Missions Without Moving

I love mobilizing people to move to unreached places. But as the Reids’ story demonstrates, God calls people into many different roles. For a lot of people, that doesn’t involve moving internationally. The organization I mobilize for has been blessed tremendously by the service of people who never lived outside the continental U.S. Mike and Dorene are far from the only examples. It’s not wrong to decide that moving overseas, or moving anywhere, isn’t a good decision at this stage of your life. I would only encourage you to confirm you’ve made that decision with wisdom and prayer, and not just assumed it.

All Missioned Up With Nowhere to Go

To fulfill the Great Commission, we as a global Church need to send a lot of people abroad as missionaries. But we obviously don’t need to send everyone. Those who stay close to home are not second-class Christians, and they aren’t necessarily any less committed, less faithful, or less effective than believers who pack up and move to exotic places.

Ted Fletcher¹⁹ met Jesus through the preaching of Billy Graham while deployed as a Marine in the Korean War. The idea of people passing into eternity without any hope of salvation impacted him deeply. But the effect wasn’t immediately obvious. At the end of his deployment, Ted came home, completed a business degree, married Peggy, and went to work at a bank. For the next 10 years, the Fletchers enjoyed their four children, beautiful homes, and a generous income. Ted’s success in business eventually earned him a position as the national sales manager of The Wall Street Journal.

As a believer, Ted lived out his faith at work. He distributed tracts, invited people to study the Bible, mentored younger Christians, and shared the gospel at every opportunity. But Ted never forgot about his experience overseas meeting people who had no way of hearing the gospel. He and Peggy wanted to learn more about the Great Commission.

The Fletchers started inviting missionaries for meals and overnights. Ted regularly picked visiting missionaries up at the airport, gave them his credit card, and sent them off to buy new clothes for the whole family. “You are God’s royalty,” he told them, and he treated them accordingly. The more Ted and Peggy learned about what God was doing in the world, the more restless they felt. Why doesn’t everybody want to get involved in missions? they wondered. Why doesn’t everyone go kind of crazy for what God’s doing around the world? Ted would often gaze at the world map in their church lobby, dreaming.

The Fletchers decided to take the first step toward becoming missionaries—they applied to a sending agency. And then another agency. And then pretty much every agency they knew of. Everyone politely turned them down. In their mid-40s, the Fletchers were deemed too old, with too many children and insufficient formal theological education. Ted was a businessman, not a missionary. Nevertheless, Ted’s restlessness built to the point where he had to make a change. With Peggy’s support, he resigned from the Journal. He worked for a temp agency and started a moving company to make ends meet while he figured out what to do next.

Here’s a sneak peek at the end of the story: Ted and Peggy’s dream of becoming international missionaries never came true. God didn’t open a way. But He did provide a call to action in the form of a question from another good friend: “Why don’t you start your own mission?”

“All my past attempts to serve God in full-time ministry had turned to dust, while everything I touched in the business world seemed to succeed.”
Ted

How could someone who had never been a missionary start a mission agency? Ted and Peggy weren’t sure, but they wanted more people to have the opportunity to participate in Great Commission ministry. In 1979, the year Ted turned 48 and Peggy 46, World Evangelical Outreach was born in their living room. Five years later, the name was changed to Pioneers.

Ted and Peggy’s kids all grew up with a love for the unreached, but their third daughter, Arlene, was particularly drawn to the tribal peoples of Southeast Asia, where I grew up. Our fathers met, saw a potential match, and encouraged us to write. We married four years later.

God fulfilled Ted and Peggy’s passion to serve the unreached in a way they didn’t expect. While starting an organization wasn’t their original goal, the Lord had uniquely positioned Ted to leverage his experience in the business world for the advance of the gospel. Throughout his career, he had seen the importance of embracing change and pivoting with market conditions. He oversaw the development of a leadership structure where missionary teams had freedom to make their own ministry decisions and take risks. Pioneers valued excellence from day one, and businesspeople were not only accepted but sought out. In a time when most missionaries served in countries offering missionary visas, the Fletchers saw closed doors as opportunities for creative thinking. Pioneers had a “go get ‘em,” can-do spirit and was willing to try and fail and learn and try again.

