The more I read, the more I learn that my ideas may not be so original. The more I read the more I find to read. The more statistics and definitions and models I find regarding this issue of member care.
Yet, . . . 3.1% or 12,000 people are prematurely lost annually from the mission field.
AND in the business world there are the same issues related to cross-culturally mobile personnel where research in 2000 by Grant-allone and Ensher highlight these losses: 10-20% premature return home (some as high as 40%), extra financial loss to the company ($100,000 - $500,000), 20% of employees leave their company within three years of returning. [How many of these were Christians who lost opportunities to convey the grace of the Gospel in their work setting in otherwise unreachable places?]
Both professional missionaries and lay ministers of the Gospel working in cross-cultural settings are being lost annually in staggering numbers despite everything I am reading about definitions, models, and assessments. Researh is good, but if it does not impact these numbers and the lives lost without a Christ-honoring witness, what good is it?
Maybe I have nothing new to offer, who cares? All I care about is taking what I can learn and apply it to meeting these needs to promote resilience on the field for the sake of both the cross-cultural worker and the one(s) to whom he is ministering.
I can't not do this! I don't know what I have to really offer, but I am willing to try. I have to try.
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