Building Bridges Through Business
Building Bridges Through Business
Are you a business person, entrepreneur, or seeking a job transfer abroad? Why not leverage those God-given talents and experiences in reaching the least reached?
We’ve seen business and work opportunities provide disciple-makers like you with a clear identity and access to meet and serve people, especially in places where unemployment is high. And that leads to relationships that are natural and break down the barriers to the gospel in people’s hearts. You can give them dignity and a brighter future. At the same time, you can be a living example to those who come to Christ of how to integrate faith and work.
You can be a living example of how to integrate faith and work.
Pioneering business people around the world are involved in everything from tourism to education, medicine to engineering, agriculture to the arts. Then there are those with more unusual jobs like sourcing local wool, providing alternate fuel sources for heating in cold climates, consulting on solar energy development, sports coaching, and much more.
Pioneers may fill key administrative roles. They may put their skills in management, bookkeeping, IT and more to work in positions that make everyone else’s work possible. These faithful servants keep operations all over the world afloat.
Some Pioneers start off with business plans and years of related experience. Others, though, are just getting started. Either way, we can help navigate through starting and operating a business and finding job opportunities among the least reached.
Switching to Business
Steve and Sarah worked among a refugee and immigrant population volunteering as English teachers and helping them resettle. They hope to see a disciple-making movement emerge among those they serve. Sarah was able to quickly connect with the women as they had much in common, starting with motherhood. Most of those who attended the English classes were women. Steve, however, was having a hard time making inroads with the men because they were out working or looking for jobs. Even when he was able to spend time with men at the local stores they frequented, they were often suspicious of him because he didn’t have a clear reason to be there.
Then Steve asked the men at the shop a simple question. “What do you miss most from home?” They talked about this question for hours, and many of their stories were related to a particular food item that was important to them. So Steve researched a way to find it and get it shipped to his city. He brought it to the corner store and it sold out in 24 hours! Steve’s reputation changed overnight. He was the guy who brought them a treasured piece of home.
Building a Company (and a Ministry)
As Steve began to sell more and more of this product, he decided to make a business of it. He hired sales reps with a heart to reach the same community through food sales in different cities. In time, Steve shifted his focus from being the one outsider interacting with this unreached community to putting together a team of 20+ (and growing) sales reps in cities around the country.
Steve said business changed everything for him. Men in this people group understand business and respect fellow businessmen. Business allowed Steve to build trust and establish an identity. It gave him and those who came alongside him access to relationships and an opportunity to bless people with a quality product that connected them with the home they’d left behind. One of his customers recently came to faith and is being discipled. He is planning to go to his home country and start sharing Christ among his people.
Where can you picture yourself?
We would love to talk with you about using your education and experience to share Christ among those with least access to the gospel. Get in touch with one of our mission mentors today!
Grace is a widow with numerous dependents. The money she has earned through the card project has enabled her to pay their rent, pay for medicine for her epileptic daughter, pay for school fees, and for basic food. Through the encouragement of the project, Grace testifies to knowing God’s timely and personal provision.
As you might expect, it helps if you’re willing to get your hands dirty. “We’re looking for adventurous spirits excited to travel in the rain and wind, sleep on the floor and eat whatever we’re given,” says a team partnering with believers in Southeast Asia.
The challenges of local resource mobilisation in Kenya make it difficult to send those who clearly are ready to go but don’t have the financial muscle to sustain themselves. Trade imbalances continue to keep the Western nations rich at the cost of Southern economies so we may never really be able to compete at the same level...