Called to Care
Bonnie and I had always supported missionaries, and by the late 1980s had shares in a dozen, one for each month of the year. We attended missionary conferences at Asbury, invited missionary speakers to stay with us when at conferences in Wilmore, and prayed for missionaries. Then an event occurred which we did not expect to really change our involvement in missions.
At that time we had been teaching upper elementary children’s Sunday school classes for several years. Another teacher, Jenny Cochran, told us several times that we needed to take a short-term mission trip sometime. Her husband served with Missionary World Service and Evangelism, an agency which took many such trips each year. We always told her that we were not interested.
Our 25th wedding anniversary occurred during the summer of 1989, and we were trying to decide what to do to celebrate that event. Our children were all in college or had already graduated, so we were free to travel. We had considered taking a cruise but thought that did not sound like something we would enjoy. Of course, Jenny again told us that we ought to take a short-term mission trip. We looked at the list of teams available, and the trip to Brazil fit our schedule for the summer, and we could afford the price.
The Call
We took the trip to celebrate our first 25 years of marriage, and it radically changed the next 25 years of our marriage. We had traveled with our children to all of the 48 contiguous states in the USA as well as to southern Ontario in Canada. However, we had never visited a culture outside of North America. We didn’t even know enough to buy a travel guide.
Brazil
The stated purpose of the trip was to help with the construction of a church in the city of Iguassu Falls in southern Brazil across the river from Paraguay and Argentina. Of course, we were amazed at the beautiful falls and the immense Itaipu dam. But the thing that impressed us the most was the people. The congregation of 75 people was building a church that seated 500 even in the presence of open demonic forces. Passers-by would stop and work with us just to get to speak English, and the poverty in some parts of the city was obvious.
During the daily devotional times, C. V Elliott made clear to me the importance of the “clans, and languages in their territories and nations” in Genesis 10 to the “every nation, tribe, people, and language” in Revelation 7. I had not even realized that the Greek word often translated “nation” was “ethne,” literally ethnic groups, not the political nations of the world.
Call
As Bonnie and I talked together in our room there in Brazil, we realized that we were both sensing that we had to do something more in missions than we had been doing. It was not a specific call to Brazil or any other country. Nor was it a call to do any particular thing. It was just a call to become involved personally in missions rather than just donating to the missionary cause and praying for missionaries and the nationals they were reaching.
Effects
After we returned from our trip it was obvious to friends and colleagues that the mission trip had profoundly changed us. We told different groups what we had experienced and what we were thinking of doing. One colleague told me that I was just going through a mid-life crisis and I would be OK in a few years. A lady in our Bible study group said, “Don’t worry, it will wear off. Mine did.” I replied that I did not want it to wear off. Of course, we prayed that God would lead us into what we should do and where we should go.
Searching (Exploring)
Not having a specific call, Bonnie and I wanted to be open to whatever God wanted us to do and wherever he wanted us to go. We attended conferences, talked to people from different agencies, tried doing different tasks and so forth. We continued to pray each time for his guidance.
Conferences
Of course, we continued going to the annual mission conferences at Asbury College and talking with representatives from many different agencies as we had done previously, except that now we were interested in what we might do. Agencies at that time held annual conferences in different parts of the country. Missionaries on home ministry assignment were present, so we went to at least one every summer.
Countries
We went to Spain with OMS International in 1990 to give presentations to Spanish nationals about the “invention” of adolescence and its implications for Christians. This was a topic on which I had written a couple books and spoken about to many groups here in the USA. The presentations went well, and people seemed interested, but making presentations while visiting a field did not seem to be where God was leading.
We went to Bolivia with World Gospel Mission in 1991 to help write a proposal for a USAID (American Schools and Hospitals Abroad) grant to build an Evangelical University in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. I had never raised funds before, but I wrote the first draft of the proposal, and Bob Swan at WGM completed the proposal and submitted it to USAID. We were granted $650,000 to build the university, but I felt no real sense of satisfaction in doing this. It did not seem like a personal involvement.
We went to Jamaica with Christian Service International during the summers of 1992 and1993 to hold a daily VBS for the children with renewal services for adults in the evening. The first year we went as a part of the team, and the second year we recruited and led a team. Again this did not seem to be where God was leading.
Agencies and Tasks
When we approached agencies about serving with them, the conversation often went something like this.
Agency representative: “What do you do?”
Bonnie: I am an elementary teacher.”
Agency representative: “Wonderful, we can use you on many fields. Ron, what do you do?”
Ron: “I teach psychology in college.”
Agency representative: “Wonderful, we need counselors.”
