<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" media="screen" href="/~d/styles/rss2enclosuresfull.xsl"?><?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~d/styles/itemcontent.css"?><rss xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Unfinished</title>
<description />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org</link>
<lastBuildDate>1337924666</lastBuildDate>
<atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MissionSocietyUnfinished" /><feedburner:info xmlns:feedburner="http://rssnamespace.org/feedburner/ext/1.0" uri="missionsocietyunfinished" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/" /><itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit><itunes:subtitle></itunes:subtitle><item>
<title><![CDATA[Letter from the editor]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[On Easter morning, at a few minutes before 7:00, my husband, Greg, and I made the&nbsp;short drive to church for sunrise service. Along the way, we passed by a neighbor&nbsp;walking his dog. Greg rolled down his window. &ldquo;He is risen!&rdquo; he belted out happily.&nbsp;Our neighbor smiled. &ldquo;Good morning,&rdquo; he said, maybe a bit...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-23 10:58:07</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/93789</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Issue 52 | Spring 2012]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-22 14:44:59</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92693</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[God shoulders our burdens: Rheumatoid arthritis is healed]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Even when nothing seems to be happening, something is happening.&nbsp;In her remarkable testimony, Becky Neel, of The Mission Society&rsquo;s&nbsp;Global Resource Team, tells of the gift she received in her decade-long&nbsp;wait for rescue from rheumatoid arthritis.

	I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and a mild form&nbsp;of lupus in...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:24:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92695</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[God knows our needs: Unborn baby is healed]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;Hope deferred makes the heart sick,&rdquo; the scriptures tell us. After&nbsp;seasons of mourning and derailed hope, this long-awaited miracle&nbsp;brought healing in abundance.

	The parents of six children, Martin and Tracy Reeves were anticipating&nbsp;the arrival of another daughter, Jubilee Faith. Tracy had&nbsp;miscarried three times during...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:23:39</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92700</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[God hears our prayers: Breast cancer is healed]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Charles and Rachel Martin* minister in a Central Asian country. After&nbsp;being on the field for only six months, Rachel was diagnosed with&nbsp;breast cancer. Treatment required sacrifice she never expected, but&nbsp;God gave back in unimaginable abundance because, Rachel reports,&nbsp;God hears and answers prayers.

	&ldquo;I was in Thailand at...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:23:23</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92696</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[God provides: A newborn is rescued]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In a strange land, they would give birth to their firstborn. They might&nbsp;have felt vulnerable and scared, particularly when complications&nbsp;arose. But the miracle happened through a special intercessor.

	In 2011, missionaries to Thailand, Chris and Dora Barbee welcomed&nbsp;into their lives their first child, Natalie. Since Roi Et is a&nbsp;relatively...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:23:10</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92699</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[She finished well]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[As we were at work on this issue of Unfinished, examining the&nbsp;wonder and mystery of God&rsquo;s healing grace, our dear friend and&nbsp;long-time missionary Mari Hicks went home to be with Jesus on&nbsp;March 21, 2012, after a long battle with cancer.

	For 31 years (22 of which were with The Mission Society),&nbsp;she and her husband,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:22:51</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92701</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[God grants us peace: Stage-four ovarian cancer disappears]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[After having served for nearly 14 years in this Central Asian country, Jill left the village and people she had come to love in a hurry, in urgent need of medical treatment. This was not how she dreamed she would leave what had become her home. But she needed to go away now, possibly to die.

	Just days earlier, she had celebrated Thanksgiving...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:22:28</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92702</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Top 10 books on healing and healing prayer]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Healing Path, by Dan Allender
	Carefully and wisely charts the often slow and&nbsp;strenuous journey involved in healing.

	Authority to Heal, by Ken Blue
	Especially helpful in addressing the key&nbsp;theological issues related to physical and&nbsp;emotional healing.

	Deep Wounds, Deep Healing, by Charles Kraft
	An eminently practical manual...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:21:57</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92704</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[When the healing doesn’t come]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Joel and Marylee Duggins and their children served for nine&nbsp;years with The Mission Society in Kazakhstan, which was then&nbsp;a newly established field. Hannah, the fourth of seven children,&nbsp;lived in this former Soviet republic from age seven to 16. Less&nbsp;than one year after the Duggins family relocated back to&nbsp;the States, Hannah&rsquo;s...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:21:43</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92705</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Skeptics beware]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Among &ldquo;Enlightenment&rdquo; thinkers, there is prejudice against belief in miracles. But in the Two-Third&rsquo;s Majority&nbsp;World, which is now the global center of Christendom, miracles are largely more accepted and expected than in&nbsp;the West. In the following brief excerpts from his recent two volume work, Miracles, Dr. Craig Keener...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:21:26</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92838</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Grateful for her witness among us]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society mourns the loss of&nbsp;Rita Mae Livingston Donner, who went&nbsp;home to be with Jesus on March 9, 2012&nbsp;at the age of 82. She and her husband,&nbsp;James, spent 20 years in their retirement&nbsp;doing missionary work in India and in&nbsp;Ghana. They served with The Mission&nbsp;Society for many years, first as residential&nbsp;missionaries...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:21:03</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92840</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Helping reach India's unreached]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;There are more than 1,000 unreached people groups in&nbsp;the world, and many of them are in India,&rdquo; said Dr. Darrell&nbsp;Whiteman, vice president for mobilization and training and&nbsp;resident missiologist. Helping equip India&rsquo;s Church reach&nbsp;her nation&rsquo;s unreached was among the purposes of the recent&nbsp;International Mobilization...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:20:46</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92841</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Our present groaning]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[A roundtable discussion

	As we &lsquo;look through a glass darkly,&rsquo; how can we understand the mysteries of faith? How can we interpret&nbsp;the seeming randomness of healings? What unseen structures are involved in the miracles for which we&nbsp;pray? Is there an even wider significance for healings that we do not recognize?&nbsp;

	During...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:20:11</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92839</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Preparing for Haiti’s future]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society collaborated with&nbsp;International Christian Development&nbsp;Mission (ICDM),&nbsp;to host a training event for&nbsp;Haitian leaders January 9-13, 2012. Held&nbsp;outside of Port-au-Prince, the conference&nbsp;included presentations by staff members&nbsp;the Rev. Frank Decker, vice president&nbsp;for member care and development; the&nbsp;Rev....]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:19:05</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92842</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[God redirects us: Ebstein Barr Virus is cured]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Fifteen-year-old Caylor Gongwer grew up serving with her parents&nbsp;in Ghana, West Africa. In 2011, her life was intercepted by a strange&nbsp;illness. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s amazing how, in only one year, the journey of your life can&nbsp;take a big detour,&rdquo; she writes. God used her time of illness to refocus&nbsp;her life.

	In 2011, I battled...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:18:52</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92698</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[God fights for us: Lupus pain is subsided]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Days following a diagnosis can be riddled with fear. In her amazing&nbsp;story, Reed Hoppe testifies how God met her at her point of greatest&nbsp;need.

	It started soon after my son was born&mdash;a migrating pain that&nbsp;coursed through my body, causing pain in my wrists, shoulders,&nbsp;and knees. As a mother of two small children who...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:18:34</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92697</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Offering life in South Sudan]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The world&rsquo;s newest nation is reveling in independence, but&nbsp;still desperate for peace. South Sudan gained independence&nbsp;on July 9, 2011 after 99 percent of southern Sudanese voted to&nbsp;separate from Sudan. Sudan was home to Africa&rsquo;s longest civil&nbsp;war. Fighting began in 1955 when the southern army officers&nbsp;mutinied. There...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:18:13</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92843</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: The Mission Society launches Marketplace Ministry]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In January 2012, The Mission Society launched&nbsp;a Marketplace Ministry division. Dennis&nbsp;E. Brown, who has served as The Mission&nbsp;Society&rsquo;s vice president for advancement since&nbsp;2005, now heads this new initiative.

	&ldquo;Denny Brown is a former businessman&nbsp;himself. He has passion for developing&nbsp;business strategies that...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:17:31</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92845</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Fifteen new missionaries are approved for mission service]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Fifteen new missionaries were approved for service with The Mission Society at the conclusion of the Candidate Assessment and&nbsp;Orientation on March 14, 2012, bringing the number of full-time Mission Society missionaries to 234.&nbsp;

	This group of cross-cultural workers will join other Mission Society teams in various locations. After attending...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:17:10</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92846</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Do your plans bring healing?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Have you recently reviewed your will or estate plans and asked the questions: &ldquo;Do these documents&mdash;and the plans they&nbsp;express&mdash;bring healing to those who will read them? Do they accurately reflect the testimony of the Christian life I am living?&rdquo;&nbsp;As you read, ponder the special opportunity you have to use these plans...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:16:56</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92847</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Healing wounded hearts]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[During much of the last century, one of&nbsp;the hot topics of mission was whether the&nbsp;main focus should be evangelism or social&nbsp;change. Fortunately, that false dichotomy&nbsp;has been largely put to rest in mission&nbsp;discussions, and people now acknowledge&nbsp;that mission must be holistic&mdash;addressing&nbsp;both the physical and spiritual...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:10:59</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92848</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Mission for the faint of heart]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry ma&rsquo;am, but I can&rsquo;t pray for your&nbsp;healing. I heard that a healing crusade&nbsp;will be coming through Kampala this&nbsp;weekend. Perhaps you can attend. &hellip;What? You&rsquo;re in terrible pain and headed&nbsp;to the hospital at this very moment? Well,&nbsp;I honestly feel bad for you. However, my&nbsp;teammate...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:10:46</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92850</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Prayer that heals]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I recently had the privilege of meeting&nbsp;Johnnie and Jean Corbett at a Global&nbsp;Impact Celebration in their home church&nbsp;in Charleston, South Carolina. In keeping&nbsp;with the theme of this issue I talked with&nbsp;them about their ministry of healing&nbsp;prayer.

	Stan: How would you describe healing&nbsp;prayer?

