Reaching Out — When You Just Want to Stay Inside

TEAM – The Evangelical Alliance Mission • Jun 09, 2020

Today’s blog post comes from a missionary working in Asia. For her safety, we have kept her name and location private.

“Bloom where you’re planted.” As a worker in Asia for over 25 years, I have always had a love/hate relationship with this phrase!

I’m not super outgoing, so it’s difficult for me to reach out to others. Plus, building relationships takes a lot of time and energy. With our transient lifestyle, it’s easier for me to not bother.

But I’m a missionary. Isn’t this the exact thing God has called me to do?

God wants each of us, missionary or not, to bloom where He plants us in order to be blessed and bless others; to expose our personal sin and shortcomings, and to fulfill God’s principle of reaping and sowing.

Blessed to Be a Blessing

We began our ministry in a small town in East Asia. Although we had few local teammates, we had many visitors, co-workers, family members and locals constantly streaming in and out of our lives. We would jokingly say at the end of each visit, “They come and they go!”

However, after numerous visits like this — from three days to sometimes three months of a short-term worker — I found myself withdrawing from visitors. I was pleasant and hospitable, but I didn’t invest in their lives and didn’t allow them to invest in mine. It was too painful!

One day, after telling my 7-year-old son about an upcoming visit from a co-worker, he asked, “How long will they stay?” When I said, “Only three days,” he kind of shook his head and mumbled, “Not worth!” and ran off to play.

My son was doing the exact same thing as me!

After hearing my story and complaints about our come-and-go visitors, a dear mentor exclaimed, “How blessed you are to have these visitors in your life — whether for three days or three years! God has blessed you with these relationships, and you are so much richer for knowing these people at all !”

She was so right! From that day forward, as a family, we began investing in our visitors’ lives. Consequently, we now have chosen family all over the world! My boys have been blessed with the best grandpas and grandmas, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends chosen for them by God. As we have invested, we have been blessed.

Exposing Our Sin and Shortcomings

In Hebrews 3:13 , Paul writes, “But encourage one another daily … so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

God uses other people to show us things in our lives that we cannot see ourselves. We can only do this through relationships — blooming where we are planted.

Two kids sit together in church

Missionaries and their kids can be a strange sight when they don’t look like the locals. But God can use that novelty to draw people to Him!

When we lived in small-town East Asia in the early 2000s, most of the locals had never seen a Caucasian family, especially one with three towhead boys. We were quite the novelty! Often, when I would go out with my boys, we would be surrounded by people staring at us, touching my boys’ hair and laughing at everything we did!

My favorite time of the day was coming home to our apartment, closing the curtains and shutting out the very people God had called us to reach with the Gospel !

But God exposed my sin in a very unique way.

We lived on the second floor of a seven-floor apartment building. Unbeknownst to us, our building shared a communal septic tank that needed to be emptied on a regular basis. While taking our first vacation in six years, the septic tank overflowed into our apartment, covering every inch of our floor space in sewage !

Upon our return, surveying the devastation of our apartment, I just wanted to go home! I hated living here!

Several days later, after cleaning and bleaching our entire apartment, I told my sister about the catastrophe. She responded, “ You know, you don’t love the people! Maybe God has allowed them to literally permeate every part of your apartment so you will love them as He does .”

Although the truth hurt, God’s severe mercy exposed this sin in my life, convicting me to love the people He had called me to serve. And to bloom where He had planted me!

You Reap What You Sow

The Bible has many verses on the principle of reaping and sowing. 2 Corinthians 9:6 states, “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”

After our 2003 sewage flood, God changed my heart, and I began to embrace the call He had given me. Slowly, I started sowing seeds .

I didn’t rush home in the late afternoon to seclude my family as often. I allowed people to hold and touch my children, and I asked about their children and home lives. I began investing in the lives of local women by inviting them to our home for tea and playdates for our kids.

Gradually God developed a love in my heart for the Asian people — not just for the ones we knew personally, but a deep love for the people group .

In 2008, with others on our team (we had teammates by then!), we started an English corner for adult learners in our church. Out of this developed an English-speaking, seeker Bible study for women. God helped me develop deep relationships with the women who came.

One woman came to our English corner and almost immediately accepted Christ on hearing the Good News. As we met for discipleship I was surprised to learn she lived in the building next to ours in our complex.

