Episode 28: On Visiting Missionaries Overseas, with Tim Hamer and Aaron Menikoff

(upbeat music) - I'm Ryan Robertson. - And I'm Max Stiles. - And this is Mission Stock brought to you by Nine Marks and Reaching and Teaching International Mysteries. Nine Marks exist to equip church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for building healthy churches. To learn more about NineMarks, visit NineMarks.org. Reaching and Teaching serves local churches as they send qualified missionaries to make mature disciples, establish healthy churches and train local leaders around the world. And you can find out more about Reaching and Teaching at rtam.org. In today's episode, we're gonna be talking about how pastors and other members can visit missionaries in the field. And joining us is Aaron Mennickoff, Senior Pastor of Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, or Sandy Springs, Georgia, which would you prefer, Aaron? - Sandy Springs is great. - Sandy Springs, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta. Very thankful for his role with Reaching and Teaching as one of our directors as well. And then we're joined by Tim Hammer, who's our sending church coordinator and member care coordinator for Asia at Reaching and Teaching. Welcome, brothers. - Great to be here. - Yeah, good to be here. - We'll start with Aaron. Why is it important for pastors and others from a sending church to visit their missionaries in the field? - Because the Bible gives us clear direction that we are to support brothers and sisters who go out for the sake of the name. I think about 3 John, verse six, says, "You will do well to send them on their journey "in a manner worthy of God, "for they have gone out for the sake of the name, "excepting nothing from the Gentiles. "Therefore, we ought to support people like these "that we may be fellow workers for the truth." And even though there's not a director explicit call there to get on an airplane and go visit, I certainly think implied in that is full throttle support. And that's more than financial. It includes prayer and I think it includes wherever possible visits. - So Tim, you visit missionaries all over Asia in your current role and you did a lot of that when you were serving on staff at a local church. What are some of the most encouraging things that you've been able to see in visits to missionaries? - Yeah, Ryan, I think we could fill up his entire podcast with encouraging stories. But by far, the most encouraging thing is seeing God's people working in his place. As you can imagine, the effort that it takes to get a missionary deployed into the field takes a lot and takes much. So when they finally get there and we get a chance to visit them in their new context and hear them speak a language that they didn't previously know and their kids speak a language that they're currently learning. It is so good. Last, I'll give an example. Last year we were with a unit in Southeast Asia. I'd visited them before they had left in the United States and we're now in their country of service and we're there for maybe less than an hour sitting in the living room with their youngest son and he's like, "Hey, Mr. Tim, I'm gonna tell you." Yesterday, I became a Christian and then it begins to unpack the story of how his parents led him to the Lord the day before. And as he's recounting the story, of course, my hardest fellow of joy, his parents hardest fellow of joy and as I'm listening there, I'm just so thankful one for the Lord for providing new life in this family. But then I turned to our missionary, our brother and said, "Brother, do you see the kindness of the Lord here? The very first fruit of your ministry in this country is your own son." And from one father to another, we shared a tear together. It's just a beautiful story. I've seen the Lord work in that place amongst his people. So of course, the beauty of seeing missionaries in their context, there's nothing like it. But then secondly, seeing the people that they're serving in their place. So getting the opportunity to be exposed to the people in the neighborhoods, to the people as members of local churches and listen, I will never get over hearing people pray and worship in their own language. You hear a familiar tune and a four in tongue. It gives us a glimmer of what Revelation 7 is going to be like. And I love it. And I can do it for rest of my life. Amen. I'm going to hold you to that, brother. Mac, you have been in the field for a number of years and I'm sure you got many, many visits. Are there one or two visits that stand out to you from your time in the field? And what is about those visits that make them stand out? Yeah. So there's so many people that encouraged us with visits while we were 20 years over the field. So it's-- Michael and Adrian Lawrence came to visit us. They were our very first visitors in Dubai. They were there months after we had landed. It was so encouraging and so helpful. And Michael and Adrian were both thoughtful visitors. Mark Devar came early on within the first one or two years that we were there. And he's a long time friend. He was particularly helpful in his visit with us as we were trying to get the church on biblical footing. And so and later when I led the Pastoral Search Committee, he