Facing Risk

By Lois Grant*

What does living in places like North Africa mean for our international workers and their supporting churches? Life in a place filled with terrorism, civil unrest, coups, strikes, riots, and break-ins takes its toll on you. The threats, both economic and political, on local believers is draining.

How can our workers live, work, and minister in places with such a high cost in terms of personal security? You have to KNOW that God has called you there. And if He called you there, then you are where you need to be.

Before heading to India, William Carey is often quoted as saying, “I will go down into the pit if you will hold the ropes.” International workers need prayers at home “holding the ropes.” You also have to be part of a local team that will pray with you each week, be in cell phone contact with you, be your family while overseas.

Local churches in Canada need to know that when IWs return home from time in a hot zone, they need love, care, and healing. There is so much trauma to be healed from.

I don’t regret a single moment of our time in North Africa—meeting with the poor, the rich, eating in lavish homes and tiny tents and shacks. Making heart friends and sharing our hearts with students, patients, and neighbours. Bible studies in our living room, in tents, in shanties with dirt floors. I would NEVER trade this time for anything. God walked with us through the times of risk and is now healing us of the scars left from living those times.

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This is an excerpt from the book Making God Known. Download it here!