by Jon Konnerup
Missionary Care, when done well, provides a strategic way to fulfill both the Great Commandment and the Great Commission — strengthening missionaries to effectively love people, evangelizing, discipling, and planting churches, as well as to help missionaries endure hardships and grow as individuals.
This year we will be transitioning the annual September offering to be for missionary care. At the same time, we will raise extra funds for the remaining church and home projects in the Missionary Projects Offering. The specific missionary care areas will be the Annual Missionary Family Reunion, crisis training for Mission Office personnel and all missionaries, international missionary retreats in which Field Representatives and Mission Office staff may participate, ministry to missionary kids, and assistance to sending churches. Our goal of $500,000 will go a long way in implementing these important aspects of missionary care.
What happens when you combine missionary families, informative seminars, fellowship, fun activities, and challenges from God’s Word for a few days in Branson, MO? You have a perfect formula for the annual BBFI Missionary Family Reunion!
Deputation missionaries as well as veterans of 50 plus years spend time renewing friendships, laughing, crying, sharing, and uplifting each other. It is a time to be refreshed by looking into God’s Word for encouragement, guidance, and strength for the task to which we have been called. Burdens are shared and answers are sought for challenges ranging from the weakening dollar, to ministry issues, to foreign government regulations.
The younger children participate in VBS provided by a local church while the teenage MKs spend time bonding with other third-culture kids (TCK – children who grow up with their American parents in another country, blending their parents’ cultural elements with local elements of the country in which they live to form their own third culture.)
The Missionary Family Reunion is just one way the Mission Office is being proactive in providing help to our missionaries. However, the cost places a financial burden on many who want to attend. The Mission Office subsidizes a portion of the fees for each person in order to help keep the cost at a minimum: adults 17 & up ($235), teens 12-16 ($200), children 2 – 11 ($125), children under 2 (free). This cost is for food and accommodations for the entire week.
Your church can help the Mission Office care for their missionaries by participating in the following ways:
- Encouraging your missionaries to attend the Reunion
- Adding the Missionary Care Offering to your mission budget
- Prayerfully considering what part your church will have in the Missionary Care Offering this September.