Who are the People(s) in your Neighborhood?
Bob enrolled in Perspectives in Minneapolis/St. Paul as a seminary student with an interest in missions. Through his class research on an unreached people group he became convinced that he did NOT need to go overseas to do missions. Now he is ministering to Tibetans locally!
“The Perspectives course did change our lives and our direction for ministry focus. We started with overseas missions in mind but after doing the paper on the unreached people group I walked away with a different perspective on unreached peoples.” Bob and his partner researched the people of Central Tibet for the integrative project and networked with the local missions community as a resource. It was while doing this research that he met a woman who was working with Tibetans locally in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Through this connection he had the opportunity to meet a number of the local Tibetan people. “The following fall I needed another internship site so I started working with the Tibetans. I graduated in the spring of 2006 with my M-Div. and ever since have been a local missionary to the Tibetan's, an unreached people group here in Minnesota.”
“God has the people of the earth on the move and this is the new perspective I walked away with from the course.” It was not necessarily a certain speaker that Bob connected with, but reading through the 4 mechanisms of mission (involuntary/voluntary go, voluntary/involuntary come) that really impacted him. It didn't happen right away either, it took a little more time for it to sink in. As he continued to work with the Tibetans, he grew to love them. Bob stated that he now feels more at home with people of different ethnic groups than people of his own ethnicity.
“If I could inject anything into the course it would be to emphasize the paradigm that traveling overseas is not the only way to work with unreached peoples. I know here in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area one in six people is foreign born and the Philips neighborhood in Minneapolis is the most diverse neighborhood in the world (about a mile square) with 100 different countries represented and about 135 different languages spoke in this little neighborhood.”
“Overseas workers are still needed but working locally could be very fruitful. I admit, it is very time consuming, but it is also very rewarding. If I could give some advice to someone interested in getting involved with missions, I would say start by looking locally. There are a number of local immigrant groups in our own backyard.” Network with your local missions community and see what you find. There are tons of opportunities under our noses. [see note below for new Integrative Project with internationals]
Notes:
*Research by Patrick Lai found that, "Workers who before going overseas evangelized people other than their own culture or race scored better [were more effective] than those who did not. This reminds us of the value of ministering with internationals before going overseas." (Business as Mission, p. 84)
*A new Integrative Project has just been developed and now available for students. It is called the "International Student Interview Project". This project involves an interview with an international student and a paper that reflects on that interview and envisions how the people group represented by the international student could be reached with the gospel locally
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