MISSION MOBILIZERS

A missionary is a person who enters another culture to carry out the mission, described by Missiologist Donald McGavran as “the activities that multiply churches, win the lost, and disciple unreached peoples.”¹ We often add an adjective to distinguish further. For example, most of the people featured in our “Meet Some Missionaries” segment of CGM are career or residential missionaries, who live long term in another culture to carry out their ministry. Short-term missionaries often engage in aspects of fruitful mission work, usually in support of residential missionaries or indigenous leaders.

An old saying is “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”³, and that describes our experience, too! The Bible says, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). His Word lights the way, often just enough for our feet to see the next step! God’s call for us as missionaries and mobilizers has been one step at a time, unfolding over many years, with unforeseen choices to make, one door opening as another closed, moving ahead step by step with the singular focus to serve the Lord wherever He led.

Always encouraged and challenged by the testimonies of missionaries, Sally and I explored global mission as a possibility while attending Luther Seminary back in the late 1970s. We had three children at that time and learned that boarding school for our children would be likely when they were older. We have a strong sense of call to marriage and family. We have great respect for missionaries who have embraced this part of their calling to the nations, but didn’t see boarding school as God’s plan for us.

More than ten years later the next step in our journey appeared. God unexpectedly used two short-term mission trips in 1990 and 1991 to further rekindle a fresh passion for world missions.

“I asked the questions the same way at each month’s council meeting: ‘Have you found out what it will cost to go to Indonesia to visit our missionaries? Are any of you wondering if you are the ones who should go? Let’s set aside some money to pay for the trip.” Members of our church, Tom and Kathy Laskowske had been on the island of Sulawesi working on the Seko Padang language for Wycliffe Bible Translators for about five years when the invitation first came from them…They wanted their home church, their major supporting congregation, to come to see them and the work firsthand.

“Each month the answer was the same: ‘No, we haven’t found out anything yet.’ …It was clear the council wasn’t going to make it a priority, but meanwhile the letters from the Laskowske’s continued to ask, ‘When are you coming?’ Finally, a letter arrived saying, ‘Please put two months of our regular support toward the trip, and come!’ … I was the only pastor at a small church worshipping about 100 each Sunday, so it was a busy place to serve. Sally and I had six children at the time, ranging from nine months to 14 years, so we weren’t the best candidates to go halfway across the world for three weeks to visit our missionary friends. But we heard their hearts’ cry… (and) recognized no one else was going to go, so we began to make plans for the trip. By the next council meeting, we were able to tell them the costs, a time frame, and that we were willing to go, so the trip was on… That winter 1990 trip was our first short-term missions experience.  Looking back, we realize it was God’s plan that we should be the ones going to visit Tom and Kathy. We would not be involved in missions full time today if not for the fire that trip ignited in our hearts!”⁴

My arrival in Zagreb, Croatia, on June 26, 1991, was at a historic moment for this part of the world. There had been unrest and rumors of the impending breakup of Yugoslavia ‒ a country struggling with centuries-old ethnic unrest. That day, just as I deplaned, broadcast through the terminal was the booming voice of neighboring Slovenia’s President Milan Kucan declaring independence from the rest of Yugoslavia. “By sunset on June 26, Croatia took the same courageous step, and the breakup of Yugoslavia had begun.”

“I was in the capitol of Croatia for Project East – West… I had been invited by AIMS founder (and my friend), Dr. Howard Foltz, along with representatives of five other congregations from across the U.S. ‒ our goal was to pioneer a new kind of church planting outreach. Congregations in the U.S. would be partnered with gifted, indigenous church leaders and pastors in Yugoslavia for mutual prayer… and short-term financial support… that would help the new churches get started.”

After our visit to Indonesia the previous year, our lay leaders had seen this invitation to partnership with indigenous leaders as a natural next step toward personalizing the Great Commission. “I knew very little about the complex cultural, ethnic and historical issues that precipitated those pivotal days. All I knew was that I was in the early days of a war, and I had a front row seat on a mountaintop outside Zagreb.”⁵

[Learn more about that amazing week in Croatia, Albania, and my visit with our partner church in Skopje, Macedonia, in my book Igniting a Passion for Missions.]

“The next few days began to open a new world mission perspective for me as we met and prayed with each of our Yugoslav hosts… The prayerful resolve of the group was to proceed with what we were called there to do, which was to travel from Zagreb to the home cities of the six churches represented. Based on all the information we could gather it was still safe. So, we went our way: one to Pristina; another to Split on the Adriatic Sea; and, in my case, Skopje, Macedonia—600 kilometers to the south…. Over the next few days, I experienced even more the fruit of our new partnership with Sasha and his small congregation in Skopje. I was seeing a world unlike anything I knew in the suburbs of Minneapolis. They had a passion for sharing Christ with their city, and a faith undeterred by the difficulties. They were committed to ‘making disciples’ as Jesus commanded, and they were also putting feet to their faith in loving service. Despite having very little themselves, the church was regularly reaching out with food, clothing and the Good News of Jesus to the large Gypsy population in Skopje, which is the capital of what is now the independent Republic of Macedonia.”⁶

Four days later we returned to Zagreb to find the airport closed, our hotel converted to a military command post, and the war intensifying. So, we fled Croatia by car through Hungary and on to Austria! “After ten days out of contact with home, I was finally able to get a long distance call through to Sally and tell her I was fine. Nothing sounded as good as hearing the voice of my love and best friend on the other end of the line and having her tell me things were okay at home. Sally also shared that she and others at church had been praying for me as they watched news reports emerge about the unfolding events half a world away…. As I traveled home, “I began again to ask God, ‘What is our role in the Great Commission? Was I to go home and announce to the family, “Pack your bags, we’re moving to Macedonia? How could I be a steward of the wider world vision for the local church that had been opening up from Scripture for me the previous few years?’” The mission trip to Yugoslavia in the summer of 1991 changed the course of our lives. It was the catalyst for a fresh understanding of God’s role for the local congregation in Jesus’ call to go to the nations.⁷

Later that summer, after a lot of prayer, I sent a letter to Dr. Howard Foltz asking if he needed part-time help with AIMS in the Midwest. With a large, young family, the path to residential mission was not clear, but like the boy with the five loaves and two fish, we felt we could offer what we had! I was learning a lot about the role of the local church in the Great Commission, so the plan was to help equip congregations. By late 1991, I was on a path to serve part time with AIMS, not knowing that the Christmas Day, 1991, dissolution of the Soviet Union by President Gorbachev would change our lives forever and be the next step in our journey.

AIMS worked with congregations, like ALWM does today, and also was the coordinator with a number of key evangelical mission agencies of “Operation Possess the Land”, a church planting project targeting 400 cities in the former Soviet Union that, after nearly 70 years of scientific atheism, had no evangelical church. I joined the staff, planning to assist churches in forming and mentoring their mission teams, but God had another plan! By early 1992, Howard called to say my job now also involved finding partner churches in the Midwest for these new church plants and helping lead people in the fall on an AIMS church planting mission trip to Russia.  

Many of the different pieces of our journey, much more than described here, fell into place as we answered God’s call as missionaries. Sally and I have been married for 52 years and are enjoying these years with our 23 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren! We are eternally grateful for His call that keeps unfolding as we continue to serve ALWM International in nine countries on three continents. To God be the Glory!