Global Development

Dear Friends and Family,

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

It’s been over a year since I wrote in September 2020 with my opening line, “Who could have seen this chaotic year coming?” I’m glad to report that we have not just survived, we have flourished in this pandemic period. I had to pivot from in-person teaching and training in China and India to using Zoom. Those of you who know how technologically challenged I have been may be surprised to learn that I have become right at home, if not adept, at using Zoom for teaching and training. I needed some tutoring, to be sure, but now “sharing my screen” is as natural as drawing diagrams on a large white board, which was my favorite teaching format for four decades.

Who could have seen this chaotic year coming? Many of you have wondered how the Coronavirus pandemic has affected our family and my work through Global Development. So I decided it was time to connect again. We are doing fine, being cautious but not paranoid, but all of my travel has come to a screeching halt since I arrived home from India on Valentine’s Day. I spent nearly three weeks in India mostly in the mountains of Nagaland, teaching and speaking in three different seminaries and at two mission conferences. It was a busy time. I love that part of India which brings back fond memories of the time we lived in the South Pacific 40 years ago. You can read a report of that trip here.

January 27-February 14, 2020

I’m on my way home from a most rewarding trip to India.  I crammed as much as is humanly possible into 2 ½ weeks – teaching and speaking in three theological colleges and a 10,000 member church to their young people during their mission emphasis weekend.  Each setting required nimbleness to speak to the different contexts and varied audiences, but in each place I sensed God’s presence and power pulsing through my veins, giving me what seemed to be needed and was appropriate for the setting.  I have always made a habit of cramming as much as I could into a brief amount of time to get the best return on investment of my time because of the high cost of airfares.