Ron: “I’m not a counselor. I am an experimental psychologist and teach subjects such as statistics, experimental psychology, and physiological psychology. I am an expert in rat learning.”
Agency representative: “Perhaps you could be a church planter.”
Many agencies had rats on several fields, but none of them wanted those rats taught anything. However, nearly every agency could use counselors.
Commitment
During October 1991 Bonnie and I went to a conference on the Teaching of Psychology at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA. The conference ended on a beautiful fall day, so we decided to stay there another day. We noticed that Natural Chimneys Park was nearby, so we decided to spend the afternoon there. We found that the national jousting tournament has been held there every year since 1821. We didn’t even know that there was such a sporting event.
We climbed more than 100 feet to the top of one of the chimneys and sat there looking out over the beautiful Shenandoah Valley watching an Amish family come up in their buggy and people on horses there to practice their jousting. As we sat there we decided to commit our future completely to God by giving him everything about our future. For several hours we went over things one by one. Most things were relatively easy because we had already committed them to the Lord. However, some major things were harder. Giving up tenure was the most difficult thing for me nearing 50 years of age, and giving up our house filled with so many memories was the most difficult thing for Bonnie.
After that we returned to our motel and rested well for our trip home to Wilmore to finish fall semester. We still did not know what we should do. I realized that counselors were needed, but I was not one. I also realized that by the time I became one, I would be nearing 60 years of age, and told God that. Of course, another related similar question is how old would I be then if I did not become a counsellor?
Respecialization
During spring semester of 1992 I looked into what was available at the University of Kentucky in Lexington a half hour’s drive from Wilmore. I finally decided to return to school and get a master’s degree in counseling psychology. When I talked with people there at UK I discovered that they had a respecialization program in which people like me could become licensed in psychology in about the length of time it would take to get a master’s degree.
Return to graduate school
In 1992 I began that respecialzation program in counseling psychology at the University of Kentucky. During the next four years I took graduate courses at the University of Kentucky half time while continuing to teach undergraduate psychology courses at Asbury College full time. At the same time I also took courses for a minor in Marriage and Family studies at Asbury Theological Seminary.
I also took counseling psychology practicums at the University of Kentucky, at Asbury College, at Asbury Theological Seminary, and at Ridge Behavioral Health in Lexington Kentucky. These gave me experience in counseling in a variety of situations and with various clients.
EPPP
With the course and practicums behind me, the next step to becoming a licensed psychologist was to pass the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology. This test assesses a person’s knowledge of psychology to make sure he or she knows all that is needed to practice psychology. It is required by all state boards for licensure. When I passed that I could serve an internship and be licensed, and I had an internship all lined up in a neighboring city.
I had studied all areas of psychology to make sure I would pass the test, and I passed the test with a good score. However, as I studied for that licensing exam, I ran across two things that changed what I was planning to do. First, much research had shown that counseling by para-professionals was as effective as that by licensed psychologists or counselors. I saw no reason to spend two years in a supervised internship if it would not make me more effective. As a result, I cancelled my internship and prepared to enter member care as a trained layman who loved and cared for missionaries rather than as a psychologist.
The second thing I ran across was a 1993 article in the Journal of Psychology and Christianity by Christopher Rosik in which he studied who missionaries would like to see for counseling. He asked 114 missionaries if they would prefer to see a counselor affiliated with their own agency or one not with their agency. Among missionary candidates less than 1/3 preferred seeing a counsellor outside their agency, but among missionaries who has served on the field and needed restoration 88% preferred a non-agency counselor. So I chose to be a lay counselor available to anyone who wanted to talk with me rather than joining a sending agency.
Database
Now that I basically had the “counselor questions” resolved, I needed to learn about missionary member care. At that time there were no degrees or even courses in member care. Very little was written about member care before 1990, but I wanted to read everything I could find about it. I knew that my fifty-year-old brain could not remember facts like it did when I was in my 20s. In my PhD program in the 60s I had learned a method of using card files to store information I had read, and card files have long memories. .
Thirty years later computer databases could do the same thing, so I learned enough about Access to store the data and retrieve what I wanted instantly. As I read any article, book, or chapter in edited books, I entered that data in the database. Now that database has more than 900 entries, and I can get a bibliography on any of more than 100 topics about missionary member care. I can also get an annotated biography that includes a summary, outline, and a quote from each item.
This database which began as a memory aid for me is now on missionarycare.com so that other people can use it. To date others have viewed nearly a million full citations of articles.
