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What is Missions Like?

As Christians, we listen when the Lord said, "Go and preach the gospel to all creation." Sharing the truths of our belief can be equally invigorating as it is difficult. As a progressive society, we also know this can potentially become slightly complicated in a setting such as the Mall of America - where it would take a shopper (or a missionary) 86 hours to spend 10 minutes in every store. If someone was available to speak with a fraction of the 35-40 million annual visitors, an unbelievable impact could be achieved.

Impact and missions trips can be interchangeable forces. An impact's potential increases when coupled with various factors of technology, progression, and lack of fear. In the beginning, spreading the Gospel was tedious, dangerous, and almost a game of Russian roulette.

Paul of Tarsus shared Christianity with peoples of Arabia, Greece, Crete, Syria, Turkey, and Cyprus from c. 48 to c. 60. By the 1600's missionary outreach was beginning to touch all continents. This was before cars, planes and telephones. Traveling on foot and by boat were time consuming yet worthwhile.

Now missionaries can benefit from the use of translated Bibles, satellite communications, vaccines, Internet communications, and the support of group organizations. Does this mean it's fast, simple, and goes off without a hitch? Hardly.

There is still a lot of work to be done, and while the plight of getting lost while trying to sail to an unknown country can be set on the back burner, missions' trips are not without dangerous problems.

Technological advances cannot protect a traveler from the social, political, or diseases outbreaks of a given region. Most of the least evangelized world lies in the latitude longitude lines of the "10/40 window," 3.2 billion people - 95 percent of which have not been evangelized. The numbers refer to the boundaries

(10 degrees North, to 40 degrees north of the equator), which encase 59 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Other than never hearing of Jesus, many people inhabiting these countries are experiencing extreme poverty. With poverty comes famine, lack of education, disease, and wars. Desperate countries like N. Korea, Iraq, and Iran are in the window, and aside from the staggering facts, religious significance spurs the interest of Christians as well.

The Bible places Adam and Eve in the middle of the 10/40 window. Jesus was born, lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, and was resurrected within the confines of this window. Until the second missionary efforts of the Apostle Paul, no Biblical events occurred outside its boundaries.

Now Christians are faced with cross-region missionary opportunities. A believer may not even have to set foot outside their country, state, or even city to make a difference. Unbelievers are all around. At the grocery store, a local school meeting, college campuses, and the mall.

The world needs to hear a message. This world extends from where your lawn meets the pavement, to a Central Asian region in the 10/40 window. Missionary work never stops, is always beginning, and will never be too much.
Any Road, Any Load, Any Time: Overland Missions


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