	Johnnie: Well, I guess...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:10:33</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92849</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Shouldn’t we expect a miracle?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[We read in the New Testament about Jesus&rsquo; healings, but do we really expect Him to heal today? When John&nbsp;became a missionary intern in Ghana, West Africa, he had been struggling with faith questions for months.&nbsp;An experience in Africa changed him and, years later, it continues to affect his trust in the words and miracles&nbsp;of...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:09:37</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92707</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[He is the Lord who heals us]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I can hardly recall a time in my life when I&nbsp;was not aware of God&rsquo;s power to heal. Let&nbsp;me explain.

	Shortly before my third birthday, my&nbsp;mother contracted endocarditis. Mom&rsquo;s&nbsp;disease was nearly always fatal in those&nbsp;days, even in the States. We were living&nbsp;in India where my folks served as missionaries.&nbsp;To...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2012-04-13 15:09:25</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/92694</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Money well spent?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In the past several years, as global missions&nbsp;has been undergoing significant&nbsp;shifts, even the need for missionaries&nbsp;from the United States has been called&nbsp;into question. Maybe you&rsquo;ve heard. Some&nbsp;mission authorities have been asking,&nbsp;&ldquo;Shouldn&rsquo;t the U.S. Church spend its money&nbsp;on supporting the ministries...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 16:51:08</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74840</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Transformational unity]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The story is told that Robert Benchley,&nbsp;American humorist and actor, arrived for&nbsp;his final exam in international law at&nbsp;Harvard University to find that the test&nbsp;consisted of this one instruction: Discuss&nbsp;the arbitration of the international&nbsp;fisheries problem in respect to hatcheries&nbsp;protocol and dragnet and procedure as...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 16:40:48</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74839</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Mission in shifting contexts]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Fifteen years ago my family arrived in&nbsp;Kazakhstan. The country had been independent&nbsp;just under five years following&nbsp;the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The&nbsp;infrastructure was largely in a state of&nbsp;collapse. Unemployment was high; confusion&nbsp;was everywhere; utilities were&nbsp;unpredictable; cars were few; potholes&nbsp;were massive,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 16:33:12</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74838</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: The Mission Society approves eight new missionaries for service]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society&rsquo;s Candidate&nbsp;Assessment and Orientation was held&nbsp;September 11-14, 2011 at its Norcross,&nbsp;Georgia headquarters. The four days&nbsp;included interaction with staff, ministry&nbsp;and team-building activities, and&nbsp;interviews. The new missionaries&rsquo; names&nbsp;cannot be released until their country of&nbsp;service has...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 12:15:45</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74831</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: The Mission Society invited by Kenyan ministry to help train its missionaries]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In early September, Dick McClain, Mission&nbsp;Society president; Bill Johnson, Mission Society&nbsp;board chairman, and his wife, Phyllis,&nbsp;met with leaders of Kenya&rsquo;s Africa Gospel&nbsp;Church (AGC) and the newly forming Kenya&nbsp;Mission Alliance (KEMA). As a result of these&nbsp;sessions, The Mission Society has been&nbsp;extended an invitation...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 12:07:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74830</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[A year in review]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[215 - Number of Mission Society missionaries
	39 - Number of countries in which Mission Society&nbsp;missionaries serve
	2 - Number of new ministry locations opened&nbsp;(Namibia and South Africa)
	16 - Number of new missionaries approved for service
	14 - Number of missionaries deployed for the first time
	9 - Number of new interns approved...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 12:04:57</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74829</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Cheerful giving]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Over the years, God has consistently&nbsp;provided The Mission Society with&nbsp;missionaries, with open doors to&nbsp;ministry, with nationals with whom&nbsp;to partner, and with leadership and&nbsp;staff. But if you ask me, one of the most&nbsp;amazing things about The Mission&nbsp;Society is how God has provided us&nbsp;with so many faithful prayer...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 11:50:51</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74828</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[His long-awaited miracle]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Sanim is a 51-year-old banana farmer&nbsp;from the coastal town of Lae in Papua&nbsp;New Guinea. For most of his life he has&nbsp;been a leader in his village. One year ago&nbsp;Sanim suddenly lost his sight. He had&nbsp;no idea why his sight had gone. He just&nbsp;knew that he could no longer see, so he&nbsp;could no longer look after his...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 11:48:30</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74827</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Unimaginable!]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[By James Heffner and Jeff and Mary&nbsp;Lou Wallace

	Wachara is a village in western Kenya,&nbsp;just south of the equator, not far from&nbsp;the Tanzanian border and halfway&nbsp;around the world from Gardendale Mt.&nbsp;Vernon United Methodist Church in&nbsp;Alabama. Wachara normally has two&nbsp;rainy seasons each year, and can grow&nbsp;corn, potatoes,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 11:41:25</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74826</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[His heart was free]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Mr. Tsuda&#39;s stare was cold and without&nbsp;emotion. He barely acknowledged our&nbsp;presence as we sat opposite each other&nbsp;in the visiting room at the local jail. This&nbsp;would be the first of many visits before&nbsp;gaining Mr.Tsuda&#39;s trust. Regrettably,&nbsp;Mr.Tsuda acquired a large gambling debt,&nbsp;and in desperation kidnapped for...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 11:37:14</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74825</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Just as she dreamed]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society will soon open a field&nbsp;in a largely unreached area of India. One&nbsp;of the cross-cultural workers planning&nbsp;to move to India shared this story of an&nbsp;encounter with a man she met while&nbsp;exploring ministry opportunities there.

	I found myself overcome with sorrow at&nbsp;the poverty, ignorance, sickness, and&nbsp;injustice...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 11:30:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74824</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Re-focused]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Who are the least reached? Where do they live? When and how&nbsp;did The Mission Society begin focusing on them? And how does&nbsp;it equip missionaries to communicate the gospel to them? At an&nbsp;event last winter, staffers answered these and other questions&nbsp;about The Mission Society&rsquo;s newly galvanized attention on&nbsp;reaching those...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 11:00:43</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74823</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Missions come of age]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[This issue of Unfinished, which contains&nbsp;a brief annual report for the fiscal year&nbsp;that ended May 31,&nbsp;captures several currents that reflect&nbsp;what God is doing within The Mission&nbsp;Society and, I believe, the world these&nbsp;days. The year behind us was especially&nbsp;significant, because it was the first year&nbsp;in which our...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-11 10:41:47</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74822</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Fall 2011 | Issue 51]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2011-10-10 19:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/74821</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Summer 2011 | Issue 50]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&nbsp;
	
		The Mission Society&#39;s quarterly magazine, &quot;Unfinished,&quot; will help you keep up with the missionaries, ministries, and worldwide mission trends and issues. The articles here are excerpted from each issue. Subscriptions to &quot;Unfinished&quot; are free. &nbsp;You can also view selections from our previous magazine, Heartbeat, online.]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-09-26 19:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48115</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[What do you have?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Have you ever had one of those situations where you thought you had messed up and then later it turned out to be a blessing? Such was the case for me a few months back. I had experienced a grueling week which ended on a Saturday that included an all-day teaching session for local church mission leaders. I crawled into bed sometime after...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:42:32</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48129</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The 'long haul' of justice]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[When we hear the word &ldquo;justice&rdquo; in our contemporary context, perhaps it brings up images of Judge Judy on cable TV, or perhaps a courtroom scene, with justice equated to the prison sentence given as punishment for a crime. Politicians talk about bringing perpetrators of terror &ldquo;to justice.&rdquo; But what does justice have to...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:40:57</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48128</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: The Mission Society consecrates 13 new missionaries]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[On May 3rd, 13 missionaries were consecrated by The Mission Society for service in Africa, Latin America, and restricted-access locations in various regions throughout the world. Workers serving in such restricted-access areas will be ministering in locations where it might be unsafe to be openly Christian, so they cannot be named publicly.

	Those...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:40:01</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48127</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Remembering a life of faithful witness]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society&rsquo;s first development director, Leonard F. Stuart, went home to be with the Lord Tuesday, June 7, 2011 in Boyle County, Kentucky. Stuart began work with The Mission Society in 1987, just three years after its launch. Prior to his move to serve with this young organization, Stuart had already served in the Air Force...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:39:21</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48124</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Rising above the ruins]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[A congregation of 500 in weekly attendance, Trinity United Methodist Church in Gulfport, Mississippi is very active in local and international mission. This wasn&rsquo;t always the case. But in 2005, gale force winds called forth a response of mercy and love for the world that has not subsided.

	Stuart Allen has served as the mission committee...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:38:25</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48122</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Caring for Egypt's littlest ones]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Casualties of poverty in a nation of rapid change, many of Egypt&rsquo;s children are left wandering streets alone. This is a story about kids whose prayers and deepest heart cries are being answered.

	Today in Egypt, food prices and unemployment are high. Early 2011 reports indicated &ldquo;Nearly half of all Egyptians live under or just...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:29:45</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48121</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Wounded healer]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Samson Siprasur fled Burma into Thailand as a young boy. Soon thereafter, still forging a new life, Samson began doing what many refugees do in Thailand. He picked pineapples. And as he did, he began dreaming of one day having a home for refugee children, so that they could have a better life than him.

	Samson attended Bible school as...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:25:26</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48119</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Burmese next door]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Bridgeport* is one of the many cities in the United States that is growing because it receives refugees from around the world. Every year, the U.S. State Department invites to these cities more than 100,000 immigrants who have been chased out of their countries by ethnic cleansing, war, religious persecution, and the like. Among the residents...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:25:04</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48120</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Who is my neighbor?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[With broadband internet access and mobile technology, the injustices and sufferings of the world are front and center for us every waking hour. How can we decipher which of the world&rsquo;s agonies are our responsibility &ndash; who is our &lsquo;neighbor&rsquo;? In his new book, Steve Moore, president and CEO of The Mission Exchange, offers...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:23:59</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48117</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Care for the neglected]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In his book The Next Christians, author Gabe Lyons challenges the notion that conversion of souls should be the only motive of Christians. Lyons argues that Christians should be restorers who &ldquo;envision the world as it was meant to be and [they] work toward that vision. [They] seek to mend earth&rsquo;s brokenness.&rdquo;

	I&rsquo;ve been...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:22:41</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48130</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[What's a church to do?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Let&rsquo;s say your church wants to expand its mission program. Where to begin? Trinity&#39;s long-time missions volunteers offer suggestions.