“As we pioneer to reach the unreached, we do it with a strong conviction that there is no place on earth where Christ cannot be proclaimed, and there is no door so closed that God cannot open it.”
Ted

Ted went to be with the Lord in 2003. Peggy’s involvement in missions continued after her husband’s death. As Pioneers grew, she maintained personal relationships with hundreds of people. When Anita came to orientation at age 69, Peggy hurried up to her and said, “You’re a widow. I’m a widow. We’re going to be friends!”

Same Song, Different Location

When I reflect on Ted and Peggy’s story, it stands out to me that they didn’t have the end in mind when they began pursuing missions. They simply kept walking through open doors. And each step involved some level of inconvenience—giving away money they didn’t always have to spare, loaning out their car, feeding and housing visitors—none of those are small things. But God never opened a new door until they’d walked through the previous one. My point is not that your story should mimic theirs. Most of us do not start new organizations. And a lot of us actually can go overseas these days, even with four children and no seminary degree. But if not, God can use us in other equally legitimate ways that glorify Him.

You can participate in meaningful ministry benefitting the unreached even if you never apply for a visa or pack a suitcase again. Let’s explore some ways to engage with unreached people who live near you, ways to contribute to a sending agency, and ways to leverage technology for Great Commission impact. Keep moving, keep learning, keep listening, and keep studying the map.

The Unreached Within Reach

Communities of people from around the world live in all sorts of unexpected places. You can almost certainly get involved in ministry to the unreached within a few hours’ drive of where you currently live. You might need to move in order to fully engage in relationships, but you probably don’t have to go far.

Saul and Miriam serve on a missionary team in North America in their 60s, reaching out to Afghan immigrants and refugees. Many arrived recently, having left most of their possessions, relationship networks, and support systems behind. Early on, Saul questioned how he could be useful. He spent his career in the Marines. What does a Marine have to do with refugees? he thought. I’m not going to teach them to fight. Then he realized the military had taught him another valuable skill: filling out government forms. Miriam now describes Saul as “the admin guy” for at least 100 Afghans, helping them with immigration forms, school forms, food stamp applications, job applications, and much more. Some of the men have started viewing him as a father figure, and he has opportunities to explain the gospel.

A woman in her 70s joined Saul and Miriam as a volunteer. Since many refugee women don’t drive or have access to a reliable car, she takes them to work, school, doctor’s appointments, the grocery store, or wherever they need to go. Without leaving her hometown, she interacts with families, serves them in a practical way, and demonstrates the love of Jesus. She told Miriam, “I thought I was ready to be put in a grave until the refugees came.” Saul adds, “She’s got a whole new meaning to life now. A reason to live.” And if chauffeuring isn’t your thing, newly arrived families need help sorting their mail, navigating small business regulations, and practicing English. Their children need stand-in grandparents to both spoil them and teach them how to behave.

“The diaspora has put these people right on our doorsteps. College and graduate students are the decisionmakers of tomorrow for those countries.”
Laure, at age 61, serving international students in North America for two years and counting

Music opened doors for Laure to minister to international students. She offered free piano lessons at a local university. Soon, her students started video calling their moms in their home countries for impromptu recitals and introducing Laure to the whole family. She’s now known as a piano teacher and a follower of Jesus in unreached communities she will probably never visit in person.

David and his family lived in the Middle East for three years, then returned to the U.S. David worked at a Christian organization, but he kept an eye out for opportunities to meet and minister to Muslims. One Sunday morning, he and his wife noticed a new couple at church. This couple had recently arrived in the U.S. from the Persian world, seeking asylum. As they began to figure out life in their new home, someone mentioned that a church would be a good place to practice English and make friends.

After the morning service, David asked the couple if they had understood the sermon. “Very little,” they answered. So, he and his wife invited them to study the prophets of the Bible in their home each week. David doesn’t speak Persian, but with patience and the right Bible translation, he slowly unfolded the story of Scripture, beginning in Genesis. When they reached Isaiah 53 after four months, the husband stopped in the middle of the passage and exclaimed, “This is the story of Jesus!” His wife said, “But it was written 700 years before He was born.” The following week, both of them confirmed, “We want to follow Jesus.” David was thrilled to be part of the salvation story of people who were unlikely to hear the gospel in their home country. But the Lord had much more in store.

