Even though traditional missionaries cannot go into most of the 10/40 Window countries where the gospel is most needed today, tentmakers can.
Read MoreRecently Lance and Donna were tagged in a photo from friends in the US that said, “We love spend- ing time with this family from East Asia”. After ten years abroad, it makes sense that they are seen as from Asia and not America. China is home. It is where they work, do life, and serve as missional professionals.
Read MoreA Long But Rewarding Journey
By the time Dave and Elsie got married, they were certain about their call to bi-vocational missions.
During Dave’s post-doc years, he underwent additional training in a related field to broaden his career options. His mentor connected him to an opportunity to consult for an international organization on their China projects. Dave and Elsie began to pray for an overseas assignment with this organization. They were headed in the right direction, but there were many bureaucratic obstacles.
Read MoreAs we celebrate 30 years of ministry, it is time to revisit and reaffirm our mission. This is important in order to sharpen our objectives, develop new strategies, align our teams, and mobilize others to join us while staying focused and relevant in this rapidly evolving world scene that is changing the landscape of missions.
Read MoreDespite suffering and chaos, spiritual revival spread among young people across China during WWII and the Civil War that followed. Brave bands of evangelists felt called to reach the poverty-stricken Northwest. Without knowledge of each other, they went out from Shanghai, Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong and Shaanxi.
Read MoreChina’s Back To Jerusalem (BTJ) missionaries in the 1940s were tentmakers by necessity, unaware perhaps of the legacy of tentmakers before them.
Read More
“You go to church because the foreigners pay you!”
“You’re a pastor because you receive money from America!”
These are common accusations from Muslims against Christian converts and pastors in Central Asia.
Read MoreIn 2013, President Xi Jinping announced China’s ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) plan to connect Asia and Europe with a 21st Century Silk Road by land and sea (One Road) to create an expansive Silk Road Economic Belt (One Belt) involving 65 countries and 4.4 billion people. Instead of inviting foreign investment into China, she now seeks to influence global trade by investing outwards.
Read MoreChina's One Belt One Road (OBOR) vision promises to revive the Ancient Silk Road with a vast network of trade routes linking China with Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, serving as a conduit for diplomacy and economic expansion.
To what extent and how quickly OBOR will achieve its objectives is unknown. Regardless, this Titanic of the Chinese Dream has sailed. The July 2016 Economist devoted three pages to discuss its geopolitical and economic significance.
Read MoreBusiness As Missions (BAM) is the cutting edge of the worldwide missions movement and becoming increasingly important as the least reached nations become harder and harder to access.
Read MoreIt was the last day of a camp in the backwaters of West China. The volunteers from America were offering an English program to teachers and students of a high school in a small town.
Over lunch, the school principal came up with an idea.
Read MoreAs we review how trade and missions reached the ancient world, we need to discern how God may work in our time as China’s One Belt One Road initiative impacts the countries and peoples in this vast region of the world that is the heart of the 10/40 Window. In the June 2016 issue of Great Commission Bi-monthly, Dr. Kim Kwong Chan outlined the OBOR missiological implications.
Read MoreSpring of 2011, first year out of college, Jane was sent by her company to China on a 3-month rotation. Within a few weeks, she had led her language tutor and her masseuse to Christ. They brought their friends and cousins to cook dinner and study the Bible together at Jane’s apartment every Thursday night. Some of the women were young professionals like Jane. In time, many more of them came to faith.
Read MoreLee’s call to tentmaking took ten years to materialize. He left China at age 3, and returned at age 18, his freshman summer on our student exchange program. Lee knew then and there that he must go back.
Read More
Rosalie is a 4th generation Chinese American, raised in the countryside of Oregon. She and her sister were the only believers among the clan. In 1986, she went to China for a year of language study, and discovered two things: she did not want to teach English, and it would take more than a year or two to have meaningful ministry.
Read MoreJoe felt called to China ever since his freshman summer missions trip. It took twelve years to complete his education and gain the needed professional and ministry experience before he arrived on the field.
Read More“Growing up overseas, I acquire two languages and cultures to see the world with binocular vision,” Tom wrote in his college application essay. It is true. Intercultural competency that comes with living abroad equips young people to explore new places and relate to people from all kinds of backgrounds.
Read MoreThe 2012 Winter Networker feature article was: “A Family Comes Home: God’s Good Story”. We used pseudonyms as the Wen Family had just returned from China.
Feisty and full of life despite having advanced metastatic cancer, Vickie liked to say, “If I’m not dead, I’m not done.”
Globalization has significantly impacted the developing countries of the world for better or worse. These countries are characterized by low income, social inequality, poor health, inadequate education, and therefore a general sense of malaise and hopelessness. Many of them are unreached nations in the 10/40 Window.
Read More“Really big and sudden changes in the world of mis- sions don’t come often. But now one is upon us. It’s the major optimism and thrill of business people who are devout believers starting or extending ‘Kingdom Businesses’ around the world.”
(Ralph Winter in Mission Frontiers, Nov-Dec 2007)
Faith At Work & BAM
Read More