	
		Make sure that you work to convince the congregation to climb on board. You can&rsquo;t be successful if you are constantly pitted against people who don&rsquo;t have the
		same dream.
	
		Set your...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:21:47</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48123</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Celebrating 25 years with The Mission Society]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In 1986, the Revs. Dick McClain and Frank Decker, both elders in The United Methodist Church, joined The Mission Society &ndash; what was then The Mission Society for United Methodists. Dick took a position on staff in Decatur, Georgia as The Mission Society&rsquo;s first personnel director. Meanwhile, Frank began serving with his family as...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:18:35</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48126</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Staffers Jim Ramsay and Frank Decker take on new positions]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Jim Ramsay, who has been serving on The Mission Society&rsquo;s staff as senior director of field ministry, has accepted a new role as vice president for mission ministries. Ramsay and his family served for 10 years in Central Asia before joining The Mission Society staff in 2006. A graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary, he is currently...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:18:27</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48125</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Mercy for the exiles]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In a matter of hours, they hardly even know themselves any more. Every step takes them closer to an identity they never wanted. No longer will they be known as shop owners, or farmers, or lawyers, or teachers, or neighbors, or homeowners. Suddenly these Karen people of Burma have become refugees &ndash; victims of what has been called one...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:17:46</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48118</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Kingdom living now]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Recently I&rsquo;ve been intrigued by the question, &ldquo;Why did Jesus come?&rdquo;

	I put that question to a group of mission interns who were with us recently for a week of training. &ldquo;To be our substitute,&rdquo; replied one. &ldquo;To be an example,&rdquo; said another. After several others gave similar responses, I noted that Jesus...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-07-06 18:17:34</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48116</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Spring 2011 | Issue 49]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&nbsp;]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-04-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47946</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Something you know for sure]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I am an evangelist, not a pastor. I&rsquo;ll go out and get people saved and then hand them over to a pastor so he can care for them.
These were my exact thoughts during my college years. I was passionate about winning souls for Christ, but I had no desire to disciple these souls once they came to faith. I didn&rsquo;t have the patience,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:44:26</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47961</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The way of the disciple]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Every individual believer and every local congregation should live out their walk of faith in intimacy with Jesus, showing love to others, and seeking to encourage others to find the same relationship with Christ that they enjoy. The four &lsquo;Greats&rsquo; of discipleship presents a cyclic progression that models how that can happen in a...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:43:40</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47960</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Disciple-making in a sauna?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[One cold winter evening in northern Kazakhstan where our family lived, I went to enjoy the great Russian tradition of going to the sauna with friends. This time I was with a young man from the church we were working with. As we sat relaxing in the heat of the sauna, we talked at length about issues of faith and of ministry. I remember...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:32:54</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47959</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Four members join The Mission Society board]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[This January, The Mission Society welcomed four new board members. &ldquo;We appreciate the diversity of real-world experience, theological depth, and pastoral insight these members bring to our board,&rdquo; said President Dick McClain. &ldquo;All four have been deeply involved in church life and reaching out to others with the kind of love that...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:31:25</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47957</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Good reads]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Here are some missionary favorites on discipleship. In addition, we asked Frank Decker to add his top five picks (listed here first). Decker, The Mission Society&rsquo;s vice president of mission operations, directed the national evangelism and discipleship program of the Methodist Church in Ghana from 1987-1993, and today, in addition to his...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:30:33</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47954</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[A curriculum for Christlikeness]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;To correctly form a curriculum for Christlikeness, we must have a very clear and simple perception of the primary goals it must achieve, as well as what is to be avoided,&rdquo; writes Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy. There are some objectives, he notes, that &ldquo;have often been taken as primary goals, but must not be left...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:28:56</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47952</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Discipleship's key ingredients]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[We asked our missionaries to complete the sentence: &ldquo;In my Christian journey I&rsquo;ve learned that the most important thing about discipling others is &hellip;&rdquo; Here&rsquo;s what some of them told us.
Prayer
The most important thing is&hellip; prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, prayer for the individual(s) to have an open...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:27:10</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47950</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Discipleship, our main focus]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Ask anyone where you go in the Bible to find a mandate for missions, and they&rsquo;ll point you to &ldquo;the Great Commission&rdquo; in Matthew 28:18-20.
Jesus came and told his disciples, &ldquo;I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:24:50</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47947</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: 'Water specialist' missionaries appointed co-directors of the 'Global Resource Team']]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Missionaries Ed and Linda Baker have transitioned from drilling water wells in Nicaragua to now leading a global team of cross-cultural workers.
After more than a decade of foreign missionary service, the Bakers will co-direct The Mission Society's Global Resource Team, which provides specialists in various disciplines to help other Christian missionaries...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:23:23</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47956</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Focus on relationships]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[As we volunteered to open a Mission Society ministry in French speaking West Africa, we had little idea what we were up against. We have encountered so many needs and so much opportunity. But we have little resources and personnel.
We found ourselves trying to do everything for everyone. We wanted to meet all of the needs &ndash; physical...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:22:13</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47951</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Persecuted disciple-makers]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Among its ministries, The Mission Society provides conferences, resources, and training for church leaders of other nations to help them mobilize their own people in greater missions involvement. In a recent conference in India, Michael Mozley, senior director of International Mobilization, sent this report:
&ldquo;Words really are hard to come...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:16:15</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47958</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Inside a revolution]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[On February 11, friends of The Mission Society who reside in Cairo, Egypt sent news of the situation there after Mubarak stepped down. &ldquo;We write to you now hearing fireworks, honking, and loud celebrations out in the streets! &hellip;We would like to thank each and every one of you for your prayers. We have all prayed His will be...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:15:58</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47955</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The disciple-maker's limits]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[With regard to helping people love God, the most important question we face is, How do we help people love what is lovely? Very simply, we cause them, ask them, help them to place their minds in the lovely thing concerned. We assist them to do this in every way possible. Saint Thomas Aquinas remarks that &ldquo;love is born of an earnest...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:15:49</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47953</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Widespread discipleship]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In communities where people are turned off by Christianity that has been miscommunicated or misinterpreted, how do you effectively reintroduce the gospel? This missionary family unlocked a key to widescale discipleship.
Arthur Ivey calls himself a grave robber for Jesus. That notion first occurred to him in the early 1990s while walking down...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:15:29</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47949</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The unanswerables]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[An interview
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve changed our mission statement every month for the last five years,&rdquo; say Mr. and Mrs. Peterson* who, by their own admission, were called to do an &ldquo;impossible job.&rdquo; The job looked possible, though, when their journey began. They had a detailed business plan. They would help Russia&rsquo;s orphan teens...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-22 18:15:24</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47948</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The attractiveness of Jesus]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[What would people be surprised to know about Buddhism in Japan?
	One of the things that surprised me was that Buddhism was not an original religion of the Japanese. It came from India and worked its way to China, Taiwan, and Korea and then, in the 6th century, finally to Japan. So Buddhism is not indigenous to Japan and, in fact, Buddhists...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:31:04</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47984</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Reaching the Buddhist heart]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[They meet in hotel restaurants &ndash; neutral territory. Dressed in business suits, they sit around beautiful tables with Bibles open in front of them. They share Scripture and pray &ndash; Christians and non-Christian &ldquo;seekers&rdquo; together. It&rsquo;s a peculiar sight in the land of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, but it&rsquo;s...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:31:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47983</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[What matters most?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[People often ask me what The Mission Society is all about. &ldquo;What do you do?&rdquo; is how the question is usually put.
Over the past year or two we&rsquo;ve given considerable attention to that question. As a diverse organization with something of an entrepreneurial spirit, The Mission Society has more than 200 workers serving in more...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:30:55</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47982</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Go the distance]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Do you remember the Rocky movies? Perhaps one of the most memorable scenes in the series is when Rocky races up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art after a long jog. When he reaches the top of the steps, he throws some jabs, practices some fancy footwork, and then jumps up and down with his fists in the air &ndash; all as if...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:30:48</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47980</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Becoming missional]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Wanting to increase outreach, but no missions budget? Here&rsquo;s how one church was turned around.

	Only minutes from the Gulf of Mexico, nestled between palm trees and the sound of crashing waves, sits a church that God is using in His mission. Heritage United Methodist Church in Clearwater, Florida has been prayerfully transforming its...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:30:44</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47979</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Ideas for being the 'friendly church' outside the church walls]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[John Wesley, the father of Methodism, put it this way, &ldquo;Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.&rdquo;
What might happen if you:
&bull; Asked your server at the restaurant if there were...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:30:39</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47978</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[We are a 'friendly church']]></title>
<description><![CDATA[As I visit churches around the country, I often ask the parishioners what is the distinguishing characteristic about their church. By far, the most common response is, &ldquo;We are a friendly church.&rdquo; They are not alone. If you do a Google search on that specific phrase, you will get over 18,000 hits. It seems like a lot of people...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:30:33</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47977</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA['Agrimissions' celebrates 10th anniversary]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society&rsquo;s Agrimissions ministry celebrated its 10th anniversary with an event at Sand Mountain United Methodist Church in Trenton, Georgia on February 27, 2010. Agrimissions is a member of The Global Resource Team (GRT) which comprises of a group of specialists in biblical storytelling, information technology, micro-enterprise, agriculture,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:30:28</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47976</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Mission Society commissions 22 new missionaries]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society recently commissioned one of the largest groups of new missionaries since its founding in 1984. The historic service took place on May 11, 2010 at Simpsonwood United Methodist Church in Norcross, Georgia. The Rev. Dr. Ira Gallaway, one of The Mission Society&rsquo;s founders and retired United Methodist Church elder, was keynote...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:30:23</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47975</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Mission Society anthology listed among outstanding mission study books]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[World Mission in the Wesleyan Spirit, a collection of 31 essays by Wesleyan scholars, has been listed among the &ldquo;Fifteen Outstanding Books of 2009 for Mission Studies&rdquo; in the April 2010 issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research.

