Archive - August 2021

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5 Things to Expect Your First Year as a Missionary
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‘More than Just a Basketball Thing’
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How to Pray for Unreached People Groups

5 Things to Expect Your First Year as a Missionary

Your first year as missionary is less about bold ministry than it is about diligent studying and acclimation.
Your first year as missionary is less about bold ministry than it is about diligent studying and acclimation.

“Your goal for the first term is to survive and want to come back.” When Eric Binion got this advice, he was a new missionary in South Africa. And at first, it sounded as absurd to him as it probably sounds to you. Eric already wanted to be in South Africa. Plus, a missionary’s first term is generally four years in-country. After language school, you still have two years to dedicate fully to ministry. Why aim for such a low goal? Decades later, Eric is giving the same advice. So, what should you expect your first year as a missionary?…

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‘More than Just a Basketball Thing’

Cristian felt like he was falling apart. Now, through sports ministry and discipleship, he’s a passionate believer with a vision to spread the Gospel.
Cristian felt like he was falling apart. Now, through sports ministry and discipleship, he’s a passionate believer with a vision to spread the Gospel.

When two visitors showed up at Cristian’s middle school, he had no idea that the basketball program they promoted would end three long years of loneliness. It wasn’t easy growing up in La Paz, Mexico, where Cristian regularly navigated offers of drugs, family dysfunction and his own adolescent hormones. And he was doing it pretty much all on his own. He’d had some good friends, neighbors who provided a safe space and a listening ear — and who also pointed him to Jesus. But they moved away. Where Cristian had once found friendship and spiritual guidance, now there was only…

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How to Pray for Unreached People Groups

A missionary talks with a woman from an unreached people group in Chad.
Unreached people groups are found in rural villages, high-tech cities and everywhere in between — but all have the same need for the Gospel.

What pops into your mind when you read the words “unreached people groups”? Simple, tribal living or high-tech, city life? Intense religiosity or no religion at all? Commitment to community or extreme individualism? Hard-to-reach or just a plane ride away? Actually, any of those answers could be correct. Ask TEAM missionary Eric Kroner about the unreached people group (UPG) he serves in Chad, and he’ll share about farmers who live without electricity or running water. “They are very much aware that their livelihood is dependent upon rains, at the whim of disease, and with the very rhythms of day and…

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