Our Story about Overseas Mission

Below is a series of articles – a type of biography – our story about Overseas Mission & Cross-Cultural Ministry. What is being shared here is from our life and ministry experience of 13 years of living and ministering throughout the nation of South Africa, including a number of missions to Brazil, as well as an additional 27 years of ministering into 20 different nations via the Internet. We have continuing ministry partnerships with friends that go back 40 years. And we continue to develop new friendships with the Lord’s people in nations around the world.

We are sharing Spirit-taught lessons and principles, and applicable practices based on Scripture and our personal ministry experience. You can browse around the various articles according to your personal interest. However, these articles are being presented in a kind of scope and sequence in which one concept builds upon another.

The opening article, “BEARING FRUIT”, was written about what we found on our return visit to friends and fellowships in South Africa after after being away for 18 years. I believe it is an affirmation of the principles shared in the articles that follow which address various things we have found to be significant for co-laboring with the Lord in His Field around the world.

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1. BEARING FRUIT

OBSERVATIONS FROM REVISITING A FIELD AFTER 18 YEARS

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2. “SILOAM” (Sent)

“INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR EVANGELISM & DISCIPLESHIP”

To begin sharing about ourselves – our call, preparation, sending, and ministry, I would like to share a few scripture verses foundational to future articles.

These are “life verses” which the Holy Spirit used more than 40 years ago to guide my wife, Frances, and I into His work of Overseas Mission and Cross-Cultural Ministry.

“You have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us a kingdom of priests to our God.” (Revelation 5:9-10) I realized that in order to experience the fulness of God’s Kingdom, we need to experience it together with those from “every tribe and tongue and people and nation”.

“Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” (Daniel 12:4 NKJV)

I understood that a “missionary” was “apostolic” – that is, “a sent one”. I was drawn to John 9:7 & 11 – “Siloam (which is translated ‘sent’).” We adopted the name “Siloam Ministries” for the first 13 years of our overseas ministry.

And accompanying these verses came the phrase: “International Partnership for Evangelism and Discipleship” – that is “The Great Commission”. (Matthew 28:18-20)

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3. THE CALL

“And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him.” Mark 3:13

The “call” is to always be with Him, for He will always be with you, as you co-labor with Him in His field. (1 Corinthians 3:9)

In his book “So I Send You” in a chapter entitled, Workmen of God: Recognizing and Answering God’s Call to Service , Oswald Chambers writes: “The call is the expression of the nature from which the call comes and can only be heard by those who are attuned to that nature.  The call of God is not an echo of my nature, but expressive of God’s nature.”

Mark 3:14 gives the “wide lens” perspective of the call: “so that they might be with him, and he might send them out to preach ….” The call is to be in relationship with Christ, to go out, and co-labor with Christ in His field. Christ calls us to Himself, His life, and His work.  This is NOT a situation of asking the Lord to come with you, and bless your life and ministry. In fact, neither is the call to meet some need calling out for our service. The call is a conscription into His plans and purposes. We must understand these things in order to answer the call properly.

This was God’s call to Abram (Abraham) in Genesis 12:1-2: “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.’”

There is another call recorded in Psalm 45:10-11: “Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him.”

Christ calls us out of that realm which has been fashioned by ourselves, and fashioned for us by family and culture – our world, our comfort zone, business as usual, life as we know it. The Call is to “come in” to the realm of our Heavenly Father and His Christ. The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9: “But, as it is written (Isaiah 64:4), ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.”

Some of us will be called out of our land into a foreign land, and out of our culture into a foreign culture; and some not. But whether or not the call entails missions and cross-cultural ministry, those who are called are universally called to be “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13), “salt and light” (Matthew 5:13-16), “witnesses” of the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew 24:14), “citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:23; Cf. Philippians 3:20), as “ambassadors of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:20)

In the Introduction of his book, “Following Jesus in the Real World” , Richard C. Lamb had this to say: “Today, Jesus says to us, ‘I chose you and appointed you to give your live for something that will last forever.’  There is no cause, no corporation, no movement that can promise its adherents that what they accomplish with their lives will last forever.  None, that is, except the movement that Jesus proclaimed, the kingdom of God.”           