I was even more surprised when she told me this: “In 2003, I was 14 when you had sewage cover your apartment. Most of us in the complex knew this might happen but did not want to be bothered with cleaning out the septic tank before Chinese New Year. When the flood occurred in your apartment, we felt terrible! We thought you all would leave and never come back to our city. When you stayed, it puzzled me and I couldn’t understand why you would stay. Now I know — so I could hear the Good News and find Christ! Thank you for loving me enough to stay!”

God tells us in His Word, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” ( Galatians 6:9 , NIV) .

Bloom where you are planted. The harvest in your life and in the lives of others will be bountiful. And overwhelming.

By Suzanne Pearson 08 Mar, 2024
Through God-ordained partnerships and creative connections, TEAM worker Keith Moore sees the global Church advancing in amazing ways. In the global missions landscape, a phrase that comes up often is “from everywhere, to everywhere.” God is calling His global Church in literal new directions, as He raises up cross-cultural workers to be sent from places that were once on the receiving end of missions work. We call this movement “polycentric sending.” TEAM workers Dawn and Keith Moore have seen first-hand this transition taking place. Their story involves the unlikely but beautiful intersection of Charlotte, North Carolina; Tegucigalpa, Honduras; and Memphis, Tennessee...and beyond. The Path to Honduras Keith and Dawn joined TEAM in 1991 and served as church planters for nine years in Bogota, Colombia. After safety concerns precipitated their return to the States in 1999, they knew they wanted to continue serving in Latin America. The Moores felt called to Honduras but wanted to connect with a strong missional church to help send them. The Lord orchestrated a collaboration with Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. “Some people asked, ‘Why Honduras? Missionaries have been there for 100 years. It’s already reached,’” Keith says. “But there’s a whole section of Latin America that had not been reached - the upper crust.” Keith goes on to explain that he and Dawn felt called to reach college-educated professionals in Honduras – a ministry vision that resonated with the missional goals of Bellevue Baptist. Impact and Growth With the support of this new church partnership as well as another sending church in Birmingham, Alabama, the Moores embarked on their next adventure. Keith and Dawn started Impacto Honduras Church from scratch, and in less than 20 years, the church grew into four locations with 1600 total members. The Moores and other TEAM workers also created a “Bible school” type training program to help professionals who feel a call to ministry to make that transition. Throughout this period of explosive growth, church partnerships played an integral role. “It’s such a different vision when you have a church that says, ‘OK, this is our deal, we want to make this happen,’” Keith explains. “They helped us with everything. They took away every single obstacle to growth. Every time we needed something, they were there.” In 2017, the Moores once again found themselves on the verge of another decision. Was it time to leave Honduras? “I had no desire to leave,” Keith recalls. “People were coming to Christ every week! It was just so amazing.” However, back in the U.S., Keith and Dawn’s parents were in their 80s and would soon be in need of more care. “We realized that either we would leave in a crisis, or we would leave strategically,” says Keith. The couple began to implement a careful succession plan. By the time they left, the four churches were established with strong, Honduran leadership ready to carry on the work of the Gospel.
By Suzanne Pearson 23 Feb, 2024
Justin Burkholder, pictured here with his wife Jenny and their daughters Isabella, Olivia, and Zoey, has recently been named as TEAM’s next International Director. On February 19, 2024, with much excitement and gratitude to the Lord, TEAM announced that Justin Burkholder will become our organization’s new International Director, effective July 1, 2024. Justin, who is currently TEAM’s Executive Director of Global Ministry, will assume his new role upon the retirement of the current International Director, Dave Hall. ( Read the full press release here. ) We sat down recently with Justin to learn a little more about his background, his family, and the journey that has led him to TEAM. Q: Tell us a little bit about your “origin story” - Where did you grow up? What was your family like? A: I grew up in Mexico City as a missionary kid. My parents were focused on church planting. We were very close as a family. Both of my parents are still alive, and my dad serves as a pastor in southern Florida. I have one brother who is a pastor in Wisconsin, and the most special individual in my family is my sister, Amber. She was born with a very severe case of cerebral palsy and is entirely dependent on my mother...who is extraordinary! The three most impactful forces that have shaped who I am (outside of God’s grace) are growing up in Mexico, having parents who loved and planted churches, and sharing life with someone with a severe disability. My parents belonged at the time to a church and denomination that came with quite a bit of legalism and performance-oriented Christianity. Grace was a challenging concept to grasp. While I had an awareness of my sin and need for redemption, it wasn’t until I attended Moody Bible Institute that I began to grasp the fullness of God’s grace and His delight in His children. I have