	The book, issued as part of the American Society of Missiology Series, was commissioned...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:30:18</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47974</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Haiti, five months later]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Haitians are still seeking to recover from the January 12, 2010 earthquake (7.0) that rocked the capital city of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area. It is reported that the quake left more than 200,000 dead and at least 300,000 injured. The United Nations estimates that 1.3 million people now live in makeshift tent settlements and half...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:30:12</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47973</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Mexico's Church grows as violence continues]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In Mexico, violence continues as two of the largest drug cartels fight for turf and easy access to the United States. More than 22,700 people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels after assuming office in December 2006. Ciudad Juarez, which is located across the border from El Paso, Texas, is one...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:30:07</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47972</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Mexico and Central America in their hearts]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[COSTA RICA

	Doug and Brooke Burns
	Children: Austin and Mary Beth
	Originally from Texas, Doug and Brooke both earned Master&#39;s degrees from Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky before joining The Mission Society team. They have been serving as advocates for sexual trafficking victims in Costa Rica and throughout Latin America. Brooke helped...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:30:02</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47971</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Out from the darkness]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[During her family&rsquo;s years in Costa Rica, Brooke Burns helped found a safe house for victims of sexual trafficking. The home is called &ldquo;Casa Lavinia,&rdquo; which means, &ldquo;home of a girl who is loved and cared for.&rdquo; Casa Lavinia was designed to offer a place of refuge for young women who have been sexually exploited. While...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:29:57</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47970</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Reflections from the scary road]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The rainy season has returned early and with a vengeance. As I make my way down the &ldquo;scary road&rdquo; (page 16), as our family has respectfully named it, I am more cautious than usual due to the slick pavement. I know the road well, really well, as I travel it many times daily to school, to work, and to go just about anywhere...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:29:52</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47969</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Do's and don'ts for short-term teams]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Sometimes, short-term mission teams fall into a pattern of posing short-term solutions to long-term problems without asking local people what they know and are doing about the issues. To help avoid this, here are a few simple guidelines for short-term teams:

	1. DO let local people determine your project.

	2. DO undertake projects that are...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:29:47</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47967</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Dependency check list]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[When is it wrong for outsiders to fund local ministry? If you can answer &ldquo;yes&rdquo; to any of the following questions, it may well indicate a problem. If your answer is &ldquo;yes&rdquo; to more than one, it is a distinct possibility. If your answers to several questions are in the affirmative, it is almost certainly wrong to fund...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:29:43</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47968</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Building their future their way]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Long-term effects of short-term mission teams can be disastrous &ndash; broken relationships, increased dependency, decreased esteem among the national people. This Nicaraguan community, however, provides a view of short-term missions that fosters dignity, builds friendships, and represents the Kingdom of God.
When one speaks of &ldquo;missions&rdquo;...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:29:31</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47966</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[First, do no harm]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Poverty alleviation is more complex than it appears at first glance. However, there is a good rule of thumb that is extremely useful in cutting through a lot of the complexity: Avoid paternalism. Do not do things for people that they can do for themselves.

	Memorize this. Recite it under your breath all day long. Every time you are engaged...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:29:26</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47965</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[When helping hurts]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[You turn on the evening news and see that a tsunami has devastated Indonesia, leaving millions without food, adequate clothing, or shelter. Following a commercial break, the news returns and features a story about the growing number of homeless people in your city, who are also without food, adequate clothing, or shelter. At first glance the...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:29:21</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47964</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Gospel for everyone]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[My introduction to Central America came during the summer of 1970. With one year of marriage under our belts and the ink on our college diplomas barely dry, Pam and I, along with two other couples from Asbury College (now Asbury University), were sent on a two month-long mission trip to Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama. During our stay in...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:29:15</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47963</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The world to come to South Africa]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[CT 2010 will be held at Cape Town. Of its 400 U.S. delegates, three will be from The Mission Society.
Approximately 11,000 athletes from more than 200 countries participated in the 2008 Olympics held in Beijing, China. Watching the opening ceremony brought tears to my eyes as I saw each nation parade along the floor of the Beijing National...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:29:07</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47945</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Got direction?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[While surfing the internet a couple of years ago, I came across a blog by Tony Morgan (www.tonymorganlive.com) titled &quot;10 Advantages of Doing Ministry Without a Ministry Plan.&quot; Upon reading through the list, I recounted, with some grief, the numerous church meetings I have endured in the past. You may recall the same anguish I have...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:29:03</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47944</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Grow the relationship: Five easy ways]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[1. The missionary cannot often visit your church in person, so when he or she does, make the most of it. Get him or her in front of small groups in the church. Don&rsquo;t forget the children and youth. While the pulpit is great, it is really not the place from which relationships will be built, so find creative ways to engage the congregation...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:28:58</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47943</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[More than a budget line item]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society holds the primacy of the local church in mission as one of its core values. Missions is not the job of the mission agency. The agency&rsquo;s job is to assist the local church in fulfilling its call to be engaged in God&rsquo;s mission. That has been the incentive for The Mission Society&rsquo;s involvement in church...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:28:53</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47942</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Six new missionaries approved for service]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Six new missionaries were approved for service with The Mission Society at the conclusion of the Candidate Assessment and Orientation event on September 16, 2010. This group of cross-cultural workers will join other teams of Mission Society missionaries in various locations around the globe.
Three of the six new missionaries are planning to serve...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:28:48</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47941</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Mission Society boosts efforts to help equip international churches for missions]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[On September 1, Michael Mozley, former missionary to Ghana, joined The Mission Society staff to head its new international mobilization department. The recent great expansion of Christianity in the global south and in parts of Asia has introduced a need within world evangelization. Says Mozley, &ldquo;In many instances, these international congregations...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:28:44</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47940</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Transitional leadership]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Change is what happens to us from forces outside ourselves over which we have no control. Most of us deal fairly well with continuous change, which is ongoing, gradual, and expected. But discontinuous change is much more disturbing and difficult. Congregations do not do well with this unexpected, dramatic change; they need entirely different...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:28:39</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47939</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Where are we?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In the fog of rapidly changing culture, churches can feel lost or doubtful that there is any way forward. But &ldquo;a congregation can be transformed into a missional community,&rdquo; say authors Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk. Here, they offer guidance through confusing periods of change and transition.
&ldquo;God is present in the churches...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:28:34</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47938</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Designed with your church in mind]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society offers the following workshops that are designed to assist local churches become more strategic, significant, and skilled in their outreach. All workshops include teaching, video presentations, and hands-on activities.
Global Outreach Workshop
Target Population: Church staff and leaders, mission team members, interested church members
Length:...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:28:28</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47937</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Role reversal]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[For about 200 years, it was commonly assumed that mission agencies should be provided for and &ldquo;served&rdquo; by local churches. But The Mission Society, for one, has taken a 180 degree shift in that thinking. Recognizing that the local church (not the mission agency) is God&rsquo;s primary mission agent in the world, The Mission Society...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:28:18</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47936</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Shift in perspective]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Rev. Ryan Barnett never intended to participate in cross-cultural missions. As the worship pastor at The U, Barnett saw his ministry as the congregation he served. When a friend asked him to take a short-term trip to Rwanda, he reluctantly agreed. &ldquo;What I realized is that, if I am going to be a theological leader of the people...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:28:14</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47935</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Church done inside out]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Local churches have long measured success by the incoming nickels and noses. But what happens when a church shifts focus, and starts gauging effectiveness, instead, by what goes out from the church? This Texas congregation&rsquo;s story offers a bright example of a new standard for church &ldquo;success.&rdquo;
Referred to as &ldquo;The U&rdquo;...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:28:09</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47934</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Churches, come alive again]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to do a better job working with churches! We&rsquo;re ministering in lots of congregations, but we&rsquo;re not really making a difference.&rdquo;
That was the assessment of our president, Al Vom Steeg, in 1999. Al said he felt like after we conducted a missions event in a church, the leaders pulled out their &ldquo;to-do...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2011-03-15 19:28:02</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47933</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[No exceptions]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Before any committee wrote your church&rsquo;s mission statement, your congregation already had its mission. Jesus declared it when He said: &ldquo;Go into all the world and make disciples.&rdquo; In other words, missions is every church&rsquo;s mission.

	But the long arm of missions goes beyond the local church. Paul teaches in I Corinthians...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-09-30 14:56:59</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48087</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Fall 2010 | Issue 48]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2010-09-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47932</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Many more know Him]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[You do not have to look far before finding someone who is connected to The Mission Society. Whether a missionary, ministry partner, staff member, or friend, The Mission Society&rsquo;s presence reaches to the corners of the globe.

