How To Be A Missionary

Missionary-supporting pilots hold event

Jungle Aviation and Radio Service (JAARS) hosted a program Saturday and Sunday at the Ames Municipal Airport. The program was called Missions at the Airport.

JAARS is an organization that provides technical support services intended to increase Bible literacy.

"It's an educational program designed to introduce people to the work of JAARS, the Wycliffe Bible Translators , and the Bible translation task around the world," said Mike Mower, director of the program and a pilot for JAARS.

Today JAARS is known for more than just airplanes and radios.

"We do training for pilots, information technology, audio and video production," Mower said.

People who came to the airport had the opportunity to ride in an actual missionary airplane with a missionary pilot. Passengers had to buy a ticket and fill out a form to ride in the plane.

There were displays of the work the missionaries had done in many exotic areas of the world. Missionaries talked about their experiences and what they have been working to accomplish.

Mower said other missionaries were at the event for people to talk to and learn about the different aspects of the Bible translation movement  and how they could get involved. 

"The people may be high school students, college students, or they are about to retire looking for what they might want to do with the rest of their lives," Mower said.

Roger Krenzin, a missionary pilot, has been with JAARS for 34 years. He has been flying for 32 years.

"Now I just share stories and speak in churches and schools — elementary through universities," Krenzin said. "Bible translation is our real goal. It's been exciting to be a part of that.

neweurasia.net » How to be a missionary (or blogger) in Central Asia

’S Chris returned from his tour in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan , he remarked to me that he was surprised so many people there were curious to know his religion, Bahaiism. Other Westerners have had the same experience and have wondered why.

During the initial thrust of the Russian Empire into Central Asia, the Tsarist army and intelligence personnel used to arrive first and begin collecting census information about the population’s religiosity. Once the military occupation commenced, tax collectors simply followed the army’s route and utilized similar methods. Following on the heels of both came religious missionaries, who used the census and tax data to strategize their proselytizing efforts. By the way, old habits died hard: the Soviets used the exact same methods when they invaded Afghanistan, including their strategy for propagandizing the occupied population.

As my readers know, not all Central Asians were Muslim to begin with, and contention among the missionaries, who themselves belonged to different sects, was fierce. Prior to the Tsarists there had already been a difficult tug-of-war between Tenrgi shamans and the mendicant dervishes; with empire came the Russian Orthodox apparatchik and other imported missionaries,. The fights for the souls of Central Asia often took equally funny and tragic turns.

In short, Central Asians would provide answers according to what they believed was the intent of the new visitor. So, the same man might say he had four wives when speaking to a tax collector, only one wife when speaking to the Christian missionary, or that he believed in the equality of the sexes to the Marxist propagandist. According to Chris, the majority of his listeners seemed to have already heard the name “Bahai” but knew very little else. The questions he received pertained to Bahaiism’s theological views, particularly concerning prophets, since Bahais believe that there have been and shall be more prophets after Muhammad. His audiences were also very curious about how he became a Bahai. That indicates that many of them did not yet know how to “categorize” Chris, and through him, Bahais in general (although I’m curious as to who was previously “educating” them about the religion ;-) ).

Interestingly, this phenomenon seems to have also extended to Chris’ answers to political and journalistic questions. According to him, he was asked several times by journalists, bloggers and general audiences about his views on the Kazakh government and media, and it was his impression that his answers very much surprised his listeners.

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