight.
Praise God that this is all coming together!
Michaela will probably be interested in it if I end up doing it, or when I tell her about it.
That would be so awesome! Let us know when you've decided.
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