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4. ANSWERING THE CALL

OUR PERSONAL STORY

 Frances

My wife, Frances, has her own unique and beautiful story of Answering the Call. In lieu of relating all the details of her personal experience, I will give a brief overview of the Call in her life:

Before we met and married, Frances was gainfully self-employed as a hair stylist. As a single woman, she adopted a Spanish-speaking daughter from an orphanage in Costa Rica. She also had a house built in the suburbs. Except for not knowing if she was ever going to find someone she wanted to marry, in a manner of speaking, she had basically achieved the rest of her life aspirations. When we met and were later engaged, she knew I was called to the work of ministry. During the first three years of our marriage, the Lord prepared us in various ways for overseas ministry. The preparation was muti-faceted, but maybe we could give two broad categories: “Living by faith” and “Living out your faith in a foreign culture”. This season of preparation was particularly “life-changing” for Frances: The Spirit of the Lord impressed on me during a time of prayer that Frances should stop working. Although it seemed questionable, she submitted to the idea, and whittled down her self-employment incrementally. This presented a challenge of faith with regards to the material provision for our family. The Lord also had us experiment in various ways of “living off the grid” – for example, using a wood-burning fireplace instead of the furnace for heat, using oil lamps instead of electric lights, and cooking our meals on a camping stove. In a word, Frances was being “weaned” from the life of her family, her hometown, her occupation, etc. It was a process. During this season, the Holy Spirit impressed upon her heart two passages of scripture which worked powerfully in calling her into the Cause of Christ:

“My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold, there he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.” Song of Solomon 2:9-10

“I slept, but my heart was awake. A sound! My beloved is knocking. “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.” I had put off my garment; how could I put it on? I had bathed my feet; how could I soil them? My beloved put his hand to the latch, and my heart was thrilled within me. I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the bolt. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer.” Song of Solomon 5:2-6

Christ calls us to “come away” – out of our life into His life – out of our self-made spheres, into the realm of His Kingdom. And Frances knew that God was calling her to work in a different field in His Kingdom beyond our local church. She was free to choose to remain in the life she had made for herself. But the Lord was going somewhere. She could stay behind, or go with Him. By the end of that three-year period, Frances was willing and able to sell the house and almost all of the household goods, leave family, friends, occupation, local church, and answer the call to go live and labor in a field overseas – South Africa.

Bill

It was about 50 years ago that I surrendered myself and my life to the Lord.  During the very first year, something was established in my heart that has very much governed the major decisions in my life ever since – namely, embracing the idea of being called out of the world system and called into God’s Kingdom, as well as being called to a vocation, as opposed to “making a living” through an occupation.  For the next 50 years, this served to govern where I lived, where I fellowshipped, and touched on all the details that go into making a life.

I remember while reflecting specifically on my occupation at the time as a teacher in public schools, I purposed in my heart that I would rather choose to invest my time and talents into serving the Kingdom of God with my life. The Holy Spirit made particular Scriptures very clear to me:

• From the apostle Paul: “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.” 2 Timothy 2:4
• From the apostle John: “… the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” 1 John 5:19 And: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world–the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions–is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” 1 John 2:15-17
• From the apostle Peter: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”   2 Peter 3:10-13

 “David served the purpose of God in his own generation.” Acts 13:36

It was clear to me that if scriptures like these were not shaping our view of life, then the Christianity we practice was different than that which the apostles received from Christ. I had purposed in my heart that I would not spend my life pursuing something in the world system which is both in opposition to God and passing away; but rather, I would give my life for the Kingdom of Heaven and the eternal purposes of God. It was about 10 years later in South Africa that I first heard the words of this song:

 “I want to serve the purpose of God in my generation.
I want to serve the purpose of God while I am alive.
I want to give my life for something that will last forever.
Oh, I delight, I delight to do Your will.” (“I Want to Serve the Purpose of God in My Generation”, Mark Altrogge)

Extraordinary Things in the Lives of Ordinary People

Answering the Call of Christ dramatically changed the lives of the apostles we see in the gospels. It allowed God to do extraordinary things with the surrendered lives of ordinary people: Peter, Andrew James, and John, as well as Thomas, and most likely Thaddaeus the son of James, were all fishermen by occupation.  In fact, it is quite likely that all the apostles, with the exception of Matthew, who was a tax collector, and maybe Simon the Zealot, were fishermen by occupation.  But in answering the Call of Christ all of them, except Judas, traveled the whole of the known world as missionaries.[1] Now, it’s not my intention to belittle any occupation, nor unduly exalt the ministry of missionaries.  My intention is two-fold: Firstly, I simply want to point out the dramatic change that took place when the apostles – the “sent ones” – answered the Call. And secondly to communicate that God is in the business of doing extraordinary things with the surrendered lives of ordinary people.[2] Frances and I have had a very rich life, but no season – before or after – can compare with the 13 years we spent in South Africa. Our season on the mission field was the apex of our lives. I have to say, God did many extraordinary things!

Footnotes:

[1] If you are interested in learning more about what may have happened to the apostles after the events recorded in the Gospels and Acts – where they traveled and what kind of impact they had on the world, I suggest reading: “The Search for the Twelve Apostles” by William Steuart McBirnie. Visiting biblical sites and researching ancient documents, legends, and local traditions, McBirnie developed overviews of their lives after answering the Call of Christ.

[2] Cf., “Twelve Ordinary Men” by John MacArthur.

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