What Advice Would You Give To A Young Couple Preparing To Serve On The Overseas Mission Field?
Q: What Advice Would You Give To A Young Couple Preparing To Serve On The Overseas Mission Field?
A: David Guzik: Were we a young couple when we went to Europe? We spent seven years in Germany, where I was the director and Inga-Lill managed operations, together with a great team and staff, at a small international Bible college called Calvary Chapel Bibelschule Deutschland. And it was fantastic.
Inga-Lill Guzik: Yeah, it was great. Our reading recommendations might be different depending on whether they are going to church plant or join an organization. There are some good books out there on church planting in the mission field or being a church planting wife. I think it’s valuable to read anything you can get your hands on about people leaving one place and going to another. We live in such a transient world right now that moving abroad or doing a semester abroad is very common. But picking up everything and going to the mission field as “lifers,” planning to stay there for an indefinite time of our lives. If you’re lifers, then there’s a whole different set of guidance that you want to follow.
One of the best pieces of advice we received before moving overseas was this. If you’re leaving as a family, and you have younger kids even up through high school, let your kids bring whatever belongings they want onto the mission field. There will be a lot of adjustments ahead, and to miss something that you had to give up before going onto the mission field can be a real discouragement.
David Guzik: So, if you’ve got young children, don’t tell them, “You can pick one toy to bring along.” Instead, tell them, “Let’s take the whole box full of toys.”
Inga-Lill Guzik: Exactly. Let them take the box full of toys, and they can sort things out. They can give things away when they’re on the mission field. Going to first world country is different than going to a third world country or developing country too. That makes a big difference.
David Guzik: Let me give some specific book recommendations. First, read missionary biographies. Those are always good and helpful. Secondly, one of the best little books I’ve ever read about missions and what it means in the individual life to be sent out, is a book by Oswald Chambers called Not Knowing Whither: The Steps of Abraham’s Faith. It’s a series of devotions that he wrote on the life of Abraham, especially about how Abraham went, not knowing where he was going. It’s a tremendous devotional. I highly recommend that devotional, especially if you can get it in the older version that has that exact title.