was able to help me get John Fomor in place at the Evangelical Church in Dubai. So those two people-- I mean, lots of people came to our home in Dubai. It was a great privilege. Kevin DeYoung was there. John Piper came to Sir Briscoe, Greg Gilbert Carltrouman to Homschreiner. We had all these egg hits. Tom Schreiner was there Bruce Weyer, Don Carson, Brad Wheeler visitors, Juan Sanchez, and our own Aaron Minikoff came at it, courageous. All those people were in our homes and saw the ministry. So incredibly helpful for us. That's super encouraging. So when I think about just the way you talked about Michael and Adrian, there was obviously a longstanding friendship for both yourself and Leanne that was able to-- Yeah. I'm sure allow you guys to pick up where you started. Oh, yeah. Really loved off, yeah. And then with Mark, it seems like there was more practical conversation that needed to happen. And you look back and see the Lord using that to ultimately bring in John Fomor. Yeah. Mark was encouraging. I mean, he's a very unusual guy. He's very pastoral, very brilliant, and super helpful and insightful in practical things in church. So he's the full package in a lot of ways. Yeah, that's encouraging. Aaron, when you're visiting missionaries in the field as a pastor, what are you trying to accomplish? Well, if it's OK, I want to step back just a little bit and just acknowledge and maybe by way of confession that it wasn't always intuitive for me to go and visit missionaries on the field. If I wasn't going to be teaching. And it wasn't always obvious to me that the best thing our local church could do to support a missionary would be to send a team. I remember early on, I would think, well, wouldn't they rather, we just calculate the price of all these plane tickets and put that money together and just give them the money? And that's a lot of money. And I bet they could do a lot of really good things with that. So before I could really deeply understand the value of going, I really had to wrestle with why go at all. So yeah, now I'm convinced as I read scripture that there's to be a connection between a local church and a missionary. But then every missionary is different, right? Some of them are pioneering. And they might not have a local church yet established. And so they are-- and they might be in a season where they really need to-- they really need to wrestle with being on their own. But there could be a missionary who really is part of a local church. And that body of saints is really caring for them. So before I go, I'm trying to think through, talk with them. What are you looking for? How can we serve you? How can we encourage you? I think it's a travesty for any missionary to fail for a lack of encouragement. And that's the very least churches can do. I mean, the very least we can do. Like I loved how Tim was talking about just encouraging that brother who saw his son come to faith. Such a wonderful word of encouragement. So to answer your question now, maybe more directly, I just want to go and help a brother, sister, persevere. If this is where the Lord would have them, and our short visit can help them persevere for another year. If God in His divine economy would use us for that, that's what I want to do. Now, I do see that there are different kinds of mission trips. But I think one category is simply a trip to encourage. And-- but for some members of the church that I serve, that's not what they think of when they hear mission trip. I mean, they think of 40 pink t-shirts in an airport sharing the gospel in a city. And so we've had to recalibrate our understanding of what a mission trip can be and connect that encouragement to the spread of the gospel among the nations. Yeah, that's super helpful. Super helpful. Tim, I'm going to ask you the same thing. As you go and visit missionaries overseas, what are you trying to accomplish? Anything in addition to what Aaron's already mentioned? Yeah, I agree with Aaron. It's a ministry of encouragement for sure. And we can see that in scripture. If you read "Moscopter of Ephesians," Paul speaking of a guy named Titicus, or Titicus, depending on how he pronounces his name, he had a great job description. He was a beloved brother. He was a faithful minister. He will tell you everything. And his purpose was that they may encourage their hearts. And I think that is such a good word for anybody who gets the privilege of visiting a missionary overseas. Your job there is to encourage them to their hearts. And we can see that presence right in scripture. There was a job description at some point within the early church that there was men that went back and forth to report between sending churches and the work that's being done abroad. And the encouragement that comes as a result, it's a mutual encouragement. And so you're going out to encourage a missionary in the field, but then you're taking that encouragement, bringing it back home to your church, and then encouraging your members of your church. Like, hey, this is what's happening out there. You guys would not believe the things that we got to see and experience and smell and taste all are out there. And you can always tell when a senior patron elder has come home from a mission trip. 