continued learning and trusting in the Gospel through formal education, like completing my M.Div., and through spiritual practices in community. Learning the Gospel and believing the Gospel has been a daily exercise. The Gospel is as beautiful and multi-faceted as a diamond! At an individual level, it is simple enough for us to live convinced that “Jesus loves me, this I know.” At a corporate level, it becomes the foundation that forms and informs our life as a spiritual family. At a cosmic level, it is redemption that reaches as far as the curse is found. It is hard to even grasp the multiplicity of goodness found in the Good News. Q: Share a little bit about your family life now. What does a typical day look like in the Burkholder household? A: My wife Jenny is my high-school sweetheart! She brings joy and kindness wherever she goes. She’s the best listener I’ve ever met, and we love spending time together. We have three daughters. Isabella is ten, Olivia is seven, and Zoey is four. Each of the girls is unique and has taught us a lot in our process of following Jesus together. We like to go out on walks and go to the park together. Once a month I try to get some alone time with each of my daughters which usually includes bowling or trampolines. A typical day in the Burkholder house starts around 5:00am. Because of traffic here in Guatemala City, we have to leave early for school. After school, the girls come home to different activities - sometimes swimming class, sometimes piano lessons. Four or five nights a week we have dinner together where we usually talk about our high and low moments of the day. On weekends, we enjoy time together, playing outside, or watching sports together. Go Cubs and Go Buckeyes! Q: What are your interests and hobbies? If you have the day off, what are you likely to be up to? A: I enjoy physical activity, running, strength-training and following sports. I also love music and, truth be told, am a bit snobby about my taste in music! I also am a very curious person and love reading just about anything that passes through my hands. A day off is usually an opportunity for time with family. Jenny and I like to cook something interesting together on our days off. Often there is time for some reading and watching some type of athletic event. Q: How did God lead you to TEAM? A: My wife and I were working in the Chicago suburbs. I was a youth pastor and she was a Spanish teacher. When we got married, we had already sensed God’s direction to serve cross-culturally, but it was a matter of discerning when and where. There was a driving desire in me to see a church deeply love the Scriptures and at the same time, be deeply engaged in loving and serving their city and the most vulnerable among them. As God directed our paths, we visited a variety of places and made some friends in Guatemala who opened up the path for us to serve here. While we were exploring, we knew that the International Director of an organization called TEAM happened to go to our church, so I decided I should probably invite him out for breakfast - his name was Charlie Davis. Charlie was extremely thoughtful, passionate about disciple-making, and very gracious in creating space for us as we stepped into this endeavor. Charlie connected me with Steve Dresselhaus, a fellow TEAM global worker who was at that time serving as the Senior Director for the Americas. I cannot express the debt that I owe Steve. He walked closely with me in the transition, encouraged courageous thinking about the church and her role in society, and blasted open the doors for us to serve in Guatemala. After meeting Steve, we spent some days praying about joining TEAM. One thing I will never forget – one night during the process, I found myself wide awake in the middle of the night. A peace like I have seldom experienced passed over me confirming that we should join TEAM. There is no doubt in my mind that God tied all of these pieces together to bring us into the TEAM family and community. Q: What roles have you held in TEAM? What have been the milestones in those roles? A: The most important role I have held in TEAM is that of a global worker. God in His grace has allowed us to help plant two churches here in Guatemala, serve in leadership development, counseling, and discipleship. Our greatest joy has been found walking with those who are learning to follow Christ more deeply. I served as the Ministry Area Leader in Guatemala from 2016 to 2019. We helped to establish and lead this ministry area as it grew from just four global workers to over 15. I then served as Senior Director for Mexico and Central America from 2019 to 2021, Regional Executive Director for the Americas in 2021 and 2022, and then transitioned to the role of Executive Director of Global Ministry which I’ll continue in until the end of June. Q: What do you love most about being a part of TEAM? Why TEAM rather than other organizations or job opportunities? A: The TEAM community is full of people who have faithfully served God’s mission and have given up a lot to do so. It is a privilege to know many of our global workers and be counted among them. I am also fascinated by the fact that TEAM has existed now for more than 130 years! There is something to be said about the resilience and faithfulness of an organization that has continued to impact the world for so long. The rest of our conversation with Justin will be coming soon on blog! We’ll hear more about how God called Justin to the role of International Director, and what Justin sees for the next chapter in TEAM’s work in the global Church.
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