Missions is a Contact Sport
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The Parachute Approach
I wonder if some people opt for a short-term experience just to soothe their Great Commission conscience, with what I call a parachute approach to cross-cultural exposure. The choice of terminology is deliberate. A few years ago a letter came to our field executive committee from an individual requesting permission to visit our field with a most unique ministry in mind.
The man was an ex-paratrooper who had fallen in love with Jesus and wanted to put his jumping skill to work for the Lord. He was asking for permission to fly over the Amazon jungle and parachute Bibles into the Indian tribes of the region. His sincerity could not be doubted. His sanity perhaps.
Besides the fact that he appeared to want to bypass the lifetime of translation work it would take to get the Bible into the language of some of those tribes, this "Jump For Jesus" mission, as we dubbed it, would have to be scrubbed for other reasons. Drug patrol planes in the area would not have stopped to interview the man dropping into the jungle with a big package under his arm before they dropped him, and his plane, out of the sky. Managing to evade military patrols would have been a merciful beginning to a miserable end at the hands of tribes who see the North American as the great invader, and whose thirst for oil has been shrinking their hunting ground and ruining their culture. Wisely and kindly, we thanked the man for his offer, and declined.
There are short-term project organizers whose plans for instant missions, though not quite as adventuresome, can be just as ambitious. The parachute approach is still alive today. If you read a natural skepticism into the response to your offer to assist a missionary friend with his work, it may well be that he has had a less than positive experience with would-be parachutists.
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About the Book
This book is a survival manual for cross-cultural ministry, it is designed to help get the maximum impact from a short-term contact. Mission leaders are using it as an effective orientation tool for equipping both short-term personnel and career missionaries. The insights that are found between these covers can help anyone relate better to other races and cultures. "I give copies to all new and short term missionaries who come to Ecuador with OMS International. I would recommend it to anyone who is preparing for a "Latin experience." "The book prepared me to be a better leader . . . It should be required reading for all those whom God leads to participate on missions teams." "It gives a true picture of the "ups" and "downs" of cross cultural experience . . . I have given copies to all of the new MAF candidates assigned to Latin America."
Mike Shrode, Ecuador Field Director
OMS International, Inc.
Daniel F Senf, Team Leader
Presto Products: Geosystems Global Sales & Marketing Manager
Gene Jordan, Latin America
Regional Manager, Missionary Aviation Fellowship
About the Author
The author is a career missionary with a deep commitment to short-term cross-cultural encounters. He himself is the product of a teen-mission experience, and currently serves in Latin America thirty years after that brief summer exposure. With more than twenty years of cross-cultural mileage behind him, he remains committed to the value of short-term missions. Richard and his wife, Hope, have hosted a variety of internships, work teams, church tours, and summer youth corps. These experiences, positive and negative, have served as the raw material for this book, and are shared with the hope that they will inspire many others to come and see for themselves.