Learning to be effective...

One of the greatest challenges one faces in working cross-culturally is that of effectiveness. We desire not just to go and teach/encourage pastors and church leaders, but to be effective in what we are doing.

For the past couple of years, we have been doing a good job of encouraging pastors and church leaders, and we have done a better than average job of teaching (based on feedback received from national partners, those attending the training, and other missions personnel). The key to being effective in our work is to always be willing to modify, edit, and change.

We have learned many things during our two years of work. We have learned that many if not most of the grassroots pastors we are working with have struggles with literacy. We have learned that some of them do not even have Bibles (and that is a need we are meeting). We have learned that most if not all of them do not have study tools like concordances (because they are not available in their language). We have learned that most of these grassroots pastors and leaders have never studied the Bible exegetically (verse by verse through books).

One of the great joys we had in July of this year was to teach the book of Acts to the leaders in Cambodia who had attended two other institutes. We payed special attention to the mission principles and person/role of the Holy Spirit as we taught. But the feedback we received indicated they were more thrilled with being able to see the story of Acts as it played out. They were excited to study the missionary journeys, they were thrilled to follow Paul's life as he served so faithfully. They had never really studied the Bible like that.

It is a privilege to invest in the lives of these sacrificial servants. We are editing some material on leadership for use in Myanmar in February. Pray for us as we teach from the Pastoral Epistles (1/2 Timothy & Titus) and point these faithful servants toward a better understanding of Biblical leadership. We are also teaching some character sketches during our time with them as well.

Thanks for all you do to encourage, support, and prayerfully invest in the lives of these leaders.

Thanks for taking this journey with us.

David