Thank you for reading about and praying for the missionaries and ministries of SEND International! Moving forward, you can find blog articles on the redesigned SEND International web site: send.org/blog. At send.org/blog, we will continue to post stories from our missionaries on the field, ideas for praying for the unreached, resources for churches that want to send their missionaries out well, and articles for current and future missionaries. Once a month, we will email subscribers a roundup of our newest articles. To make sure you don’t miss a word, click here to subscribe ..read more

By a former missionary in the Middle East — As the shelves of any home décor store will remind you, Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner. Most Muslims living in the US and Canada have never been invited into a Christian home, but these holidays provide natural opportunities to have Muslims over for a meal. Here are a few ideas for being a gracious, gospel-minded host this holiday season:   Tell your guests that you plan to roast a turkey, and carve the bird on the table so that they will feel reassured that no pork products are present.  Invite them over to help you pre ..read more

Mariana* takes care of her animals and her children in a tiny village in Eastern Europe. She’s hard-working and very capable, but she never learned to read. Traditional Bible study as we think of it in the West doesn’t work for Mariana. She doesn’t feel comfortable joining the ladies’ Bible study that meets in her village, but she does want to learn more about the Lord.  So one of our missionaries tapped into the power of the internet to offer Bible study in a way that communicates to Mariana.  “We’re doing an inductive Bible study, but we’re doing it all orally. We listen to the Sc ..read more

As part of the 10/10 Prayer Initiative, 180 agencies have come together to ask God to draw to himself 10 percent of the world’s Muslims in the next 10 years. 10/10. Easy to remember, yet such an amazingly big task that only God can do it. SEND International has committed to fast and pray the first Friday of every month. Will you consider joining us?  By a former missionary to the Middle East — Turkey, a country of over 80 million people, shares borders and maintains close relationships with eight other countries. (How many can you name? Answer at the bottom of this article.) It also hosts ..read more

A couple of years ago, as Jami and her family were packing up to move from Ulan-Ude, Siberia, to a small village populated by the Buryat people, they were struck by an overwhelming need to gather prayer support for their ministry.  “We felt a fresh desperation to come to God, seek him, and ask others to engage in the spiritual battle of prayer with us,” Jami said. The SEND team in Siberia has sought to pull together 1,000 people committed to praying for the Buryat people.   Now, the team says God is moving in hearts like they’ve never seen before! God graciously is allowing our teammat ..read more

As more missionary families switch to an every-other-summer approach to home service, late summer morphs into a time of transition. The “hellos” of May and June fade into teary “goodbyes,” luggage fills up with precious treats, and outings become a litany of lasts—the last time we’ll be at church, the last time we’ll eat Taco Bell, the last time we’ll see grandma and grandpa.  These tricky, emotional transitions are an unescapable fact of missionary life. And they don’t necessarily get easier with experience! “Returning for term three was the most difficult for me,” said Ukraine missionar ..read more

As part of the 10/10 Prayer Initiative, 180 agencies have come together to ask God to draw to himself 10 percent of the world’s Muslims in the next 10 years. 10/10. Easy to remember, yet such an amazingly big task that only God can do it. SEND International has committed to fast and pray the first Friday of every month. Will you consider joining us?  By a former missionary to the Middle East — A year ago, we asked you to pray for the hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants and refugees who had recently arrived in Europe, most of them fleeing war and civil unrest. We wrote about their t ..read more

By Josie Oldenburg, SEND Communications — Choosing a mission is an entirely different experience from applying for a typical job. This isn’t a clock-in/clock-out kind of position; it’s a partnership that will affect every aspect of your life. Sure, the mission agency will have questions for you – but there are a LOT of questions that you can (and should) ask, too!  “It’s good to ask the questions — it can give a sense of how the home office responds/thinks/works,” says former missionary Lois Thorpe. “When you ask, do you feel heard? Valued? Respected?”  As you gather answers, you might fin ..read more

By Eileen Barkman in Japan — My idyllic image of a week just “chilling” in the nature of Hokkaido hit reality within minutes of our arrival. Choosing a vacation spot on the internet has its pros and cons. While we WERE at a “cozy” hotel in a remote mountain village, we certainly hadn’t anticipated relaxing on our lawn chairs in the middle of a gravel parking lot! And no one had told us about all the recent bear sightings. We had reserved this place for a week! Had we made a big mistake? Although our plan was to just relax, take walks and read, we had to adjust our expectations to fit the ..read more

In August, Saudi Arabia will host anywhere from 1 to 3 million Muslims from around the world for the five- or six-day event called the Hajj. This pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all able-bodied Muslims must complete the Hajj at least once in their lifetime.  There are a number of prescribed things that each Muslim on pilgrimage must perform, and one of these is the sacrificing of a sheep or goat. This commemorates Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son (don’t get into the discussion of whether it was Isaac or Ishmael), but God intervening at the last momen ..read more