Divine Voyagers

As of today, we have been officially appointed with Pioneers International. It’s been a long journey, but it is a wonderful thing to happen only 11 days before we get on a plane and head overseas for our second mission trip. 

Why Pioneers? 

The short story is that Tom met a worker for Pioneers while he was at bible college and immediately clicked with them. The slightly longer story is that they have a big focus on two things that are important to us – reaching the unreached, and teams. 

It may be assumed that missionaries are going out in the world to preach to people who haven’t heard the gospel, but statistically, the global church spends 100x more resources building and sowing into churches where they already exist. There are millions of people around the world who have literally never heard the gospel, and have no one going to them. (A great resource for looking at these people groups is The Joshua Project, although it is crowd sourced data, so it has its pitfalls.) Some missionary agencies are happy to build up churches that need support, while Pioneers is focused on reaching unreached people groups (UPGs). 

Secondly, Pioneers sends people to be part of teams, which is also not a given with some organisations. This is a team within a town or city (for example, Tirana), within a country (eg; Albania), within an area (eg; South Balkans), within a continent (eg; Europe), each with its own level of leadership and unique flavour of operating. While some team units are by themselves (a unit could be a single person or a married couple), this isn’t by design and there is a focus on getting people to join those people, to be supported and trained up before launching new teams in new areas. Tom and I are eager not to go alone, both so we can add to work that has already started and so that we can learn from those who have gone before. 

Other than that, some things that have really appealed to me about Pioneers is that they are non-denominational, meaning there is a broad spectrum of beliefs and practices which are all connected by a common statement of faith. They have resources for missionary kids (commonly referred to as ‘third-culture kids’ or TCKs, because they aren’t of their parents’ nationality and they aren’t of their home country’s nationality), as well as a good focus on mental health and support in general. Rather than linking up missionaries with churches, they ask missionaries to find their own support, which is nerve wracking but also means each missionary has a personal connection with their supporters to build long term care.

What does appointeeship mean? 

Practically, it means we’ve passed our physical and psychological tests, as well as our interview with both Pioneers and our church, Narwee Baptist (phew!). 

On a deeper level, it means that Pioneers will be supporting us on our mission journey. 

Both Tom and I have been assigned mentors, who have already started meeting with us to go through a program of training and discussing issues such as money, the impact on our families and forgiveness. Our mentors, member care coordinator and mobiliser all have the benefit of having been on the mission field themselves, and it’s their job to see us safely transition as part of a team and support us once we are there. 

It also means that we’ll be upholding the Pioneer’s core values, which can be found here, and will be going through some more training before we get on the field properly.
Pioneers represent us, and we represent Pioneers. 

What happens next? 

We go on our survey mission, and hopefully choose the team we will be joining. We are spending a day in the U.S. to see an NFL game (a dream of Tom’s) and then heading to the Basque, in France, and Croatia. Once we choose a team, we complete some training courses, raise funds for a term (usually two years) and start planning to go! 

At the bottom of our acceptance of commission:
‘I agree to the acknowledgements stated herein and with God’s help will serve to His glory.’ 

Prayer

Please be praying for us as we head overseas next Saturday! That we would gel with both teams, but be led to at least one, and we would be safe as we go to far, foreign lands with strange cultures (mainly Miami, Florida). Pray for guidance and clarity. And pray for Annie, our old greyhound, that she would get some peace and quiet at home as Luna goes to a boarding house for her own little holiday 😉