	We invite you to enjoy some time with the next few pages and rejoice with us at the many ways Christ has...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-07-13 19:05:45</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48023</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Russia's young survivors]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Ever since the fall of communism, the largest country on earth has been taking up less space in our collective consciousness. After nearly a century of watching over our shoulder at fellow superpower the USSR, other emerging giants seem to be capturing more of our nation&rsquo;s attention these days. Even so, Time magazine reminds us, &ldquo;Russia...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-06-23 14:32:10</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48055</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Summer 2010 | Issue 47]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2010-06-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47962</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Make disciples in Asia]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Despite persecution, the Church is growing in Asia, and workers are needed to disciple national church leaders and new believers. Here are a few opportunities. Read how you can plug into what God is doing among the people of Asia.
Southeast Asia
Disciple church leaders
While the faith of those believers in a country where the gospel cannot...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-02-23 16:18:02</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47993</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Refueling the workers]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The city of Istanbul has had no shortage of invasions. From the Greeks and Romans to the Ottomans, this strategic gateway between East and West has attracted the attention of empires. In early November, 88 missionaries, missionary kids, staff, and guests converged on this ancient city. But while our interest was Kingdom-oriented, it had nothing...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-02-23 16:17:07</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47990</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Rev. Edgar Nelson, Mission Society founder, passes away at 94]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Rev. Edgar Nelson, one of The Mission Society&rsquo;s founders, passed away at his home in Yuba City, California on January 23, 2010. Nelson was among the original 34 people who met in St. Louis to form what was then called The Mission Society for United Methodists in 1984.
Nelson had a long history of mission involvement throughout his...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-02-23 16:16:31</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47989</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Kazakhstan field celebrates 15th anniversary]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society recently celebrated 15 years since the founding of its work in the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan. In addition to the team and national staff in Kazakhstan, Mission Society staff members Dick McClain and Jim Ramsay traveled there to celebrate this milestone. Jim, whose family lived and served there from 1996-2006, writes...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-02-23 16:15:59</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47988</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Further along the Indian Road]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Christ of the Indian Road, published in 1925, is the groundbreaking account of E. Stanley Jones&rsquo; missionary experience among the people of India. In it, he describes the gospel&rsquo;s universal appeal and Indians&rsquo; hunger for Christ. &ldquo;&hellip;Standing among the shadows of Western civilization,&rdquo; wrote Jones, &ldquo;India has...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-02-23 16:14:29</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47986</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA["The meek shall inherit the earth"]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Meekness. By definition, to be meek means to be patient, humble, gentle, easily imposed on, submissive. In Thailand, meekness is a way of life.

	We are about to embark on a journey to serve with Nantachai and Ubolwan Mejudhon, a Thai couple who have been working among Buddhists in the northeastern region of Thailand, known as the Isarn...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-02-23 16:12:25</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47985</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Red light, green light]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;God tends to operate more by red lights than by green lights.&rdquo; One of my undergraduate theology professors was fond of that saying. It has stuck with me over the years, and has become a favorite phrase of mine as it relates to my role as a missions coach. As a matter of fact, I find myself sharing my professor&rsquo;s words...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-02-23 16:04:36</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47992</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Reclaiming the priority]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I received a letter from a missionary serving with another agency a month or so ago. One paragraph in the letter caught my attention. It read, &ldquo;Missionary meetings a generation ago were usually well attended. Young people came forward to offer themselves to Christ and churches were revived. There was excitement. Sadly much of that has...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-02-23 16:04:31</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47991</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Asia and the Pacific in their hearts]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In the nations of Asia live people of enormously diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, comprising 60 percent of the world&#39;s current population. Some of your Mission Society missionaries to Asia (and the Pacific) are shown here; many others are not named because they minister in areas of the world in which security is an issue. Thank...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2010-02-23 16:04:09</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47987</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Winter 2010 | Issue 46]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2009-11-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47981</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Wanna go deeper?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Well, summer has passed, and what a glorious one it was. The summer of &rsquo;09 saw many college students, young adults, teachers, and even a couple of retirees embark on an internship experience with one of The Mission Society&rsquo;s teams. Interns discipled youth, played with orphans, learned about different family structures and new cultures,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:44:17</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48006</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Shaping the next generation]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I have begun to realize that many veteran missionaries have one fear in common. They are afraid that the next generation will not take the baton and finish the task of world evangelization. I remember being at a bonfire with my seminary missions professor and his wife as they &ndash; with tears in their eyes &ndash; shared this concern...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:44:02</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48005</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Mission Society celebrates 25 years]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Some 370 leaders and friends celebrated The Mission Society&rsquo;s 25th anniversary on September 11, 2009, at Norcross First United Methodist Church, Norcross, Georgia.

	&ldquo;The Mission Society has become a global entity, responding to spiritual and material needs throughout the world,&rdquo; said Dr. Gerald H. Anderson. &ldquo;While retaining...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:43:53</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48004</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[This church has left the building]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Woodinville Community UMC in Woodinville, WA began a Community Outreach Ministry in September 2008. This program, TALK TIME, is an opportunity for new English learners to practice speaking English in a safe, nonthreatening, and relaxed environment. It is an easy, friendly way for foreign students, refugees, immigrants, and international businesspeople...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:43:32</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48003</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Help wanted]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[It has been an interesting week here at The Mission Society. Every morning, the staff gathers for devotions at 8:00 to focus on God&rsquo;s Word and to pray for our missionaries, supporters, and other needs. Normally, we rotate the day&rsquo;s leading of the devotional time among the various staff members. This week, however, all of our devotional...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:43:20</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48002</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Is missionary life safe?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In our second year of serving as missionaries in Kazakhstan, we were preparing to receive a young, single woman as a two-year missionary. She wrote me to say that her father was concerned about her living in this far-away, strange place. So I wrote a nice email to her father, dispelling some of his concerns and assuring him that we would...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:43:08</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48001</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Zambia: Ripe for harvest]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Jesus said, &ldquo;Do you not say, &lsquo;Four months more and then the harvest&rsquo;? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields&rsquo;! They are ripe for the harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages; even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so the sower and the reaper may be glad together.&rdquo; John 4:35-36 (NIV)

	One...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:42:56</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48000</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Helping heal Ghana's people]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Reid and Lola Buchanan moved from Lexington, Kentucky to Ankaase in 2001. During their six years in Ghana, Reid helped develop the Community Health Evangelism (CHE) program in the Ashanti region and some of the surrounding villages.

	CHE has trainers who visit people in the village and teach them about Jesus, as well as about preventative...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:42:39</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47999</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Ankaase: A village changed]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Cam, Anne, and Caylor Gongwer have spent the past 11 years serving in the remote village of Ankaase in Ghana, West Africa. Their primary ministries of medical work and literacy training have affected thousands, as God continues to bring people to Himself.

	I first met Cam and Anne when I was 23 years old. Just a year out of college and...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:42:28</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47998</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Out of Africa]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The story of Christian theology has been told from a European perspective, but the so-called &quot;dark continent&quot; has been lighting the path of classical Christianity for centuries, says theologian Thomas Oden. He writes of our debt to Africa.

	A few years ago, an African-American friend and I were discussing a popular black pastor whose...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:42:15</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47997</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[On the starting line]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I have known Phil Granger for a long time, having worked with him at the board level for a sister organization for many years prior to his coming to The Mission Society. Because of the gifts and graces I had seen in Phil, I suggested to him some years ago that he submit his resume to the search committee of The Mission Society, and...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:42:01</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47996</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Until then...]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[As year end approaches I find that I&nbsp;am looking to retirement with mixed feelings. It is a moment of sorrow as I prepare to step away from the greatest season of ministry I have ever experienced.

	I will miss being in ministry with you. You, through prayer, financial support, notes of appreciation and encouragement, and countless other...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-24 15:41:17</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47995</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Fall 2009 | Issue 45]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2009-09-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/47994</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Oh brothers, where art ya'll?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I have been working at The Mission Society since December 2006. At the time of this writing, I have participated in five missionary candidate events and three intern trainings, and I&rsquo;ve noticed a trend.
Of the 47 missionary candidates from these five candidate events, what percentage do you think were men? 
a. 15%&nbsp;
b. 25%&nbsp;
c....]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 16:12:09</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48019</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Focusing on missions has re-invigorated our church]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society&rsquo;s church ministry department exists to help your church find and pursue its mission calling. As you will read, churches are being transformed as they more fully turn their hearts toward offering Christ to the world.

