July 2014 - TEAM Christian Missions Blog

By The (Text)Book

Partner with TEAM and South America Mission to provide tablet-based textbooks for Bolivian students. / Photo courtesy of SCCLC

Jul 29 2014

Summer is almost over, and within months students across the United States will be heading back to school. Pencils will be sharpened, backpacks will be stuffed, and new textbooks will be purchased. However, for many students in other countries, textbooks will be sparse, outdated or in poor condition. The Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center (SCCLC) is an ACSI accredited Christian school in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. A ministry of South America Mission, the Learning Center develops young leaders to be academically and spiritually grounded with a vision for impacting the world for Christ. The Learning Center relies on donations and tuition…

Many education experts believe children learn best when taught in their mother tongue, even if it’s not a nation’s official language. Photo by Robert Johnson / TEAM

Jul 22 2014

Imagine that you and your family’s native language is English — in fact, it’s the only language you speak. It’s the only language spoken in your entire neighborhood, the neighborhood you grew up in and your parents grew up in before you. It’s the beginning of the school year, and you drop your child off at your local public elementary for her first day of school. All the signs welcoming her are in Japanese. So is all the class instruction. Everything, in fact, is in Japanese. As she learns about colors and exotic animals in other parts of the world,…

Greece and other southern European nations have become overwhelmed with immigrants fleeing violence and persecution in North Africa, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and other largely Muslim regions. TEAM workers are finding ways to show Christ’s love amid the hardship. TEAM photo.

Jul 15 2014

Earlier this year, a TEAM worker watched as two men embraced. One of the men was a Muslim who had become a Christian, and one was a former Islamic fundamentalist who, until recently, had been abusing the other man. Now he was asking more about Jesus. This didn’t happen in Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iraq. It was in an immigrant community in southern Europe. Immigration is not just a hot topic in the United States. In fact, it is a much more formidable issue in many other countries. Per capita, at least 20 nations receive more immigrants than the United…

In closed-access countries and increasingly in many other parts of the world, the only way to minister in a community is to "do something" that meets felt needs. Photo by Robert Johnson / TEAM

Jul 10 2014

We asked Dave Davis, one of TEAM’s experts on the Muslim world, to share his thoughts on the importance of community development in missions, especially in Muslim contexts. This column appears in the summer 2014 issue of Horizons magazine, which hits mailboxes starting next week. We talk a lot about holistic outreach and cooperating agencies. But is it just different, or is it better? The answer is yes! That South Asian mountain village will never be the same. They now have an eight-foot-wide road to their village, which should help them rebuild their earthquake-destroyed homes. How do I know? I measured…

Make sure your missionary newsletter isn’t getting buried in your supporter's inbox.

Jul 08 2014

This week, missions writer Amy Walters of SEND International shares tips on improving the venerable and ubiquitous missionary newsletter. I read a lot of missionary newsletters — about 100 every month. As part of my job, newsletters are some of my main sources of stories and information. I also serve on my church’s missions committee. So between the two, I’ve seen newsletters from all over the world and from a variety of missions organizations. Some of the newsletters I read are excellent. And some, well, not so much. Missionaries have incredible stories to share — they’re on the front lines…

Photo by Andy Olsen / TEAM

Jul 03 2014

This week, our blog got a little face lift. We love the new look and hope our readers will, too. We put a lot of thought into making the blog more engaging and user-friendly, as well as creating something that would do justice to TEAM’s beautiful photography. But most of all, we want to create a space for thoughtful dialogue. TEAM’s ministries are broad and diverse. On any given day, our hundreds of missionaries are serving in myriad contexts around the globe — urban and rural, churched and unchurched, Eastern and Western, advanced and primitive. This complex ministry mixture makes for…

Archive - July 2014

By The (Text)Book

When Children Don’t Understand Their Teachers

Why We Love Immigrants

My Conversion to Holistic Missions

13 Types of Missionary Newsletters We Should Stop Writing

New Look, Same Blog