Go Abroad
Your skills are needed among buddhists abroad. Give a week, a couple of years, or devote yourself to long-term service. Below are a few options in the areas of English teaching, medical ministry, development work, and church planting. You might also consider using your career to get an international job among Buddhists. For more details contact us at: houseofpeace@csloxinfo.com
General Calls
Adventist Volunteer Service or call 1.301.680.6000.
Church Planting
Adventist Frontier Missions or 1.800.YES.4AFM. People with a wide-diversity of careers are given further training in church planting skills.
Development and Relief:
Adventist Development & Relief Agency or 1.800.424.ADRA. They are looking primarily for country directors and individuals to help with project development.
Medical Ministry Combined with Evangelism:
Outpost Centers.
Tent-Making:
International Jobs That Match Your Career
Global Partnerships (1.616.471.6532): Be a tent-maker like the apostle Paul and use your job skills to land a job in a Buddhist country. On the job and in your free time, you can witness and in many places, even start planting a church.
Global Opportunities: An excellent Evangelical site to find out more about tent-making.
Reach Out to Immigrants
More than 1 million newcomers immigrate to the USA every year. Refugees find a haven there. Another 1-2 million immigrate illegally. People in transition become very open to the Gospel, but they won't automatically show up next to you in the pew. Our churches are just too different from what they’re used to. So who will search them out, welcome them and help them settle into life in America? Who will help them know God? It could be you. Here are some ideas for getting started.
Discover What Groups are Out There
Ask God to open your eyes and show you the people He wants to reach through you. Be watchful through the day, expecting God to arrange contacts. Remember He’s working in everyone’s life and He knows just where He wants to use you. To discover specific pockets of ethnic groups, ask the Chamber of Commerce, the school district or Census Bureau. The Yellow Pages will show you where there are temples and ethnic churches.
Learn about their Culture
The more you know about an ethnic group, the easier it will be to make conversation. It will also help you discover avenues through which to share the Gospel. Visit the library, the Internet and local cultural centers for books, videos and magazines. But the best way to learn is to meet people and ask lots of questions!
Most everyone loves to talk about his or her country.
- What is special about their culture?
- What’s their religion like?
- What holidays do they celebrate?
You may want to keep a journal of your findings.
Take time to reflect and pray as you go.
- “What’s good about their culture and even their religion that I can affirm?”
- “What beautiful things about Jesus and my beliefs would add joy to their lives?”
Invite them to share their memories and their present feelings. Try to imagine what it’s like to be an immigrant.
- What feelings might they have regarding their home land and their new country?
- What differences are they finding for work and family?
Be Helpful
If they’re new to the country, think of what you can do to help them adjust. (They’re probably too polite to ask.) They may need a ride to the doctor, help processing immigration papers, assistance setting up a bank account or simply English conversation practice. Show them around to your favorite spots and to discount stores.
Ask about festivals, foods, family traditions and religious beliefs. Share also things from your culture and background that are special to you. Do things together. Celebrate holidays and sample ethnic food. Learn a few phrases of your friend's language or study it at college, by tape or Internet.
People love to see you show interest in what matters to them, even if you slaughter their language! (Check Audio-Forum or 1.800.243.1234 for “The Whole World Language Catalog” which has 103 language courses with videos or cassettes plus ethnic music).
Start a Whole New Ministry
- Volunteer at a social service that caters to the specific ethnic group.
- Challenge your whole church to get involved by beginning a project that meets a specific need of recent immigrants (gardening, sewing, money management, computers, transportation, etc.)
- Tutor English at local elementary, secondary or adult schools.
- Start your own English as a Second Language Ministry. (Call Bridge of Love ESL Program at 1.888.301.0050 or get the excellent Christian-based program: “Passport to the World of English” at 1.918.585.3825. For an action-based program: ESL-English in Action
- Get involved with prison ministries focusing on inmates of unreached ethnic groups. (You might have to pay a translator, but think what he'd learn in the Bible study.)
- Start an ethnic churchin an unused room of your present church or in one of the new believer’s home.
- Develop a multi-lingual literature pack tailored to your area. (You know, literature for every language you might meet). Share it door-to-door or set up a booth at a flea market or with a health screening van.
