How will my family react if I go overseas as a missionary? How do I even tell them? Will I be alone or find a spouse? Is this really my calling or might I have other motives? Patrick Fung (Urbana 15 Bible expositor) and Jennie, his wife, also asked these questions as they gave their lives to God and pursued his mission as medical doctors.
Missions Stories
#missionsstories
I almost didn’t become a vocational missionary. That wouldn’t have been a big deal. God uses entrepreneurs and professors to do awesome things for his kingdom. And I would have worked in one of those professions if I didn’t join InterVarsity/USA staff. It would have been okay … except for my reason why.
Iven Hauptman’s story is one of finding God in unexpected places—like Reed College in Oregon, ranked by the Princeton Review as the college at which students are most likely to ignore God. Though Iven attended church with his mom growing up, he had no intention of seeking Jesus at Reed.
Urbana sat down with MaryKate Morse as she prepares for Urbana 15 to get to know her a little more beyond what’s listed in her bio. Here’s what she had to say:
Urbana sat down with Dr. Fung as he prepares for Urbana 15 to get to know him a little more beyond what’s listed in his bio. Here’s what he had to say:
In January of 1959, Paul Milanowski moved to Alaska with his wife and two young children. They were sent by Wycliffe Bible Translators to minister among the Athabascan tribe of native Alaskans in the small village of Tetlin (population: 100).
We live in a global world, where the world is so interconnected, but we have not yet found ways to relate in healthy ways. We have so many means for communicating (social media, all of that) and still there are so many conflicts around religion, around culture, around the social issues.
Liele and his family left the United States for Jamaica in 1783; thirty years before the first White missionary (Adorinam Judson) left North America; ten years before the so-called Father of Protestant Missions (William Carey) left England for his first missionary endeavor.
My call as an international worker came in 2005, while in Sunday school praying for Christians in China. At the time, I wasn’t really interested in anything overseas, but I found my heart melting at the thought of Chinese brothers and sisters not having access to the Father’s Word or not being able to fellowship openly. As I prayed, the still, quiet voice of the Good Shepherd simply asked, “Who will go?” to which I answered a thunderous, “I will!” even though I didn’t know much of anything about China. Nor did I know that less than 1% of full time overseas co-labors are Black.
For the last 4 ½ years Syria has been embroiled in a civil war, the net impact of which is that many Syrians are fleeing their homes, either to another part of Syria or to another country. This is “perhaps the greatest human suffering in our world today.”