En route to Lima

To give out information is fairly easy – hand out a book, write a paragraph, give someone instructions. But to create understanding is so much more than that. Understanding grows where information crosses paths with experience and environment. It grows over time where misconceptions are first formed, and then corrected. Understanding grows where questions are answered and, with patience and God’s grace, a shared comprehension is formed.

Welcome to the Creating Understanding blog. We will no doubt use this site to share information. Even more, though, we want to use this site to see beyond the information – to see into that invisible realm where facts, experiences, history, environment and basic life assumptions are reshaped to create understanding of God, His Word, and His ways.

I’m writing this on the evening before leaving for Lima, Peru. Lima is home to many missionaries, and I will have the joy of being with 25 or so of them for the next two months. But it may not be the kind of missionaries you are thinking of. When I hear the word “missionary” in the US, I usually think of someone sent out from the US or Canada or, on occasion, from Western Europe. The missionaries we will be working with in Lima are not from the northern hemisphere. They are from the NEWMA mission who, for 30 years, has been sending gospel messengers from Peru and Ecuador and other South American nations. The missionaries of NEWMA are starting churches and making disciples in North America, Europe, and throughout Latin America.

Could we ask that you join us in praying that God’s Word will direct and guide, open minds, and develop skills in both the South American “students” and the North American “teachers?” (Those roles will certainly shift back and forth over these two months!)

The teachers come from the Institute for International Christian Communication (based in Portland, Oregon), and are staff members in the MA program in Intercultural Leadership. Over these two months, seven faculty and administrative staff will come and go from Peru, teaching an introductory seminar which may then be followed by internet-based MA studies. We've been invited to lead this group of NEWMA leaders and trainers, giving them ever more skill and ability at creating understanding of the Lord and His Message among the nations where they are serving.

In coming posts, I’ll tell you more about the staff who is meeting us in Lima, and the students who are setting aside their own schedules to be with us for the Seminar in Creating Understanding.

Mark Hedinger