These are crazy days, aren’t they? Some days I am extremely motivated and other days sitting on the couch flipping through channels on TV seems rather appealing. It is discouraging that not only are we not able to send any workers out, we have some of our field staff coming home for an indefinite amount of time.
One of the concerns we have for Central Asia is that, because they are fairly superstitious they often rely on old wives tales instead of scientific facts. For example, it is fairly common for Central Asians to believe drinking cold drinks will give them a cold or sitting on cement will make them infertile. The challenge with this in the midst of a pandemic is that they focus on the wrong things. They avoid cold drinks but might not vigorously wash their hands.
In the midst of this world-wide crisis, the gospel still needs to be shared. May the Lord give us a big vision for our lives. We can still hope and plan that when this is all over we will be ready to go.
One suggestion to help prepare you in this season is to read some books related to missions. Biographies of people who have served ahead of us are also extremely inspirational. Some books I would recommend are:
- God’s Hostage: A True Story of Persecution, Imprisonment and Perseverance (the story of Andrew Bunson)
- Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus
- Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence
- Fields of Gold: Planting a Church Among Central Asian Muslims
- The God Ask: A Fresh, Biblical Approach to Personal Support Raising
We are considering hosting some online chats to answer questions about missions while we are in this season of waiting. Please fill in the short survey.
May the Lord bless you and keep you during this season of waiting. As many people have said over these last weeks, the coronavirus did not catch the Lord by surprise. Let’s take some time to consider in this season what He would have each one of us learn from this unpleasant experience.
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