'Cause usually what happens is the next few sermon series are filled with illustrations from that trip. That's a beautiful thing. It's true. Let me tag on with Tim and Aaron. I'm part of the directing the Great Commission Council and we're coming with policies on these kind of things. And one of the statements we've come up with is how churches can have robust partnerships with their missionaries with five kind of principles known and affirmed by the congregation, strategic placement, faithful ministry, fruitful ministry, and intentional end to service. And you really can't do those things unless you know where the missionary is. So Aaron talked already about their different kinds of missionaries and missionary placement. So you really need to see their place for the congregation to know and affirm the missionary. So it's not, it's a thing of, I'm grateful for encouragement, but it's a strategic thing for churches to know their missionaries and to understand what they're doing. Be able to explain what they're doing. It's next to impossible to explain these things unless you've seen it. That's right. So those times in ministry where someone is overseas, I'll open this up to any of you. They're overseas, they're working. There's a corrective action that needs to be taken. Yeah. What role does a pastoral visit from a sending church play in that course correction or ultimately it could even be coming off the field? Should pastors do everything they can to visit before pulling someone off the field if they've got that decision to make? Well, I would say even before, you know, before talk of pulling someone off of the field, we're constantly seeking to evaluate, how is the work going? How is your soul? So many of the mission trips we do, if it's not an exploratory trip, an exploratory trip would be, we're visiting a worker who might be new to us, we're exploring whether or not a partnership would be wise. That's not necessarily the best place to sort of give advice or counsel. It's not as welcome. There's no relationship. You may need to, for gospel clarity, speak into a situation where the relationship is not strong. But otherwise, you're not going to be well heard. But if it's a partner with whom you have a really good and longstanding relationship, you still wanna go over and do a lot of listening because the fact of the matter is, as a pastor in America, I don't know what it's like to be overseas. I don't know some of the challenges that they're facing. So before I issue a corrective, I wanna make sure I'm right. Or at least I wanna make sure that we can have a conversation. And I can ask a thousand questions and I like to go overseas, observe, and then come back and think and pray before I then suggest with consultation with our elders in our church, suggest a course corrective. So I really think it's a valuable thing to do. I think we've gotta be willing to do it. But what I found is like a relationship that deepens over years, provides the soil for correction to be well received by a missionary from ascending church like ours. And hopefully keeps them from having to be pulled from the field later on because they've got ears to hear. - That's right. Tim, you've already mentioned one of our missionaries, kids. So I wanna take the topic to talking about kids for a little bit. But when you are thinking about visiting workers in the field, how do you think about caring for their children as you make that visit? - Yeah, I'm really glad you asked that question. I mean, full disclaimer, I am an MK. I still keep that title and I hold it firmly. I feel like when I get to be around other MKs, I'm still around my people, which is great. But I would say being the recipient as an MK of teams coming in, listen, let me encourage you leverage your luggage for their sake. And what I mean by that is pack lightly when you go with your stuff, maybe just bring a carry on that leaves you 50 pounds, maybe a hundred pounds of things and supplies and gifts that you can bring for those MKs. And it's very much worthwhile. Whether that's homeschooling curriculum, which they're not excited about that. But give from grandma, they're certainly excited about that. That could be one of our missionaries would have us bring his kids favorite type of cereal every time we came. And I was a huge blessing to guys. As soon as we showed up, that's the first thing they asked for, did you bring my cereal? Did you bring my cereal? I'm like, yep, got it. It sounds like a good Canadian will throw that stuff in a hockey bag and bring it along with it or in a tent that we then leave there. But I have to tell you guys, one of the best requests I ever received was to bring a Pogo stick for one of our missionaries, kids, his son's birthday. And there's a principle to be learned here. One, as a missionary, you got to ask. Like, you got to be free to ask your sending church, like, hey, guys, it would be really helpful if you can bring this list of things for us. So you got to be going to ask, this guy was like, hey, man, can you bring a Pogo stick? And I was like, this is my new mission in life. If your kid wants a Pogo stick for his birthday, it'll be my mission to make sure that kid gets that Pogo stick. So of course, we back at the hockey break, we check it in at Toronto Pearson Airport. It gets all