Article Archives - Page 16 of 36

Missionary calling and family concerns

You have been called to serve as a missionary, but family concerns threaten to pull you the other way. How do you resolve the dilemma? We have compiled advice from mission leaders to address some common family issues that arise when ...

The support mothers: standing in the gap for missionary kids

In February 1996, the EMS children’s hostel opened in Jos, Nigeria, to provide a home for the children of EMS missionaries who were serving in the mission field. The idea was motivated by a finding that 25 per cent of missionaries ...

People Groups: the Beja of Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt

The Beja people are nomads who have occupied their homelands across the Sudan, Eritrea and Egypt for more than 4,000 years. Some scholars believe they are related to the ancient Egyptians. In the course of their history, they accepte...

Language learning and culture

When a group of Kenyans and Malagasies were sent to a third country to serve as missionaries, it was a lot harder to communicate than they imagined. One team member already knew the trade language, and most had five or six other lang...

Culture shock

Can an African experience culture shock? Absolutely. Culture shock is when a person is unable to cope well in unfamiliar surroundings. Reactions vary from anger with the host culture, to withdrawal, grief and loneliness and sometimes...

The doors a business can open

When Lucy Pius Mwiru decided to go to Oman as a housemaid, the goal was to eventually become economically stable and serve others, but things didn’t go as planned. The wages weren’t as much as she had been promised, and the job w...

Fridays or Sundays: missions in the Persian Gulf

What does personality have to do with evangelism? I’ve always been a man of the people, easily adaptable and sociable. This has become one of my greatest assets in reaching people in a far land, with a language and a culture I bare...

Connie’s cultural trials and triumphs

The dead woman had been a member of the church during her life. All seemed well at the burial until a local woman approached the pastor’s wife, Connie. Referring to the dead body, the woman whispered, “Look at our sister; she hasn’t bathed i...

People groups: the North Sentinelese

The Sentinelese people live on North Sentinel Island, which is part of India and lies south in the Indian Ocean in the Andaman archipelago. The nearest island is less than 30 km away, but they are over 1200 km from the Indian subcont...

A confluence of cultures

A missionary family once lived among a Muslim people group for some 21 years. When they first arrived, they couldn’t differentiate between the names of people, places, animals, and foods. Everything was strange, yet, they had a mandate to put Go...