	December 12, 2008

	Dear church mission leader,

	St. Johns United Methodist Church will be hosting...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 16:06:18</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48018</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Moving on out to the 'ends of the earth']]></title>
<description><![CDATA[A Global Impact Celebration (GIC) is an annual event designed to celebrate the outreach ministries of the local church while casting a greater vision and challenge for global outreach and involvement. In 2007 Peoria First United Methodist Church held a GIC, which turned out to be a turning point. God used it to reinvigorate already-existing...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 16:02:37</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48017</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[When "loving your neighbor "means loving your nearby state]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[When Julie Rolff noticed a list of upcoming mission opportunities in a publication of First United Methodist Church of Peoria, Illinois (her home church), the &ldquo;hurricane relief&rdquo; mission trip to Dulac, Louisiana caught her eye. Wishing her husband could go, too, but knowing that wasn&rsquo;t a possibility, she found herself considering...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 15:55:48</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48016</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Investing in our "Missionary Kids"]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In early January, 50 missionaries and 20 missionary kids (MKs) from across the Americas gathered along with several staff and some guests in the mountains outside San Jos&eacute;, Costa Rica. The event was the Latin America/USA regional gathering of The Mission Society. Such events provide an important opportunity to minister to our MKs, many...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 15:47:26</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48015</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Letting God be in charge of change]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Change. It&rsquo;s a word that has been used so much in this last year that it&rsquo;s easy to tune it out or not even relate to it. Webster&rsquo;s Dictionary says that change means &ldquo;to make different in some particular; to make radically different; to give a different position, course, or direction.&rdquo; Now I can relate to change...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 15:41:23</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48008</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Discipleship has consequences]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In 1998, Dana Hernandez enrolled at the University of Georgia (in Athens, Georgia) as a freshman from Summerville, South Carolina. She made the move to Athens because she had heard about the party scene and that there are more than 100 bars within a square mile right next to campus. But the Lord directed Dana to a Wednesday evening service...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 15:40:29</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48014</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[There must be more]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[It is 8:07 pm on Wednesday evening. As guitar, drums, and keyboard players on stage play songs of prayer, a large gathering of young adults enters into a time of worship. The tone is solemn but joyful. Below the stage is an altar where people are kneeling and praying for each other. The worship team will play until everyone has gone home,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 15:28:48</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48013</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Home among the exiled]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;It seemed so simple then: Just move to the city and watch God show up. But I had no idea at the time what it meant,&rdquo; writes Alex Davidson, who moved with his family into an apartment complex to live and minister among refugees. &ldquo;I am still discovering what it means to have my life intertwined with the lives of my refugee...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 15:28:36</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48012</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Our church has left the building]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Provide an after-school tutoring program.&nbsp;
	Grace Fellowship Church in Snellville, Georgia, along with other area churches, began an after-school program for the immigrant children in the neighborhood. Most of these children are &ldquo;latch-key kids&rdquo; (children who are home alone for several hours after school each weekday while parents...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 15:28:25</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48011</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Mission Bootcamp]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Their &ldquo;Mission Bootcamp&rdquo; course is one way the Heinzes seek to equip downtown congregations to reach out with Christ&rsquo;s love to the multicultural community around them. Ten people from Lexington, Kentucky&rsquo;s First United Methodist Church have committed to meeting two hours each week for nine months to attend the training. By...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 15:28:14</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48010</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Downtown for Good: Tearing down old walls]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Cultural differences often barricade inner-city churches from the communities around them. How can those divides ever be leveled? Missionaries John and Katheryn Heinz help downtown congregations remodel their thinking so they can better reach into the communities in their backyards.
While many cities do not live up to the beauty, history, and...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-05-06 15:28:03</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48009</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Spring 2009 | Issue 44]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2009-04-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48007</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Two billion reasons]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Talking to The Mission Society&rsquo;s founders, one gets a sense of how Tom Brokaw must have felt when he was interviewing people for his book, The Greatest Generation. Mostly pastors and missionaries, those who laid the groundwork for what would become &ldquo;The Mission Society for United Methodists&rdquo; took bold stands that they probably...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-03-16 15:49:08</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48022</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Going where no missionaries have gone before]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Have you ever wondered about the meaning of The Mission Society logo? President Phil Granger explained its significance in the fall 2006 Unfinished: &ldquo;The left side of the globe and fish (an ancient Christian symbol) are incomplete, signifying that the task [of global evangelization] is unfinished.&rdquo; The Mission Society&rsquo;s commitment...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-01-19 15:37:31</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48031</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Built to last]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;The mission to which The Mission Society is called is God&rsquo;s mission &ndash; His plan for the salvation of the world,&rdquo; reiterates the Rev. Dr. Philip Granger, who took the helm as The Mission Society&rsquo;s president and CEO in 2001. &ldquo;Our tactics will change, but the message will remain the same.&rdquo; Now at the threshold...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-01-19 15:31:21</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48021</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Don't put off reading this article]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Well, I have done it again. The deadline for this edition of Unfinished is due, and once again I have put off writing my article to the very last minute. Oh sure, I can rationalize how I seem to arrive at this point every quarter. I had other things to do &ndash; important things. It&rsquo;s funny. They don&rsquo;t seem all that important...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-01-18 01:18:56</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48030</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[A divine appointment]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Our advancement team at The Mission Society desires to connect personally as often as possible with ministry partners (those who give through financial support and prayers) and encourage them in their faith journeys. As we do, it is not uncommon for us to hear some amazing stories of God&rsquo;s faithfulness.
Here is one such story, shared...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-01-18 01:09:32</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48029</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Discerning the path ahead]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In late October, we gathered 16 of our missionaries, several staff members from headquarters, and some guests in the city of Prague. The purpose was to spend some time as a community looking 25 years into the future, considering what that future might look like and what ways The Mission Society will need to respond to it. From that vantage...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-01-18 01:01:35</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48028</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Jesus rules the nations]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[As we celebrate our 25th anniversary, we want to take note of how God is moving among hearts and communities around the world. So we asked Mission Society missionaries to tell us what theyare seeing the Lord doing as they announce His Kingdom. We had many responses. Here is a small sampling.
&bull; This summer we saw more than 1500 gather...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-01-18 00:53:07</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48027</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Shape your missions mind]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[For your 2009 reading list, Dr. Darrell Whiteman, Mission Society vice president for mission education and resident missiologist, recommends some mission classics &ndash; or soon-to-be classics (listed here in alphabetical order).
Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today 
by Stephen Bevans and Roger Schroeder 
This masterpiece by two...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-01-18 00:47:37</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48026</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[What's a good church to do?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Strategic outreach seems more complex than ever before. In this changing world environment, what should every congregation know about missions? We asked David Mays, who has consulted with hundreds of churches.
As the struggle to share the Gospel with the unreached grows more intense and missions organizations grow more savvy and collaborative...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-01-18 00:39:21</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48025</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Here comes the hard part]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Reaching the unreached was among the reasons The Mission Society was founded 25 years ago. For it, as for every church and mission agency, the biggest challenge in world missions might just be only beginning.
Some complex challenges face mission workers and churches today, observes David Mays, director of learning initiatives of The Mission...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2009-01-18 00:31:03</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48024</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Winter 2009 | Issue 43]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2008-11-01 08:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48020</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Brazilian Methodists moving into missions]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In 2006, The Mission Society entered into process of mission development with The Methodist Church of Brazil. It began when the Brazilian church asked if The Mission Society could help it become a mission-sending church. The collaborative process was launched when a team from The Mission Society consulted with Brazilian leaders regarding sending...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-10-29 17:57:51</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48037</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Educators, is God calling you to cross-cultural ministry?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Lesson plans, classroom decorations, new students. Farewell, summer break. School is back in session! Teachers everywhere are hoping to make a positive impact on their students, some of whom will become great leaders. All over the world, teachers are examples and mentors. Educators, is God wanting to use you to communicate Himself to the children...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-10-29 17:56:34</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48042</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The unmentioned ones]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Have you ever watched a movie and sat through the entire list of credits? Unless you were waiting for the crowd to thin out, chances are that you left the theater after the first few actors&rsquo; names had been displayed on the screen. You probably didn&rsquo;t stay in your seat to find out who was the key grip, nor did you wait around...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-10-29 17:50:47</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48041</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[You had me at hello]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[A good friend of mine and of missions passed on to glory recently. The Rev. James Hord served as a missionary with World Gospel Mission in Honduras. Later, he served as a missionary evangelist preaching in camp meetings and missions conferences all across the United States. I can attribute much of my continuing involvement in missions as...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-10-29 17:34:26</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48040</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Re-thinking stewardship]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[From time to time, I am asked what I do at The Mission Society. I answer that our department seeks to &ldquo;minister to, pray for, mobilize, and motivate followers of Christ toward more active participation in the Great Commission and greater generosity to God&rsquo;s work.&rdquo;
Personally, I like to think of myself as working for the Lord...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-10-29 17:27:06</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48039</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Mission Society "MK" program takes a step forward]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society family presently includes 136 &ldquo;missionary kids&rdquo; (MKs) under the age of 21. Some go to international schools with other MKs. Some are homeschooled. Some go to local schools. Some speak several languages, while others speak only English.
Characteristics common to all MKs are their cross-cultural and highly mobile lives,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-10-29 17:19:31</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48038</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Home by another way]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[It was the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal who said there is a &ldquo;God-shaped vacuum in every heart.&rdquo; Of course, that was about 400 years ago. The modern French heart, we think, seems to know of no vacuum for something beyond itself.
Au contraire, reports Brian Beise, who grew up on the mission field in Paris. Many French are...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-10-29 17:13:52</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48034</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Christians burned alive in India]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Christians in India&rsquo;s state of Orissa are being persecuted and killed. On August 27, The Mission Society received a message from former board member, the Rev. Naik, a native of India&rsquo;s eastern state of Orissa. &ldquo;Just this morning,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;I spoke with family members there. Things have been getting worse by the...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-10-29 17:10:03</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48036</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Rules of engagement]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Recently I was on a flight returning to Atlanta from Brazil, where we had just completed two weeks of training with our new missionary appointees. Most of them were on the same flight. I was seated right across from the flight attendant, who was in the small seat three feet away and facing me. It seemed natural to strike up a conversation....]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-10-29 17:02:56</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48035</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Something wonderful]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Lu&iacute;s Wesley de Souza, Ph.D., a Luso-Brazilian born in Sao Paulo, is Arthur J. Moore associate professor of Evangelism at Emory University&rsquo;s Candler School of Theology, Atlanta, Georgia. He is also a founder of and visiting professor at South American Theological Seminary in Londrina, Brazil, and is the founding director of the Jethro...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-10-29 16:42:21</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48047</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Back from the brink]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Have you ever noticed that you learn things at least twice (for me, often it&rsquo;s many more than twice) before those lessons &ldquo;stick&rdquo; and really become part of you? First you learn something intellectually when you become aware. Then you learn it at the heart level when it becomes &ldquo;real&rdquo; to you and deeply affects your...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-10-29 16:35:52</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48033</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Fall 2008 | Issue 42]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2008-09-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48032</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Personnel Needs]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&iexcl;Bienvenidos! You are welcome to serve in South America! The Lord is doing marvelous things in this part of the world. Join Him and get involved with what He is doing there. Whether you would like to serve as a teacher, agriculture specialist, medical worker, or administrative assistant, we have quite a few positions available. Remember,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-07-19 19:03:29</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48052</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[God Speaks Spanish]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society supports 38 missionaries to six countries in South America. Our work there began in 1988, during which time, the religious and political situation in these areas has changed dramatically. Here, meet your Mission Society team in South America. Note the wide variety of ways in which these men and women minister, addressing...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-07-19 18:53:15</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48049</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Legends of the call]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In my last article (&ldquo;The wrong question&rdquo;), I tried to address a misconception about missions. I said that every follower of Christ &ndash; not just certain ones &ndash; is called to missions. Of course, it naturally follows that our physically going to another part of the world is not the only way to fulfill this call on our...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-07-19 18:39:57</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48051</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Wanted: Lay pastor trainers]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Beginning with the earliest Spanish conquistadors, Christianity was injected into the communities of South America. It was an imported form of the faith &ndash; high on ritual, ordained clergy, and elaborate church garb. Spreading through the mountains and jungles of South America, this European-looking Christianity must have sometimes looked rather...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-07-19 18:39:46</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48045</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Peru's shining stars]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;There are thousands of Peruvians hungry to hear about the saving grace of Jesus Christ,&rdquo; observes missionary Arthur Ivey, &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t even have enough minimally trained pastors for the existing churches, much less for the churches we could easily plant.&rdquo;
The story of the Gospel reaching these hungry hearts is one of...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-07-19 18:39:04</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48046</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Seeking the heart of Latin America]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Three major theological movements have helped shape the Church in Latin America. What form of Christianity will best take root in the soil of this, one of the most diverse regions in the world? Does this 500-year-old question finally have an answer?
Roman Catholicism: faith imported for the New World 
Christianity arrived in Latin America...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-07-19 18:38:49</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48048</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Against all odds]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Twenty years ago the Evangelical Methodist Church of Paraguay came into existence as a joint effort of The Mission Society and the Brazilian Methodist Church. In April, more than 1000 people came out to celebrate the Paraguayan church&rsquo;s 20th anniversary, and I had the privilege of being there.
Before I left for Paraguay, I found a trip...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-07-19 18:33:56</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48050</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Back from the future]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I&rsquo;ve been thinking a lot about perspective lately. What got my wheels turning was a meeting staff members had with Bill O&rsquo;Brien, former director of the Global Center at the Beeson Divinity School(at Sanford University, Birmingham). Bill introduced us to a planning method he calls &ldquo;horizon visioning.&rdquo; Rather than projecting...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-07-19 17:39:37</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48044</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Summer 2008 | Issue 41]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2008-06-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48043</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The beauty of the impossible call]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve changed our mission statement every month for the last five years,&rdquo; say Mr. and Mrs. Peterson* who, by their own admission, were called to do an &ldquo;impossible job.&rdquo; The job looked possible, though, when their journey began. They had a detailed business plan. They would help Russia&rsquo;s orphan teens transition...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-18 15:54:18</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48056</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Reality Check]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I&rsquo;m having a hard time. It&rsquo;s probably my&nbsp;fault. I make it a point to read our Atlanta paper daily. I listen to news radio on the way to and from the office each day. I make sure I catch the local and the national news on television each night. I also read my Bible. I try to stay informed, and I also ask the question...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-18 15:54:07</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48054</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Jesus, Lord of all]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[When the young missionary E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973) arrived for the first time in India in 1907, he was not prepared for his new life. &ldquo;As I look back,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;I see that the most valuable thing about me in those days was my colossal ignorance. I had no knowledge of what to do and not to do, for I had gone through...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-18 15:33:14</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48057</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The wrong question]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I ask a lot of questions. Some of the questions cause me to appear like a calculated user of the Socratic method. Others make me sound like I&rsquo;m a bit lacking in common sense. An example of the latter is when I bought a new set of golf clubs earlier this year and asked if I needed to keep the UPC barcode sticker on my driver....]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-18 15:31:36</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48063</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Ghana's Methodist Church mobilizes to send missionaries]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society partnered with The Methodist Church &ndash; Ghana to conduct its 2nd International Missions Conference in January, 2008. Hosted by the Evangelism, Missions, and Renewal (EMR) committee of the Ghanaian Church, the conference was attended by more than 100 African pastors and church leaders, including five of the church&rsquo;s...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-18 15:31:09</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48061</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[News: Election fury]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Several Mission Society representatives in Kenya have been deeply &ndash; and at times personally &ndash; touched by the tragedies in the nation following national elections that took place near the end of December 2007.

