Stories from the Field
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To Be Known
Last week, because I am extremely cool, I found myself watching an informational video about a local health insurance provider. I watched contentedly as the presenter explained all the many benefits of having a policy with her company: dental, dental emergency, consultant’s fees, chiropody, physiotherapy…the excitement was almost too much to bear. She spoke of the free Doctor Hotline I could use if I needed a second opinion and the Professional Advice Hotline I could use if I had a legal... -
Migrant in Our Midst
BY A PIONEERS MISSIONARY IN EUROPEThe world’s population is on the move. The latest UN figures suggest that 258 million people are currently living in a country other than their birth country. 78 million of these are settled in Europe, where they have joined the millions of descendants of those migrants who arrived in the last few decades. This gives unique opportunities for Gospel witness, as significant numbers of migrants come from countries traditionally closed to the...
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A Veteran’s Guide to FUNraising
BY MARK, PIONEERS UK'S PARTNERSHIP DEVELOPMENT MANAGERJill B, retired professional, but more importantly, mum of Lynn and mother-in-law to Piet, who work with Pioneers UK in Southeast Asia, has spent a lifetime raising funds for her daughter and other causes close to her heart. If, like me, you’re wondering how you might ‘do your bit’ for a Pioneers worker you know or for the office team who help hold everything together, then we can take inspiration from Jill’s...
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The Great Reversal
BY DR DAVID SMITHDuring the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries huge numbers of people left the shores of Europe in a vast migration which was to change the demographics of the world forever. Some of those who crossed the oceans did so in search of a new life with better prospects than seemed available to them and their children in the industrialising societies at home.
Very many others went not by choice, but either by necessity, driven by extreme...
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To Lent or Not to Lent
I’ve noticed an interesting trend over the course of the last decade or so: the stealthy backward creep of Christmas. In my American childhood home, there was a strict ban on all things Christmas until at least Thanksgiving, which happens toward the end of November. I still cling tenaciously to that rule as an adult, but I’ve noticed that many of my countrymen—both sets, American and British—are succumbing to Christmas fever earlier and earlier each year. Last year, Tesco put out their... -
From the Ends of the Earth
AN INTERVIEW WITH WAIRIMU DIRECTOR OF PIONEERS EAST AFRICAPioneers: Hi Wairimu! Thanks so much for agreeing to chat with us today. Tell us a little bit about yourself—who you are, where you’re from etc.
Wairimu: I am a Kenyan missionary in my mid-fifties, a widow with one daughter whose family has two sons. I was born and raised in Nairobi from independence after my parents’ migration to the new capital. I coordinated youth and children’s ministry in...
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Oliver’s Bridge
I consider myself very blessed to be living in the wonderful, homely and entirely underrated city of Sheffield. Where else in the UK can a person walk out their front door and within half an hour be either in the centre of a decent-sized city OR strolling the wooded paths that lead to the Peak District? Just outside my living room window, the Porter Brook river meanders along in its red-brick-lined culvert. It is headed toward its confluence with the River Sheaf deep underneath Sheffield... -
The Back Side of the Wave
I met a man named Lazarus a few months ago who changed my perspective with one finger and a map of the world. Lazarus is the Missiologist-at-Large for the global Pioneers movement. He is Zambian and in addition to his labours for Pioneers, he is Vice Chancellor of Evangelical University in Ndola, central Zambia. With a CV like that, one would assume that Lazarus knows a thing or two about missions. So it was no surprise when, during a chat over our midday sandwiches, Lazarus casually... -
The Power of the Gospel in the Global South
BY SIMON, PIONEERS AUSTRALIA DIRECTORIf you hear someone say Western missions is over, don’t you believe it! Western missions (and mission from anywhere) is over when Christ returns, and the end has come (Revelation 22:20-21; Matthew 24:14). That said, there has been a radical shift in recent years in terms of the centre of mission activity.
Until fairly recently, Christian mission was predominantly “from the West to the rest”. Today, the number of cross...
