Favorite blog entries this past week

1) A good post on William Carey's wife Dorothy Carey from a biography my wife just finished reading. Dorothy Carey went insane in India and was the source of much suffering for William and family. My wife writes, "It was interesting to me because there are still missionaries who suffer mentally after being on the field for some time. Living in a culture completely different from your own can really wreck havoc on your psyche. Some people adapt better than others. I cannot imagine living through what Dorothy Carey lived through. It doesn't surprise me that she suffered mentally."

2) Photos of our recent 3-day family vacation and a few more photos of our recent camp out at Manglaralto here. See first-hand evidence of how much we suffer having to live overseas!

3) Interesting post about a hot missions topic over at Ken Sorrell's "We are all missionaries! Really?" The comments make this an interesting debate with both sides expressing themselves well.

4) Steve Addison's "Floyd McClung: Apostolic Passion" is definitely worth reading. I was challenged by the high priority prayer must be in the life of a missionary.

5) Last, but not least this week, is the longest article of them all, but well worth your time, David Rogers Historical Documents: Baptist-Evangelical Cooperation in World Missions, Part 14. Parts 1-13 are also good, but David says so well something in Part 14 that I have to quote it here,

Under "New Directions", the role of the missionary is less and less that of "hands on" church planter, and more and more that of "facilitator" of CPMs. This is perhaps a subtle distinction that is hard for many that have not lived on the mission field to understand...

It is even debatable to what degree, if any, we as church planters should "control" the new churches we ourselves are planting. Yes, we have influence, and significant influence, at that. But "control" is a different matter. One of the main principles of "New Directions", which has deeply impacted my own ministry in Spain, and in which I believe deeply, is the following… Impacting and "reaching" an entire people group with the Gospel, and seeing CPMs started among them, is a God-sized task. It is much bigger than any of our individual ministries, and much bigger than what we as the IMB, or as Baptists, can do by ourselves. It requires the participation and cooperation of the entire Body of Christ, both locally and globally...