	&ldquo;This is not what anyone expected,&rdquo; noted Mission Society international partner and Kenya native Michael Agwanda,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-18 15:25:36</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48062</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Uncomplicating evangelism]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[On many weekends, our church ministry team members have the privilege and blessing of being in a local church delivering our Global Outreach Weekend. These churches have invited us in to either help ignite a passion for missions among the membership, or to assist in taking their existing missions program to a higher level. In the context...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-18 15:24:38</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48059</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The elusive bottom line]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I am a lousy secretary. Really. Maintaining and updating detailed records is not my strength. Len and I actually have a perfect division of labor in place &ndash; he manages all of our financial records, and I let him!

	But one task I cannot avoid is writing activity reports. Not that I&rsquo;m complaining. I realize that periodic evaluations...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-18 15:18:18</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48060</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Personnel Needs]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Nearly every Mission Society field of service has one thing in common: need for more laborers. The following is a list of the opportunities available in several countries to serve in cross-cultural ministry. We hope these pages will serve as a topic of discussion and prayer for your family, for your Sunday school class, church, and friends.

	Don&rsquo;t...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-18 15:14:10</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48064</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Churches, let the little children come to you]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I remember my first time. My family had only been serving as missionaries in Central Asia a few weeks when our church group decided to make weekly visits to a local orphanage. I fell in love with the children. I was overcome by their hugs and their hunger for love. I wanted to make a difference. I&rsquo;ve been in many orphanages in...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-18 15:11:32</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48058</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Trouble in paradise]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[As Christ&rsquo;s Body, our work involves interceding on behalf of the persecuted church. Here, contributing writer Reed Hoppe acquaints us with the plights of some of our suffering brothers and sisters worldwide. In this issue, she examines the island nation of Maldives.
Along the sandy shores of Maldives rest flocks of tourists, eager to explore...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:42:27</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48114</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[One Body]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[How do you minister to a man who burned down your house and shot at your family?
	A Burundi pastor posed this challenge to Dr. Karl Dortzbach, a ministry leader with Peacemaker Ministries, during the fourth day of the East Africa Mission Mobilization Conference in Kenya. Dortzbach, an American born in Ethiopia and living in Kenya, was in...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:42:07</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48107</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Introducing Jesus to the last unreached tribe on earth]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In the fall issue of Unfinished, you read about the two-week East Africa Mission Mobilization Conference. Its goal was (and is) to help mobilize more than 700 churches with 35,000 Christians taking the Gospel to 100,000 people in unreached and leastreached tribes in East Africa. Among the fruit of that event, more than 1,000 people have made...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:41:09</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48101</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Jesus, our Home]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[At Appletree House in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, neighborhood children &ndash; many of them, children of alcoholics &ndash; get fed one meal a day, five days a week. Some of them trudge through the snow in subzero degree temperatures, with holes in their shoes and with coats only the weight of a windbreaker. They hazard the bitter cold to come...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:40:38</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48097</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Accelerating the spread of the Gospel]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In 2006, The Mission Society engaged in a new kind of partnership &ndash; a partnership to help launch a missionary-sending organization in Brazil that would recruit, train, and place Latin American missionaries around the world.

	&ldquo;A renewal movement is sweeping through the Church of Brazil,&rdquo; writes The Mission Society vice president,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:39:25</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48094</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The state of the Gospel]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Last September, Jason Mandryk, editor of Operation World, and Justin Long, senior editor of Momentum, delivered a report on the current state of world evangelization to 400 delegates attending the Lausanne Younger Leaders Gathering in Malaysia. The following is gleaned from their report. For much more on this subject, and to download an information-packed...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:38:59</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48093</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Cuba before Castro]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;Anyone who really wants to understand Cuban reality should start by understanding that Cubans managed to build a relatively successful nation before Castro,&rdquo; writes Roger F. Noriega, former ecretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Here, he revisits pre-revolution Cuba.

	
		The Cuba which Castro took over in 1959 was one...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:38:10</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48091</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Partnering with Cuba's Church]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;People would typically think, &lsquo;You&rsquo;ve been to Cuba, so now you&rsquo;re planning to send missionaries there,&rdquo; surmised Frank Decker, The Mission Society vice president who was part of a team who traveled to Cuba last November. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not exactly the full story. The Mission Society is looking at partnering with...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:37:44</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48089</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Cuba's Church unveiled]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[It is said to be the longest 90 miles on earth &ndash; the span separating Miami from Havana. Cuba seems like another world, marked by both communist-government-imposed restrictions and breathtaking beauty. Described as a &ldquo;crumbling paradise,&rdquo; this sequestered nation has many secrets to offer us, not the least of which is how the...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:37:14</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48088</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[God's garden party]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Jesus prayed for God&rsquo;s Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. Bodies, as well as souls, are important. Matter matters. God&rsquo;s mission involves redemption of the spiritual and the physical. This means His people have a unique mandate. Read here some unique ways you, through The Mission Society, help relieve hunger, poverty,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:36:17</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48080</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[One life at a time]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Long before organizations such as ONE.org, World Vision, and others made the African HIV/AIDS epidemic global news, Michael Agwanda experienced the ravaging effects of the disease firsthand. Born in eastern Kenya, Michael was fortunate to escape contracting the deadly disease before birth. Although he began his life with the odds stacked against...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:35:30</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48081</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[An African Renaissance]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[An interview with missionary Michael Mozley, Ph.D. student of African Studies at Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission, and Culture in Ghana, West Africa

	It&rsquo;s not news by now: the center for global Christianity has shifted. Today, Christian conversions in the global South and East vastly outnumber those in the West.