Once the Persian couple were baptized, they began to share the gospel with their family back in their homeland. When the husband’s sister downloaded a Bible, police broke down her door, beat her and her father, and made the entire family sign a statement that they would not study the Bible. The attack made them even more curious! A cousin flew to the U.S. to be baptized, and the gospel continued to spread. Soon, 35 new believers multiplied into two churches. Two years later, 16 churches met regularly despite increased persecution. In another year, 550 people in 50 churches, all originating from the couple David and his wife befriended at church.

The next time you notice someone at church, the grocery store, or your kids’ school who looks a little out of place, consider that they might be open to both a new friend and the gospel. It might not spread to hundreds of people, but you never know. God is a master of surprise.

Key questions: How can you connect with unreached communities in your area? Who could you befriend and encourage?

Supporting the Senders

You might never join a sending agency as a missionary, either in the U.S. or abroad, but what about working or volunteering at one, like the Reids did? You can contribute to world missions from a cubicle or home office, serving the organizations that facilitate the ministries of hundreds of missionaries.

Linda spent her career in missions. In 1975, she moved to Southeast Asia with her husband, Steve, and their two preschoolers. “We got off the plane, and my husband and I both thought, What have we done?” Linda remembers, “But that feeling was gone by the next day, and it never came back.” They moved into a tribe, and Linda began translating the Bible into the local language. Today, over 2,000 believers from that tribe send missionaries to neighboring people groups. When Linda finished translating the New Testament after 25 years, she and Steve retired to Canada.

Three years ago, Steve passed away unexpectedly. They had just bought an RV, planning to travel and enjoy retirement. Instead, Linda moved her RV from Canada down to Florida to live near her daughter. She settled in a few miles from the Pioneers office. Linda now volunteers on our fundraising team, helping with mailings, address changes, thank you cards, “anything I can do to take the piddly stuff off their plates. I’m old enough to enjoy a slower pace and less pressure. I had a big responsibility for a lot of years translating. It feels good to be released from that and just do what’s put in front of me. I have a family at Pioneers. It feels good to be needed and valued.”

David and Krista volunteer on the same team as Linda but come from very different backgrounds. David retired from a career in HR and financial services. Krista still works as an administrator at a prison. They read a book about Pioneers, visited the office, and essentially interviewed several team leaders before finding a fit. They took on the challenge of initiating a planned giving program, which leverages both David’s financial experience and Krista’s relational bent. They love building relationships with donors and helping them steward their resources to fund both Western missionaries and partners from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. “As we learned more about the financial needs of Global South missionaries who can’t afford to go, it resonated with me,” Krista explains. “Here I am with some of those resources, but not the physical ability to go. And there is the match.”

Key question: How might you be able to use your skills to support a sending agency?

Missions by Ones and Zeros

Technology and a little imagination open up many options for making a Great Commission impact without leaving home. It’s now possible to coach, mentor, or disciple people virtually. Social media and AI can be effective tools for reaching more people with the gospel. If you are a reasonably tech-savvy person, often the challenge is finding the opportunities. How do you connect your skills with a need? The more niche or technical your area of expertise, the harder it is to find a match. If you are an expert at a particular enterprise software, for example, you could meet a critical need at a missionary sending agency, but how do you find out which organizations use that product?

Scott Elequin faced that issue as a tech entrepreneur with a heart for missions.²⁰ While his wife and kids participated in more traditional short-term mission trips, his career kept him largely homebound. Scott had valuable software skills and a desire to serve God’s global purposes, but for years, he didn’t know how to begin. In 2019, Scott sold his business and tackled the challenge of connecting skilled Christians with Great Commission needs. He founded Global Switchboard,²¹ an online platform matching requests for help from missionaries and sending agencies with people who have the skills to meet those needs. Some areas are technical (software engineering, data analytics, animation, etc.) and others are broader, just facilitated by technology (business coaching, educational support, counseling, etc.), so there’s a potential match for anyone. All of the opportunities can be completed virtually with no travel. Some request ongoing assistance for a few hours a week, and others are one-off projects. When your profile matches a need, Switchboard makes the introduction, and it’s up to you and the ministry team to decide if it’s a good fit. Creating a profile only takes a few minutes, and many volunteers already serve in retirement.

