Paraclete Ministry Breadth

Because of the experience level of Paraclete associates, they are natural guides for those beginning a career of missionary service.  One Paraclete associate couple, whom we can’t identify for security concerns, gave a month of training to nine members of a team headed to the Middle East.  They placed each team member with host families from the Middle Eastern country.  “Each participant lived with, learned the language, and built significant relationships with their hosts.”  My wife, Shelly, and I work with Mission Aviation Fellowship to train new missionaries in cross cultural issues.  After the training last year it was hard to end the session.  We were drawn to these young people—and they to us.  They wanted to just “hang out.”

One of the most exciting areas in missions today is new zeal in former “mission fields.”  Stuart Rowell gets to see this first hand.  Last year he had the joy of accompanying a young Ukrainian missionary serving in Poland back to Ukraine to share some of the “practical considerations they face in reaching out beyond their own borders.”  They have a 2012 trip to Serbia and Bosnia to “take the vision of Slavs reaching Slavs to the next level.”

Closer to home, associate Mike Garner led a group of Korean-Americans on a mission trip to Mexico “opening the eyes of these key leaders to how powerful their ministry can be anywhere in the world.”  While their focus is on the growth of the kingdom around the world, all Paraclete associates keep themselves grounded in local ministry, wherever they are.  Associates serve in churches, home groups, schools, and counseling centers.  In 2011 one home group led by Paraclete associates saw a suicide attempt, a divorce, a runaway teen and several hospitalizations.  Debbie Bochman works with her husband, David, in a ministry called Aphesis that takes a group of people through a study to connect them with God’s love.  She reports “God is reviving their emotionally dead hearts to sing with joy.”  As some of the few Paraclete associates residing outside of their homeland, Dick and Pat Worden were deeply integrated into a local Austrian church in 2011.  A couple there told them, “Thanks for being here for us—we really need your help.”