the way over. We're heading to Nairobi, Kenya. And as we get into the airport, of course, my bag's there. So I'm excited. And if you've been to the airport in Kenya in Nairobi, you'll know that you can collect your bags. And then it's kind of like loser draw, whether they'll scan your luggage on the way out. So I'm praying, Lord, please don't let them scan my luggage. I don't want to explain this Pogo stick. And sure enough, it gets scanned. And my heart's beating a mile a minute because I have one mission on the light. Like, I'm willing to be martyred right now to get this kid, this Pogo stick, so to speak. And of course, the agent opens up the bag, looks inside, looks at me, looks back inside, takes a step back, it says, what is this? That idea of a moment, man, I'm in trouble here. Am I going to try to explain it here what a Pogo stick is? And the more I explain it, the more I'm making it sound like this is a thing that shouldn't be in their country. That's all I really had to do was actually pull it out of the bag and jump that thing into action in the middle of the airport. And as I'm doing it, I'm killing myself laughing because this is so ridiculous. She starts laughing. And I'm like, listen, this is important. This is for my friend's son. I want to make sure he gets it for his birthday. It's his birthday gift. Can you please just let it through? And we laugh together and she willingly let that enter the country. And we made that kid's day. And it was worth it. So I mean, the hero of the story is not me. The hero of the story is actually the dad. That's it, hey, listen, I want, like, this is important to my son. I want to make sure he gets this for his birthday. And it's just an example of, you know, the Lord loves to give us good gifts. And this dad was willing to go the extra on to make sure that his, his a limb cake got what he wanted for his birthday. And I think it's worth it. And so leverage your luggage for the sake of MK's. I appreciate it. Great story, Tim. How do you think about conversing with those kids once you can get them away from the pogus sticks and the cereal that you've brought over? Relateability. What are some of the conversations that are helpful for MK's to have with visitors and pastors that are coming in? Yeah. I think you need to be careful here. You certainly don't want to use to wrap anything the parents are doing. You need to know those kids really well. You may not have earned the privilege, actually, to speak into those kids in that regard. And so that's where knowing your missionaries really well, through the kids know you. And then just taking every moment and every opportunity to just love them, to communicate how much they're being prayed for by people back home, how well they're known back home. It's so hard for kids when they come home on, on home assignment, or even when they come back permanently. They're coming back to the land they don't know. They're coming back to church where all the kids that they knew have grown up. And so just a constant reminder of like, hey, we haven't forgot about you guys. We pray for you regularly. Our church prays for you regularly. Kids need to hear that. It's really helpful for them to hear just that. Mac, how should a pastor consider reaching out to missionary to start the conversation about a visit? Are there must-dos or don'ts in that conversation? I so appreciate that question, Ryan. Because it's a two way street, right? The area is talking about informing missionaries of things they need to know. And there's things pastors need to know. So I can think of it in terms of three levels, class levels, like visits 101 is just don't inform the missionary when you're coming. Be thoughtful about your visits. Just as you'd be thoughtful about visiting anybody, I mean, on a number of occasions, we were informed when a visitor or even a team of visitors were going to show up on our doorstep. And now we didn't mind. We didn't mind, actually. We love CM folks, but sometimes we weren't even there. We were out of the country. So I think before you book your tickets, ask questions about when would be a good time. If you're seeing multiple people take the time to coordinate that visit with people, that's visits 101. Visits 201, on a better level. Maybe this is just me personally, but don't tell the missionary you won't be a problem. I won't be a problem. The hair goes up on the back of my neck when anyone tells me, oh, I won't be a problem. I won't require much. There is no way you can see the work well without requiring some care and direction. And the missionary knows that. I mean, everyone doesn't want to be a problem, but it's OK. It's OK to come and to tell me that you won't be a problem tells me you really don't know what you're doing when you come. And on a more serious level, a 301 level, ask questions. Aaron's already referred to this. Ask questions. What's helpful on a visit? Be careful to have a servant and learning posture, rather than a being served and teaching posture. Have a field driven visit, not a church, a gender visit. Those things are all super helpful, kind of basic things about a conversation with the missionary about a visit. That's super helpful advice. I'm kind of disappointed. There's no 401. But we'll go with the-- No, there are. There are. OK. That's a 401. 