April 24, 2024

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Category: Resources

Resources, Evangelism

Coming Out of Hibernation

Over the past three months, this blog has been hibernating, and I am not happy about it. I could give you a number of excuses such as a busy fall travel schedule and several training and speaking engagements. But now that we are back in Kiev, I am hoping to encourage the blog to come out of hibernation, with possibly some help from fellow colleagues in our mission organization. Let me begin by highlighting some recent additions to our SEND U wiki. The wiki continues to be the primary collection of the training resources that SEND U provides. But I continue to receive emails from various missionaries within our organization asking for some training resource that I have mentioned in the past. I am glad to direct my colleagues to the desired resource, but I have noticed that almost always, the training resource can be found relatively simply by typing… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Resources

Webinars for Training Missionaries

Another training resource that is available to missionaries are webinars (interactive seminars offered over the Internet).These webinars allow a missionary to receive additional training from experts in a particular subject area without requiring the missionary to trave or experience a significant interruption in his ministry. The best source that I have found for webinars for cross-cultural missionaries is The Mission Exchange (formerly EFMA). SEND International became an associate member of The Mission Exchange (formerly EFMA), largely so that we could benefit from the learning initiatives provided by this network of mission agencies and denominations.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Resources

Wiki Resources for Missionaries

Last month I asked our SEND missionaries to fill out a simple survey about what roles they thought SEND U should play in our mission organization.  I used the analogy of a campus.  If SEND International was a university campus, what role or roles would SEND U fill on that campus?  Would we be like the classroom where missionaries would receive formal instruction and training from the “experts”?   Would we be more like the faculty offices where missionaries could meet with the “experts” to discuss their questions about what they are learning and doing?   Or should we think of ourselves more like an academic counselling department where you could get assistance if you are struggling to succeed?  All of those options were chosen by a significant percentage of our missionaries.   But the highest number of our missionaries said that one of the roles that SEND U should play is that… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Books, Resources

Free Books for the Kindle

As I travel and talk to missionaries, I see and hear that more and more of them have purchased the Amazon Kindle e-book reader, or are planning to do so in the near future.  With the significant reduction in price to under $140 for the Wi-Fi only version, the cost is no longer prohibitive.   Given the difficulty and expense of first of all shipping the books they own to their assigned field and then purchasing additional resource books in English while overseas, I am not surprised by this interest in the Kindle on the part of so many missionaries. See my blog post a few months ago. But this is only half the story!  Did you know that many books for the Amazon Kindle (electronic book reader) are available for free?  Publishers, including a number of Christian publishing houses, frequently allow e-books to be “purchased” at no cost for a … Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Books, Resources

Obtaining Good English Books on the Mission Field

Maybe you are wondering how a missionary obtains access to all these great books that SEND U is recommending at www.senduwiki.org. Most countries in which we work have very limited opportunities to purchase books in English, and basically nothing is available on topics related to professional development of missionaries. So we can order from Amazon, but then we have to pay shipping and wait several weeks or months. But the problem is bigger than just obtaining a new book on church planting or team leadership. One frequent question I get asked by new missionaries is how I recommend they send their entire libraries to the mission field. My answer to that question these days – leave the paper books at home, and take as much of your library as you can in digital form.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
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