	This...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:34:14</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48074</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Eyes on China]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Olympic hopefuls are not the only ones with their eyes on China. The ancient Asian dynasty is today front and center, &ldquo;striding onto the global stage and acting like a nation that very much intends to become the next great power,&rdquo; says Time magazine, which earlier this year declared this to be &ldquo;China century.&rdquo; Time has...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:33:58</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48073</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Becoming like little children]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[My wife, Sue, and I are blessed to have four wonderful grandchildren. Our son, Randy, and his wife, Susan, have two boys &ndash; four-year-old Austin and two-year-old Brandon. Our daughter, Candace, and her husband, Brian, have two girls &ndash; two-year-old Isabella and one-year-old Kaitlan. To say we love those four children is an understatement....]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:33:47</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48072</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Keeping missions alive in the local church]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In 1844 London, England was in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. Young men were pouring into the city for the 12-hour-a day, six-day-a-week jobs that were available. These young men slept packed into rooms over their company&rsquo;s shop. The streets outside the shops were filled with all sorts of evil and debauchery. Recognizing the...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:32:41</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48070</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Forty-seven baptized in Ghana's "Samaria"]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In the words of missionaries John and Bess Russell, the town of Wa is &ldquo;Ghana&rsquo;s Samaria.&rdquo; A recent massive baptism in this remote area proved that the Holy Spirit continues to bless efforts to spread the Gospel to &ldquo;Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.&rdquo;

	Part of the UpperWest region of Northern Ghana,...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:32:18</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48069</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Fog Alert]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[What does &ldquo;Christianity&rdquo; mean in our own nation and in the cities and villages around the globe? As we communicate Christ to a world that interprets Christianity in a wide variety of ways, it&rsquo;s important we uncloud our own understanding.
&ldquo;The manner in which we understand and discuss our existence as believers indicates...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-17 13:31:34</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48067</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Spring 2008 | Issue 40]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2008-04-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48053</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Who is the Christ child to me?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;Why should we push &lsquo;our religion&rsquo; on other people?&rdquo; If you have ever been asked this question, or wondered it yourself, this interview with Dr. Ajith Fernando is for you. Fernando is a native of Sri Lanka, an island country off the coast of India with a complex mixture of adherents to Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-02-13 23:28:25</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48099</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Give postmodernism a second look]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;This moment, even as Christianity is dying on the vine in the West, could be one of the greatest of Christian history,&rdquo; says missiologist and cultural anthropologist Dr. Darrell Whiteman. &ldquo;The reason this is so is because as the West is becoming more post-Christian, it is also becoming more postmodern.&rdquo;

	In the United...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-02-13 23:26:55</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48109</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Great Shifting Tide]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[For centuries, Westerners (Europeans and North Americans) exported the Gospel to non-Western nations. The Gospel message offered by Western missionaries was wrapped in their own culture, and informed by a belief system that exalted reason and individual autonomy. Today, the tide is reversing. The homeland of Christianity is no longer in the West....]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-02-13 23:26:08</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48108</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[We need each other]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Many years ago, I was in the darkest season of my life. Depression had been fierce for months, and there seemed never to be even a moment of reprieve. Nothing made sense any more. Why had God, whom I had trusted all my life, turned a deaf ear?

	On a rainy mid-week morning, as my husband drove me to the train station, the despair...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-02-13 23:25:12</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48105</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Top 10 guidelines for reaching postmodern people]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Dr. Michael Rynkiewich, a former missionary to Papua New Guinea, is professor of anthropology at Asbury Theological Seminary. Among the books he has authored are several dealing with an anthropological look at American culture.

	Hospitality. Be inviting, welcoming, non-judgmental, and inclusive. Postmodern people need a place and a people, because...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-02-13 23:19:41</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48110</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Mission Society seminar connects congregations in Western and non-Western worlds]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[In 2000, The Mission Society&rsquo;s church resource division began mobilizing U.S. churches for global outreach through weekend seminars and a mentoring program. A key principle was, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t wait until you&rsquo;ve finished the job at home to begin to reach out to the ends of the earth. If you do, you&rsquo;ll never go!&rdquo;

	In...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:30:16</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48113</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Katrina, one year later]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The unbelievable strength of Hurricane Katrina can still be felt along the Gulf Coast today, over one year after its August 29th strike. Although construction continues and some homes have been rebuilt, a vast majority of the coast still bears the scars of the deadly storm. Boats remain perched in tree tops; restaurant signs hang halffallen...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:29:49</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48112</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Catching God's wave in Brazil]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[If you have ever been surfing, you know what it&rsquo;s like to catch that perfect wave. Once you have positioned yourself properly, you are then carried by a force much more powerful than yourself. And the ride is exhilarating. In August I was part of a team of The Mission Society staff who visited Brazil to meet with church leaders and...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:29:26</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48111</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Back to the future]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Recently a couple exploring the possibility of becoming missionaries with The Mission Society asked some questions that went right to the heart of what The Mission Society is and does. They asked: &ldquo;First, what makes The Mission Society different from other mission agencies? Second, why should we consider joining with you?&rdquo; Talk about...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:27:18</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48106</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Campus missionaries offer Christ among U.S. students hungry for "something real"]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Often the years spent in college are some of the most transformative in a person&rsquo;s life. Due to the growing secularism on college campuses, Christian ministries have found a challenging mission field amid the religious pluralism of the classroom.
In recent years, The Mission Society has sensed the need to send missionaries back to &ldquo;the...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:26:40</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48103</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Vision 50:15]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Nigerian Church has embarked upon one of the boldest ventures in recent mission history. Vision 50:15 is the commitment by the Nigerian Church to send 50,000 Nigerian Christians back to Jerusalem within the next 15 years. This path will take the Nigerians through North African Islamic nations with the goal of reaching Jerusalem by 2020.

	Dr....]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:26:20</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48102</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[What is it that you do?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[What exactly is it that you do? That is a question missionaries find difficult to answer. During our family&rsquo;s years of service in Kazakhstan, this question was frequently posed to me. Now in my new role as director of field ministry at The Mission Society, I find the question can be equally hard to answer. What is it that missionaries...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:25:27</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48100</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Pursuing Jesus]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[&ldquo;In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.&rdquo; 

	&ldquo;The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.&rdquo;
	&ndash; John 1:1-2, 14, NIV...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:24:08</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48098</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Is your church on mission?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Someone has said, &ldquo;Missions is not a program of the church. The church is a program of God&rsquo;s mission.&rdquo; Moving a church from operating a &ldquo;missions program&rdquo; to being moved by a missional heart will require at least four major changes.

	1. Move from Maintenance to Mission 

	
		Maintenance looks inward. Mission looks...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:23:32</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48095</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Incarnation at 12,000 feet]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[This past December I traveled to Peru to visit our missionaries there. Arthur and Mary Alice Ivey and their three children, Benjamin, Joshua, and Mary Beth, live in Huancayo, high up in the Andes, at an altitude of nearly 12,000 feet. It took me a couple of days to get my blood count up to handle the altitude! I wasn&rsquo;t operating...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:22:31</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48092</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Hankering for Havana?]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society&rsquo;s recent trip to Cuba was not as simple as hopping on a plane. Such travel requires the receipt of a religious visa, which has become more elusive as the communist government flexes its muscle.

	The visa is required for those who wish to preach in public places or spend the night in a resident&rsquo;s home. It...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:22:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48090</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[We really do need each other]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Local churches are increasingly getting involved in global mission. As this happens there comes a growing realization that none of our congregations has all the gifts and resources needed to accomplish God&rsquo;s mission.

	That realization, combined with the acceleration of global change in recent decades, sets the stage for God&rsquo;s people...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:20:55</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48085</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Grateful for her witness among us]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[The Mission Society mourns the loss of former missionary Mary Boggan who passed away on April 15, 2007. Called into ministry at the age of 10, Mary attended Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky in preparation for Christian service. When asked about what area of the world she felt called, Mary replied, &ldquo;To me it has been more of a way...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:20:38</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48084</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Taking "member care" to the next level]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Member care has always been a priority for The Mission Society. This spring, The Mission Society upped its intentional efforts to care for its missionaries by launching a pastoral care department. &ldquo;The creation of this department only reinforces one of our core values &ndash; people matter to us,&rdquo; says the Rev. Lauren Helveston, who...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:20:22</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48083</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[God causes the growth]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.&nbsp;
	&ndash; I Corinthians 3:4-7 

	The Apostle Paul was writing in these verses about divisions in the church, and about people being worried about who gets the credit. One...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:13:28</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48082</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Outward displays of affection]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[What does a missionary look like? When I ask this question, the answers I get are almost always the same. Most people think a missionary lives in a remote area among native people who have never heard about Jesus. This is certainly true for some of The Mission Society&rsquo;s missionaries.&nbsp;Many other missionaries live in settings that...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:10:59</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48079</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Connecting local churches to the world]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[What is the history of The Mission Society&rsquo;s church ministry department?
	Stan: We began in 2000. The Mission Society, which launched in 1984, has always partnered with local churches. More and more we began seeing the need for churches to realize their calling and to become more involved in missions. At the same time, we realized that...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:10:36</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48077</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Sudan Mission Outreach encounters nation's desperate need]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Glory Outreach Assembly (GOA), a Kenyan ministry and partnering organization with The Mission Society, recently sent a delegation to the town of Juba in southern Sudan. The six-day mission was designed as an outreach to Sudan, a nation that has experienced significant struggles in recent years. From July 26-31, 2007, the six-member team, led...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:10:14</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48076</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[An incredible journey]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[What would take the daughter of the president of Congo&rsquo;s parliament and the son of Congo&rsquo;s state treasurer along with their family from Congo to New England, then to Cameroon, then to Augusta, Georgia, and finally to Togo in West Africa? Esaho and Beatrice Kipuke would answer that it is simply the calling of God. When you submit...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:09:59</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48075</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Serving at His pleasure]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Imagine going away from home on a trip and not being certain you&rsquo;d be allowed back again. Imagine being called into a local government office and told that you could not teach about the faith. Imagine being given three days notice that you had to leave your home of many years, then not even being allowed back to pack up the belongings...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:07:35</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48068</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Glamorless Living]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[It was 10:30 at night, and Dr. Darrell Whiteman (our resident missiologist) and I were sitting in the airport in Accra, Ghana, waiting to board our plane for an eight-hour flight to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam we would have a five-hour layover and then catch a nine-hour flight to Atlanta. We had just finished leading a five-day retreat and an...]]></description><br />
<pubDate>2008-01-14 12:03:45</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48066</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Winter 2007 | Issue 39]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2007-11-01 08:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48065</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Fall 2007 | Issue 38]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2007-09-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48071</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Summer 2007 | Issue 37]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2007-06-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48078</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Spring 2007 | Issue 36]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2007-04-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48086</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Christmas 2006 | Issue 35]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2006-12-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48096</link>
</item>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Fall 2006 | Issue 34]]></title>
<description /><br />
<pubDate>2006-09-01 07:00:00</pubDate><br />
<link>http://themissionsociety.org/mag-templ/article/48104</link>
</item>
<language>en-us</language><media:rating>nonadult</media:rating></channel>
</rss>