401 is to be-- I mean, kind of more what you expect. Be willing to be a servant and a learner. I remember, oh gosh. I was teaching in a women's college in the Arabian Peninsula. It was an extremely rare event. And I had a visitor come. And we went to this women's college. These women, all of them, they were all in a bias. They're full covered. You only saw their eyes. And they probably not been out of their homes hardly at all. This women's college literally had a moat around it to keep people out. And my visitor, he did not know where he was. And he just should have just been quiet. But he proceeded to kind of take over the class and talk to them like they were college students back in Canada. And I was never invited back. It was an opportunity. So yeah, the 401 level is to be cross culturally sensitive and know what you've done. Do some homework about where you are, which takes a little more time. But most, honestly, most people are on that. Most people are sensitive and thoughtful, culturally. That was more about the question was more about starting the conversation about-- Starting the conversation. Yeah, absolutely. So Aaron, you've already talked about the things that you're trying to do when you go to visit. Now, let's think about you landing back in Atlanta's airport after being overseas. And you're thinking through your time over there. What are some of the marks of a successful trip overseas to visit missionaries? Well, let me start off with why it is not necessarily a mark of a successful trip. And I want to speak for a moment to you guys, like me, who are in pastoral ministry. I do think it's tempting to think if I go, I've got to teach. For this to be a useful-- for this to be a good use of my time, someone's got to ask me to teach, or someone's got to ask me to preach. And I just want to just say that's not true. Whether you teach weekend and week out or not, simply to go and listen and learn and encourage, that is the mark of a successful trip. You want to be both a blessing to the missionary and be able to leave their country, really believing that God used you to refresh their soul. I mean, that's a real win. You want to come back with a deeper understanding of what's going on. When I'm away, I often keep a journal while I'm away, because I just can't remember. So just a log. This is where we win. These are the conversations that we had. So I can come back and faithfully report what I actually got to see. I think it's a successful trip, also, if the missionary wants the relationship to grow even deeper. So if we leave, and they're saying, when can we talk again? That's evidence that we've entered into a partnership that is going to be used by God to further the Great Commission. Yeah, that's helpful. Boy, no kidding. Tim, is there an ideal timeline to make a missionary visit? Should you be going over two months after the missionary first lands in the country? I don't want to be legalistic and unintentionally setting up rules for churches as they're listening to this, but wisdom. What's an ideal timeline? Yeah, I think certainly not. In the first year, allow people to get acclimatized to the culture. You've got to remember most missionaries are learning language, and that is their full-time job for at least a year or two. So if you're coming for a visit, you're probably interrupting their language learning. They're taking a week off that they don't have to spend that time with you. So maybe not the first year, unless there's a request or any free to be there. The others at my church like us to get out to see our missionaries at least once in their term. So there are three or four or five year term, at least one time within that term. Some of our families appreciate a visit more frequently than that. They would like once a year and we're more happy to do that. So I think how often are you going to plan to see them within their time frame there? They let them drive when you're coming to visit, and also how long you're going to stay. Just imagine having someone in your house, wherever you work, and coming to work with you for six or seven days in a row. That probably gets tiring after a while. And so it could be that maybe two or three days of full days together might be enough to serve them well. They may want you there for longer than that. It really depends. I think as a sending church, you have the priority in that. And so that's a good conversation that you should have with your missionary family. It's like, hey, when would you like us to visit? What time of year is helpful? How long should we stay? And what should we do while we're there? That'll be helpful to you. I want to be clear on the priority thing. You're saying that missionaries should prioritize visits from their sending church over visits from others. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you think your sending church is the one that's most invested in you as a missionary. The ones that are praying for you, the ones that are supporting you, in many cases financially. So you want to prioritize those relationships. Really, the best thing that can happen in the field is that there's a local church in the field that's then connected to a sending church somewhere else. And those two things are getting cross-pollinated. The more times that that can happen, the healthier for both of those churches, the both of those communities. And so yeah, absolutely, I would say, give priority to this empty church. Great. Any other wisdom on that? Yeah, just to pick up on what Mack was saying, ask really good questions before you get there. Just don't be a burden. And so do everything that you can to make sure that you have a good agenda for one you're going to get there. Don't use this opportunity to be a tourist of that country. Be a good tourist of their homes and of their families and certainly of their churches. But don't ask to see all the sites and all the-- they may want to show you those things. They also may be sick of those things by the time you get there. Just be a good tourist of their home. If they give you anything outside their home, take it. It's a gift from the Lord. Excellent. Mack, how did visits that were made to you help you in your ministry in the field? And also, how did they help you stay connected? So you've given us the example of Mark coming and helping think through some of the church issues early on. But anything else? This came up because a pastor asked me really good question. So Jeremy Renny, pastor of South Shore Baptist Church, came to see us. And before he did, he asked, what do you really need? What would be helpful for me to bring? And I said, Jeremy, oh, please bring me Bible commentaries. I can't get those on Amazon. You just don't have a Bible bookstore. So Jeremy researched the best commentaries, bought all of them from Genesis to Revelation, one copy for each book of the Bible, laid them out on a table in the church for your-- and people went and bought them individually for us. And some people wrote little notes in these Bible commentaries. And when he had to actually bring a couple of people, just so they had space in their luggage, they brought these Bible commentaries over. I thought I was going to hyperventilate. I was so excited about this. You can't imagine how helpful that was. We laid them out in the library. We took pictures. He took them back to his church. It was the most helpful thing anyone had ever done for us. And creative. I commend it to all pastors who are visiting missionaries. Truly helpful, biblical helps for their ministry, where the most wonderful thing that he could have done. And it connected us with the church. We loved getting many other gifts and gifts for our children. But by far, the most helpful things were people bringing us to the things that Tim or I mentioned like a homeschool curriculum. We got one of our sons and things like that were very helpful. But yeah, so the connection, of course, is the relationships, right? I mean, you want relationships with the church. And so let me tag on stuff that's already been said. The great thing about pastors visiting us was that I didn't have to go back to the states and try and fit in 10, 20 visits with churches that were connected to us. The best thing was to maximize time on the field by people coming and seeing me. So there's a great-- it is expensive, especially if it's a team, but the loss on the field of sometimes people's expectations. I mean, yeah, we give you $50 a month. We want you to come to our church and preach. You're just killing the work that's going on. So I agree with Tim. So just sending churches and major supporting churches should take priority. But you need to know that. The churches need to know where they fit in that and have a right expectation. And be OK if they get deferred a little bit. Yeah, although I do-- most of our visits were great. We could talk about later, but yeah. Yeah, as I'm listening to you talking about a few guys and the other two, I think it's important to highlight. Ask your workers before you bring those things over. If they're even comfortable having those things physically brought into the country, just because of security. Well, of course, what I told Jeremy-- he asked that. Jeremy asked me. I said, well, this is great, Jeremy. You'll get arrested but deported. It's no problem. You just go back home. Big deal. That's amazing. If you're getting a missionary to do that, he might get deported and lose the work. It's how a job, no good deal. So I mean, it's a shame if you get deported for a POCO sick. But outside of that, yeah. Yeah, I still would have done it. You still would have done it. I was going to go to jail. Yeah, good for you Tim. Good for you Tim. Yeah. My dad wrote medical equipment in Nairobi. And it took a lot of explaining I was there for him. Hey, this question just popped into my mind. And I think it's important to think through Tim. Let's put your hat on as someone who works within a mission's agency to support and care for missionaries. And Aaron, you are a pastor of a local church. What should the conversation look like between an agency and a pastor as they consider timing of visits and priority of visits? Because we haven't talked about that yet. Well, that's a great question, really. Yeah. Well, I'll start. We're so thankful that we've got a few workers who are sent by us, but really tied in with an agency. And our goal is God's glory. It's the gospel going forth in power. And it's missionaries equipped to serve for the long haul. So we want to be the biggest cheerleaders for any structure that's going to help those three things in God's providence happen. So whenever we check in with the workers that we support, we're asking them questions like, are you being supported by your agency? How is that going? Is there anything we can do to help provide improve that relationship? And again, every missionaries difference. Some of them they need a lot of support. I know one of the things that some of our missionaries who have said, for example, connected with reaching and teaching, is they said it was so great from day one being connected to all these missionaries around the world. And that's not something that Mount Vernon is one local church. We couldn't provide that for them. And that's something that this mission-- your agency was able to provide. And so we wanted to encourage them to take advantage of that, to be aware of the resources that were available. But at the same time, we also want to make sure that they're, if you will, protected from too many visits, if that's even a problem. And that hasn't been a problem. But we just want to be aware of that. So it's much communication between the church and the missionary about the agency. And then we would love as a local church, and we are in regular conversation with the agency about the worker. Because we all have, I think, the same goal in mind, the glory of God, the gospel going forth in power. And these missionaries being set up for the long haul. And I really do think, historically, agencies have been around for a while, not as long as the local church. But they've been around for weeks because they're able to do things that individual local church is struggle to do on their own. And so these agencies can be a kind of glue that brings churches together to provide this kind of support. So we're really thankful for that. And all honesty, I think we're looking forward to seeing should the Lord Terry, with the next 20, 25 years, are going to look like as churches like ours continue to partner with agencies like yours and others. Yeah. Tim, from an agency perspective, how do you need to think about the sending churches and supporting churches as you're planning out your schedule? Yeah. If you think of the triad of care for a missionary unit serving the field, for sure, the primary caregiver, ideally, is the sending church. The secondary caregiver is, if there is a local church, they're part of their providing care for that missionary. So really, from an agency perspective, we're the third person in line as far as care goes. And so my wife and I served together in this role. And before a unit gets deployed to the field, we try hard to get to their sending church. One, I just want to meet them. I want to meet the pastor. I want to meet the elders. I want to meet the people that love them and care for them. They're the ones that are going to tell us actually how to care for them. And then we join that partnership together as long as the Lord would Terry in that partnership. And so regular check-ins with our sending churches are going important. Because more than likely, they're getting more air time with their missionaries than we are. And I want to serve them well. I want to serve the sending church well. I want to serve our units on the field well. And I want to fill any gap of care that happens to be there. If there's no gap, perfect. If there is a gap, that's where my wife and I come in. That's excellent, too. Just to highlight something, Ryan, I just wrote a three-part series for the website by Radical, David Platt's group on this very topic, on the triad of sending church, receiving church, and sending agency. That's fantastic. Yeah, we had a good conversation with a couple brothers that a few weeks back-- well, it was a few months now back-- time flies, Mac. But on this very topic of how those all relate. Are there any components to visits that would be discouraging that we should think about? We've been talking a lot about encouraging visits. But what should be avoided? Well, you know, Ryan, I just say, I'm almost never felt discouraged by a visit. A junket is discouraging. But-- What do you mean by that? What's a junket? Well, a junket is a trip for pleasure on another person's dime. You know, you're just going to be-- kind of what Tim's already talked about, is being a tourist. But even sometimes discouraging trip was important because I'm focused on right relationships. I want to be in line with the church's missions principles and what they want to do. So I was actually cut off from a church's support when they visited me and they informed me that they couldn't continue their support unless I took their short terms. And you know, here we are in the Arabian Peninsula. They clearly didn't know where they were. And so I just said, I'm sorry for that, but I really can't accept short terms. And sure enough, they cut off their support. And it was a little discouraging, but I was glad, because I want clarity in my relationships with the churches. I want us to be in partnership and in line with kind of gospel principles for missions. That's great. Brothers, thanks so much for your time today. That's it today's episode. [MUSIC PLAYING] For more articles, books, and podcasts, please visit 9marks.org.