“You get to the place in life where you’re like, ‘What am I doing here? I’m finishing my work career. My kids are grown. I have grandkids and responsibilities, but how do I want to finish this life?’”
Krista, at age 61, serving in North America for two years and counting

Somewhere in the world, a missionary or an organization is probably wishing for the knowledge and skills the Lord has already entrusted to you. If you can’t physically go to them, chances are high you can contribute remotely. Whether you network through a platform like Switchboard, through your church, through a sending agency, or through missionary friends, keep asking the Lord to connect you with opportunities to serve.

Key question: What missions opportunities might technology make possible for you?

C: Any (or All) of the Above

If moving to a foreign country isn’t a good option for you right now, you still have plenty of opportunities to play a part in God’s Great Commission. Some of the examples in this chapter might have sounded more feasible than others. Hopefully they sparked your curiosity about what’s possible. And remember, you aren’t limited to one option. Consider Rick and Aly Yohn’s approach of investing in multiple ways simultaneously—a hospitality ministry for pastors and missionaries, reaching out to internationals in the U.S., supporting a sending agency, and mobilizing others to do the same.

Decades ago, Rick’s first mission trip upended his high school dreams of becoming a doctor. “I could fix a broken leg,” he told his dad afterward, “but tomorrow they can break another leg, and what difference have I really made?” His dad responded, “Have you thought about becoming a pastor?” Rick hadn’t considered it before, but realized a career in ministry would be a great way to love and serve people.

After seminary, Rick started a church which quickly grew to 2,000 members. He approached ministry with the enthusiasm and speed of youth and completed a business degree while pastoring full time. Despite the outward success, 15 years of intense ministry left Rick exhausted and spiritually burned out. He stepped away from pastoring to recuperate, and shifted to a corporate job. Rick spent the next 20 years in the business world, working (and sometimes living) on six continents as he oversaw operations and sales for large companies. Whether at home or abroad, he and Aly embraced the opportunity to minister to others.

In every place they lived, the Yohns opened their home as a place of refreshment for others, having experienced the toll ministry can take on a person or a family. In a four-year span in Orlando, for example, they hosted people from 33 countries at their spacious lake house, complete with a pool, pontoon boat, movie theater, tables stacked with board games, and seemingly endless food and beverages. Pastors and missionaries come for rest and restoration. Mission organizations and other ministries hold staff retreats and board meetings. Hundreds of international students and theme park employees, many of them from unreached people groups, gather to celebrate holidays and events, as well as enjoy the Yohns’ hospitality. In the midst of it all, Rick and Aly each accepted a role on the board of a Pioneers ministry.

With four married children, a growing crowd of grandkids, and decades of ministry behind them, you might expect the Yohns to retire. But they’re always looking for new ways to bless people who haven’t heard about Jesus.

Choose Your Own Adventure

U.S.-based ministry possibilities open wide the door to global missions for people of all ages. But what if long-term international missions isn’t a good fit, and you still feel a tug toward faraway places? Flexible short-term possibilities open the door even wider. Could you support a church planting team abroad for six months—or even six weeks—of the year? How could you use your availability, limited though it might be, for God’s glory among the nations? Many missions organizations, including Pioneers, would love to help you figure that out.

“Boomers—we’re not done! God hasn’t called us to heaven yet, so what can we do to empower others and make the most of the opportunity?”
Rick, at age 60, serving in North America in all kinds of ways

While you’re deciding, expand your understanding of missions and the world. Ask the Lord to introduce you to people and places where you can make an eternal difference. Use short-term mission trips to explore new types of ministry in new contexts. Pursue friendships with people from other cultures. Invite an international student to spend a holiday with your family. Shop at international stores. Order a dish you don’t recognize at a restaurant. Practice flexibility, humility, and perseverance. An increasingly global mindset will help you pray more diligently for missionaries and the people they serve.