Missionary call and family – an “Ubuntu” option
Must a missionary abandon his family to truly answer God’s call to reach the lost? Across the continent, a new generation of African missionaries is going out, and their families do not always understand the reasons. It can appear se...
Read MoreA turnaround for Reagan
Reagan had never left the town of Kumasi in his entire life. So the day he boarded a bus for the mission field far away from home was a big day. Upon arriving in Tamale, he discovered that the bus to Gbintre moved once a day. He didn’t m...
Read MoreMissionary 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 you de...
Read MoreThe 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 left t...
Read MorePeople 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 accepted Isla...
Read MoreLanguage 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 languages ...
Read MoreCulture 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 spiri...
Read MoreThe 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 was tra...
Read MoreFridays 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 barely und...
Read MoreConnie’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...
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