Models and Mentors
In the spring of 1995, Steve Stratton, director of the Asbury College Counseling Center, returned from a conference of directors of counseling centers at Cristian colleges. He told me that he had just met someone who was actually doing what I had been talking about doing. He gave me the phone number of Chuck Lewis, director of the counseling center at Wheaton College.
That evening Bonnie and I were talking with Chuck and Sue Lewis who told us about missionary member care and about the annual Conference on Mental Health and Missions in northern Indiana. I went alone to that conference in November to see what it was like. I called Bonnie at the end of the first session and said, “You’re coming with me next year. These are our kind of people.” We have never missed that conference since then.
Chuck and Sue were our models of what we wanted to be. We asked them to be our mentors and help us get from where we were on the staff of a Christian college to being involved in missionary member care. We met with them every year they were at that conference, corresponded with them by email, and talked with them by phone during the year. Each year we asked, “What should we do next?” Finally one year Chuck said, “Go for it!”
Bloom where you are planted
Chuck and Sue encouraged us to begin our member care ministry while still on the Asbury College campus and in response to other opportunities that presented themselves. We did so.
Help Third Culture Kids (TCKs)
One obvious ministry we had on campus was to the TCKs on campus. We did the following:
This ministry was helpful not only to them but also to us as well. We had hundreds of TCKs in our home over the years, and many times we just sat and listened to them talk, learning about them. For example, near the end of her first semester one young lady said, “I am SO homesick!” I mentioned that her family was less than three hours away. She said, “I don’t miss my family. I miss my country!”
Another time three TCKs were talking about another one on campus, and one said, “She may have lived overseas for two years, but she’s not a TCK. She doesn’t think like one.”
Assist Agencies
Chuck and Sue also urged us to help however we could when mission agencies asked us to do something. While attending the 1998 OMS conference held here on the Asbury College campus we met Jim and Lois Ogan in the cafeteria line. We told them about our call and our ministry. They had just had someone cancel for part of cross-training, their orientation, which was to begin in two weeks. They asked us to help. We did a presentation on missionary conflict, and that was the first of many times of being part of the OMS orientation.
In 1999 John Muehleisen at WGM asked us to be part of their Forum, a meeting of all missionaries on deputation as well as retired missionaries. We did sessions on conflict management, adolescence, and generational differences. That led to our facilitating many reentry retreats for WGM missionaries.
Respond to needs if possible
In 1997, a TCK we met when she was a student at Asbury College and had gone to the University of Kentucky when I was respecializing there telephoned from Bolivia. She was on the faculty teaching psychology at Bolivian Evangelical University in Santa Cruz, and a problem had arisen there. We discussed the issues involved, and I advised her as well as I could, and then we hung up. Right after we hung up, it occurred to me that I had been preparing for the previous five years for such a time as this. I immediately called her back and offered to come down to Santa Cruz if she thought that would help. She thought that having someone from outside the institution would be helpful.
Bonnie and I had been discussing what we would do when it came time for us to begin traveling to visit missionaries. We had been talking about it with New Hope International Ministries, a group of volunteers who served to help people in other agencies. This seemed to be the time for us to formally join NHIM as member care consultants, and we did so. We went down to help at the university in Bolivia, and we even had the privilege of staying in a house on the campus of the university we had helped to build by writing the first draft of aUSAID grant request.
Brochures
I was corresponding frequently with TCK prospective students from all over the world by the mid-1990s. About the same time Asbury College posted its website on the internet. It occurred to me that missionaries might be able to download member care information relevant to them from the internet if I could have it posted on the Psychology department pages of the College website. I checked with the department, and all members thought it was a great idea. Then I checked with Information Services, and they said they would be willing to have that material there. I submitted a proposal to New Hope International Ministries, and it was approved.
In 1998 I wrote a sample brochure, “What Missionaries ought to Know about Depression,” and asked six missionary couples on home ministry assignment here in Wilmore to read it and tell me if it was something that missionaries would read. I also asked them to suggest other topics for future brochures. All six couples said missionaries would read it, and all six couples suggested other topics. The only topic suggested by all six couples was one about conflict between missionaries, so that was the second brochure I wrote.
By fall I had written ten brochures, and they were posted on the Asbury College website. The webmaster also posted the database I had written for my own use in remembering what I had read. He made it possible to search the database online or to download the whole database for people who were familiar with Access. In November I presented a paper at the annual conference on Mental Health and Missions about the resources available online, and I also gave everyone attending a floppy disk (3.5 inch) containing all of the information on the website. I thought that if I just gave the URL for the website, most of them would not visit it, but if I sent a copy home with them, probably more would look at it there.
These were the first things I had written for “publication” since 1991 (except for one article with a student doing most of it). Seven years with nothing published!!