Global Development

Hello from Southeast Asia, where this week I am participating in an inductive Bible study with 63 others from around the world. I’ve been asked not to disclose the location or the name of the group of which I have been a member for 20 years. 

I’m writing from the tropical island of Borneo, where this week I have been training about 40 Chinese pastors and cross-cultural workers. I sometimes wonder if flying halfway around the world to train people for cross-cultural ministry is making any difference. It’s not getting any easier; the transpacific flights feel longer every time, and adjusting to the time zones seems to get harder with every trip. All I need to keep going is just a little bit of encouragement that what I’m doing is making a difference in the lives of those I’m teaching and training.

I just returned from three wonderful weeks speaking and teaching in India, and so I was home for Thanksgiving. As I reflect on this past year and the most recent trip, my heart is full of gratitude and thanksgiving for the fulfilling and meaningful life the Lord has given me in this season of life. I’ve been “retired” for a decade now, and as I approached this season, I realized that the biggest challenge for many people is finding meaning and purpose in the sunset years of their life. I am so grateful that the Lord has given me an abundance of both.

I have three wonderful and different experiences to share with you in this Global Development update. I’ll begin with the experience this Spring of walking the Camino de Santiago for ten days in northern Spain. The “Camino” is a 500-mile pilgrimage that people have been walking for over 1000 years, and an experience I’ve been yearning to do for a long time.

Six years ago this month, I made my first trip to China under the auspices of my non-profit ministry, Global Development, which has enabled me to continue teaching and training people around the world. As one former colleague wrote me yesterday, “You may be doing the best work of your life!”

I think he just might be right.

Once again at this time of year I’m writing from Mokokchung, Nagaland, India where I’ve been teaching and training students at Nagaland Bible College and speaking in other places around the city. This year, however, I’ll be home in time for Thanksgiving.

The past six months have been very full and rewarding. In February, I taught for two weeks at the Caleb Institute near New Delhi, India. I’m working with them to develop a strong missiological curriculum and am providing books for their library. Next February, my former student and colleague, Dr. Jay Moon, will join me and teach a course on Intercultural Discipleship.

I’m writing this from the beautiful mountains of Nagaland, India, where I’m in the middle of teaching for two weeks at Nagaland Bible College a course on “Anthropology for Christian Mission” trying to encourage 23 young students from India and beyond that the days of colonial mission methods should be long gone, but unfortunately, many of them are still alive. Many of the students are experiencing my teaching as rather radical, but that’s OK. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that.

I was feeling insecure and anxious as I boarded the Singapore Airlines flight to the Philippines September 10th. I wondered if perhaps I had forgotten how to travel internationally and how to engage people in cross-cultural ministry. I hadn’t done any teaching and training with a live audience in person since February 2020. But it didn’t take long for me to recover my “sea legs” and I could sense that many people were praying for me as I taught with 70 Filipino missionaries and church workers with the Free Methodist Church, the church in which I grew up.

Keynote address, American Society of Missiology annual meeting

June 18, 2022 | Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame