My Father Wrote a Book

Global Witness Through Weakness

My father wrote a book 📖. You should read it 🤲.

My parents are the best of old school missionaries. Everywhere they went, their first task was to learn the local language. This began with learning French in Chicoutimi, Quebec before they ever moved to West Africa. But the moment their boots hit the ground in Bamako, Mali in 1991, they began learning the national trade language of Mali: Bambara. My dad got to the point where he could preach in Bambara, which—if you don’t know—is a truly incredible feat. And he did all of it because he and my mother were convinced that people deserved to hear the words of Jesus in their own language.

After I was an adult, they did the same thing with Serbian. Which, if you don’t know, is also an incredible feat. Learning a new language as an adult is difficult, but even more so when you’re already 50 years old.

Learning the local language went hand in hand with a deep conviction that the church belonged to the locals. My parents were missionaries precisely to work themselves out of a job. They were there to plant and water. Once God caused the growth, they turned the garden of their gospel work over to the national church and left.

Modern Christian missions is often accused of colonial complicity. My parents did the opposite: they let the people of other nations colonize their hearts, gave them whatever gifts God had given them to give, and then left counting no debts against those they’d ministered to.

My parents have also suffered for the gospel, which is in large part what has motivated my father’s book. Sleepless nights, flirts with death at the hands of tropical disease and local militias, in addition to a palpable darkness from the persistent attack of demons barely scratches the surface. But they’ve counted it all joy when they’ve fallen into trials of various kinds.

So, if you want to read a book that’s heartfelt, biblically-oriented, and lived about what it means to be a missionary, check out my dad’s book.

The tone and conviction of what he writes is evident in the final paragraph of his introduction:

Since a great harvest still lies before the church, God is revitalizing and reorganizing his missionary sending churches, calling them back to their roots of world evangelism. They are again being gripped by the desperate need of the millions who are perishing. They are enabling men and women who are called and committed and fully prepared, to go in the power of the Spirit to the ends of the earth, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and establishing local vibrant churches in every community on the earth.

Get your copy at your favorite online bookstore. And please take a moment to share this post 😇