- Here's some good advice: “Let the leaflets and tracts, the papers and books, go in every direction. Carry with you, wherever you go, a package of select tracks, which you can hand out as you have opportunity. Sell what you can, and lend or give away as the case may seem to require. Important results will follow” (Christian Service 151).
Quotes
“In our own country there are thousands of all nations, and tongues, and peoples who are ignorant and superstitious, having no knowledge of the Bible or its sacred teachings. God’s hand was in their coming to America, that they might be brought under the enlightening influences of the truth revealed in His Word, and become partakers of His saving faith.”Christian Service, p. 200
“God in His providence has brought men to our very doors, and thrust them, as it were, into our arms, that they might learn the truth, and be qualified to do a work we could not do in getting the light to men of other tongues.”Christian Service, p. 200
“Great benefits would come to the cause of God in the regions beyond, if faithful effort were put forth in behalf of the foreigners in the cities of our homeland. Among these men and women are some who, upon accepting the truth, could soon be fitted to labor for their own people in this country and in other countries. Many might return to the places from which they came, in the hope of winning their friends to the truth. They could search out their kinsfolk and neighbors, and communicate to them a knowledge of the third angel’s message.”Christian Service, p. 200
Future World Leaders Studying Near You
There are approximately 6000,000 international students studying in the USA every year. They come from around 188 different countries. Forty-three of these countries we can’t even enter as missionaries. They will return to their countries and take up important posts in government, education and business.
In fact 40% of the world’s 220 heads of state once studied in the United States. While you might not open your home for a year, there are many things you can do. Unfortunately 70% of international students never get invited into an American home while they’re here.
Here’s What To Do:
- Invite a student to your home to share a meal. (Remember how nice that felt when you were away at school)? The next time he comes, offer him the kitchen to create his favorite food.
- Invite her to special events during holidays. She came to America eager to learn your ways. Share the true joys of Easter by attending a Resurrection pageant. Give a gift she will treasure that ties her heart to the beauty of Christmas.
- Become a conversation partner for an hour a week to help him with his English.
- Be committed to helping and caring even if he or she shows no interest in God. Time alone will show the fruit of unconditional love.
- Keep in touch when she returns to her country. The pressures of family, friends and society may erode her new faith in Christ. Let your letters include greetings to her family and pictures of yours. Try to connect her to a church or other Christians in her area. You might even plan a visit to her country.
To Find Students Near You:
Link up with those who are already doing this exciting ministry:
- International Students Inc. (ISI) is a Christian organization committed to caring for such students and helping them meet Jesus in a culturally appropriate way. Contact: 1.800.ISI.TEAM or www.isionline.org for videos, literature and advice.
- Check with a chaplain or faculty at the university.
To Participate in the Exchange Student Program:
- Call Pacific Intercultural Exchange at 1.800.894.7633, or Cultural Student Exchange at 1.800.AFS.INFO. It’s a great way to bring someone right into your home for an entire year. Think of the impact you’ll make. Financially you are usually responsible only for their room and board.
A Great Book on International Student Ministry:
The World At Your Door by Tom Phillips & Bob Norsworthy.
A Short Story
Ron and Cathy Bush decided to open their house for one year to a foreign exchange student from Japan.
It felt awkward at first, but soon they got used to friendly, Pete*, being in their home and enjoying meals and English conversation.
They learned a lot about Japan, its people and its ways.
Mostly they learned about Pete*, who was not only eager to learn English, but hungry to know God.
Before long he was attending church with them and eventually was baptized as a Seventh-day Adventist.
Today he teaches English to 400 Japanese students in San Jose, California. His deep desire is to reach his own people with the Gospel.
*Pete is a pseudonym.
Church Plant
You might want to take your job and move to a city in your own country that has a lot of Buddhists. Go with several other committed Christians and work together to plant a church where there is none. For strategic support contact Global Mission at Total Employment.
Quote
“Many of the members of our large churches are doing comparatively nothing. They might accomplish a good work if, instead of crowding together, they would scatter into places that have not yet been entered by the truth. Trees that are planted too thickly do not flourish. They are transplanted by the gardener, that they may have room to grow and not become dwarfed and sickly. The same rule would work well for our large churches...Let families that are well grounded in the truth enter, one or two families in a place, to work as missionaries”(Testimonies to the Chruch, Volume 8, 245)
