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07034 January 17, 2007
New Year's revolutions
Six new PC(USA) mission co-workers begin orientation
by Emily Enders Odom Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands communications officer
LOUISVILLE - As families all across the U.S. dedicate themselves to the customary, sometimes perfunctory task of making New Year's resolutions, six Presbyterian families have resolved to utterly change their lives this year for the sake of Jesus Christ.
Each has answered a call to mission service and will soon deploy to places such as Peru, Mexico, Jamaica, and South Asia.
Their first stop is Louisville, where they will participate in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s biannual mission personnel orientation, sponsored and hosted by the World Mission program area
Already the new class of PC(USA) mission workers has gathered in Toronto with mission candidates from other churches for an ecumenical orientation that has addressed mission history, missiology, Biblical foundations for mission, and cross-cultural skills.
The Louisville portion of the group's training will entail a Presbyterian-specific orientation to mission as well as to their specific assignments.
The orientation evokes strong memories for one trainer - Bill Simmons, a former missionary to the Congo who, with the Rev. Will Browne, now co-leads the World Mission program area.
Reflecting on his own mission orientation over 25 years ago, Simmons said, "My orientation experience was the result of the leading of God to accept complete surrender to God's will and to step out on faith into what was for our family uncharted territory. It required leaving mother and father, sister and brother, along with leaving home, business, and 'normal' employment. In other words, a complete change."
"Missionaries who are called to the field are called in a special way," he added. "Their orientation is but a precursor of things to come. There is so much to learn."
One facet of that learning - new to the mission orientation experience - will be a short course in fundraising. Dwindling unrestricted contributions to support mission personnel now make it necessary for PC(USA) missionaries to help raise funds for their own support.
So for the first time, staff members from the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands (MIJHH), the five-year, $40 million campaign to raise funds for new overseas mission personnel and for church growth in this country, will lend their own expertise to the mission orientation process.
"We in World Mission are very grateful that MIJHH will, for the first time, be part of our orientation process for new PC(USA) mission workers," said the Rev. Jo Ella Holman, associate for education, training and events for PC(USA) mission personnel, who organizes the orientation events. "We anticipate that God will bring much fruit from this collaborative effort."
Among the six new mission workers is Vicki Smith, a classroom teacher and member of Webster (TX) Presbyterian Church, who is just $18,000 short of her $50,000 budget goal to answer a call to teach at the Iona Preparatory School in Jamaica on a two-year appointment.
Smith, who is not alone in finding the fundraising task to be an ongoing challenge, has already received the support and guidance of the MIJHH staff.
"We are happy to be sharing in the orientation of mission workers, including those who will be receiving their funding through Joining Hearts & Hands," said MIJHH Director David York. "We rejoice that we are nearly at goal for Vicki Smith, and will be actively seeking the remaining $18,000 for her position even while she is attending the orientation."
According to Browne, most of the PC(USA)'s new mission personnel are going to positions for which the church has had to find new funding. "That means that MIJHH has been an incredibly important part of our even being able to have new personnel for whom to have an orientation," Browne said. "MIJHH staff will help us all think about ongoing funding needs, opportunities and methodologies."
Browne, a child and grandchild of missionaries, said that he is looking forward to meeting the latest crop of candidates in the mission orientation process because he is about to meet "family."
York shared Browne's sense of excitement and anticipation. "How wonderful it is to be a part of the send-off training for these candidates, whom we have known since they were called and as their funds have been raised," York said.
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