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The first steps in your journey

Mary Jane Welch, , October 2001, theCOMMISSION magazine

Anytime you pack up and move overseas to live in another culture, it’s tough. In fact, it’s tougher than most folks think it will be—even when you’re following God’s will.

And that’s one of the reasons the International Mission Board asks those seeking to serve as a journeyman, International Service Corps or masters missionary to complete an in-depth application and attend a three-day screening conference in Richmond, Va.

The process helps ensure that new personnel will have a good experience and will contribute to the work overseas. It also ensures good stewardship of the gifts Southern Baptists give through the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering®.

If you feel called to journeyman, ISC or masters service and are invited to a screening conference with other applicants, you will hear these messages:

Don’t try to make something happen in your own strength. You’re not going overseas as a missionary because you want to, because you can or because you’re determined to go. You’re going because God wants you to. And if He wants you to, He will bring together the pieces— a job that matches your skills, peace with the relationships you’re leaving behind and financial details.

Be attentive to God’s leadership during the entire conference. You don’t have to make up your mind about where—or whether—you’re going before you arrive. God may have much to say to you during the conference.

Be open to possibilities you did not expect. You may have made a volunteer trip overseas and “know” you want to return to the same people—until God lays another people on your heart. You may plan to go to Mexico because you studied Spanish in school—until you see a list of needs across Latin America. You may have majored in education and assume you’ll teach missionary children—until you learn your skills also can be used for AIDS education in villages.

Be honest about your past. You will participate in a personal interview that may leave the interviewer knowing “more about you than your mama does.” God calls people who have done terrible things to themselves and who have had terrible things done to them. But emotional baggage, such as childhood abuse that was locked away, or personal problems such as depression, moral weaknesses or even eating disorders, while under control at home, tend to pop up under the stress of living in a new culture.

“The more open people are about their past,” says Scott Chafee, journeyman and International Service Corps consultant, “the more it tells us they’ve dealt with it. Those who are quiet about it tend to be the ones who crash and burn.”

Trust those who have gone before you. IMB staff have worked with thousands of Southern Baptists as they’ve considered whether God is calling them overseas. Most have served overseas themselves. They’ve learned which issues tend to be critical in determining whether and when a person might best serve overseas. As they probe issues which may be painful or which may delay or prevent your serving overseas, trust that their goal is finding God’s will for you and for those you may work with.

Understand God alone calls us into service. Your preacher doesn’t call you, your mother doesn’t call you, and a powerful missionary speaker doesn’t call you—although God may use those people to alert you to His call.

“Sometimes,” says Chafee, “one’s calling is the only thing that keeps a person on the field. If God wasn’t the one who did the calling, they won’t make it on the field.”

Make decisions that will honor God. Being sensitive to God’s heart for a lost world doesn’t always mean you are His answer to the question, “Who will go?” Some people come to screening conference and learn that God isn’t calling them to go overseas. He’s calling them to return to their churches and pray, give to support missions or mobilize others to go.

Consider long-term as you decide about the immediate future. Your time overseas will change your life. Two years overseas as a journeyman may boost your desire for career service—or slow it down. The person you plan to marry may tire of waiting. Taking your family overseas as an ISCer will turn your children’s lives upside down.

Focus and emphasis on prayer is a must. You need to pray through your decisions, and you need to have others praying—not that you will get to go, but that you will make good decisions.

Commitment to moral purity is a must. You won’t check your hormones at customs. A man who’s struggled with pornography at home may find it more readily available overseas. A person used to dating often may find it difficult to go two years without a date. Someone who’s dated little may be surprised by a flood of attention from the opposite sex. You must make a commitment that will enable you to handle these situations.

The focus of the application and conference is on you, but this is not about you. The screening conference will focus on your past, your beliefs, your church membership, your Southern Baptist identity, your relationships, your skills, your commitment and the timing of this experience in your life. But the point of the conference isn’t you—the point is God, the people He is seeking to reach and the people He will use to do that.