OUR TIME AT ICC; NUGGETS OF INSIGHT, WISDOM, AND KNOWLEDGE WE GAINED

This blog is a long one, but we want to update you all on the Intercultural Communications Course (ICC) we completed last month in North Carolina. With this missions training completed, we’re now on the home stretch of this journey God has called us to embark on to Riohacha, Colombia. Hooray!  We are getting excited!  Next is language school, but before we go we need more partners to join us on this journey through monthly financial support to help us reach our budget to sustain our ministry. Please pray about whether God is leading you to be a part of this ministry in Colombia.  We’ll share more in another blog about what we’ll be doing there, but for now, we’d like to share with you a little about the ICC training.  Thank you to all who prayed for us during our training and traveling there and back.  When we posted about getting ready to go to ICC in our previous blog, you may have wondered what it is all about. We hope you will take the time to read through this blog and find out how this training impacted us.

Well, ICC is a course that’s designed to prepare and train missionaries to minister cross-culturally located at JAARS (https://www.jaars.org/). Our ICC class was made up of 40 men and women (singles, couples without kids, and couples with kids) preparing to go to different countries with various mission organizations. It was a blessing learning, laughing, crying, worshipping, playing, fellowshipping, and growing with fellow believers who are striving towards the same goal of missionary service; it was encouraging to be able to relate in many ways to the fears, joys, uncertainties, struggles, and hopes of one another. It was a challenging course at times with homework and just the daily schedule of getting out the door early to get the kids to daycare/preschool and us to our classes.  The little kids enjoyed their time with their friends and teachers there. We’re grateful for the dedicated staff, who opened up their hearts and lives pouring into us love and sharing their wisdom, knowledge, and experiences from their missionary careers; we’ll be able to draw from this often as we prepare to go and when we get to Colombia.  During the first week of ICC, each of the staff members shared very transparently and honestly their unique life stories of how God worked in their lives and was with them in the midst of struggles, pains, and joys both on the mission field and back home.  It was encouraging to hear their stories of how God used them, led them, molded them, and walked with them. 

Our focus passage was Philippians 2:1-11, which we worked on memorizing during ICC.  This passage really unpacks what it should look like to live and work as a servant of Christ-being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Our sessions and reading material were engaging and informative covering a wide-range of topics from interpersonal and relational skills, world views and how to share the Gospel in each world view, biblical vs. cultural absolutes, tools for language and culture learning, field-proofing your marriage, and spiritual vitality.  Spiritual vitality was the core topic, because one’s relationship with God affects and impacts all the other topics discussed.  Apart from Him, we can do nothing.  Jesus gave us the example of how important spiritual vitality is by taking time to be alone with the Father.  One of our assignments was to go on a 3 hour spiritual retreat alone with God, a highlight of our time at ICC.  Though at first it seemed like it would be difficult to fit it into our busy schedule, we were both so glad it was an assignment. It was a refreshing time to just focus on God and listen to Him.  I, Cristi, came away from that time with a renewed reminder that even though my life is often hectic and busy, it is so important for me to intentionally plan into my schedule time alone with God to be spiritually refreshed and effective as a wife, mom, and servant of Christ.

We also spent much time in an in-depth study of Ephesians studying who God is, what God says about us and about our identity in Christ, and living out of our identity in Christ.  These are things we must KNOW and BELIEVE and LIVE OUT in our lives if we are going to be an effective servant of Christ.  Often we Christians profess to knowing who we are in Christ, but our actions speak otherwise.  So this was a good reminder and call to examine what we really believe to be true about God and our identity in Him as we prepare to go to the mission field. We went through sessions about suffering and counting the costs. As we heard some missionaries share about painful and extremely difficult circumstances they endured for the sake of the Gospel, three things rang true - the one we serve is worthy of anything He will ask us to sacrifice, God is sovereign and faithful, and knowing God’s character and how much He loves us will give us strength to go on this journey. 

Prior to the course we read Cross-Cultural Servanthood:  Serving the World in Christlike Humility by Duane Elmer and discussed it in class.  We talked about key points that enable us to better serve cross-culturally like not being quick to judge a person or situation, seeing good in people, being flexible and okay with the unknown, going towards emotions we have realizing they are God’s megaphone into our lives of something deeper that we may need to understand or deal with, and realizing that our way might not always be the best way.  We highly recommend this book even if you are not traveling somewhere to serve as a missionary.  It has great points for anyone who is serving the Lord.  We also highly recommend the marriage series we did a few sessions from in our “Fieldproofing Your Marriage” sessions. The dvd/book series is Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy.  Cristi - “It’s one of the best marriage studies I have seen and I honestly cannot recommend it enough from the few sessions we did and my overview of the book.”

A really neat part of ICC was getting assigned to a Spanish speaking church service for the 4 weeks we were there. We worshiped at the Spanish service at Harrison United Methodist church (https://www.facebook.com/HarrisonUMC).  The people were very welcoming and loving. The service was completely in Spanish, so we didn’t understand much, but the worship was wonderful and it was so evident that the Holy Spirit was present.  They focused a lot on outreach and prayer. The worship songs were fun to learn and sing.  A couple of weeks, we attended Sunday school where we got to practice speaking/reading Spanish and began to understand more.  We met many people from Colombia, Costa Rica, and even a few from Riohacha.  They were so helpful in sharing with us about the culture and excited that we were going there.  And we got to attend the services with our friend, Rael, a fellow SAM missionary, which was a neat opportunity to get to know her better.

Our teens gleaned information about cross-cultural ministry through attending some of the sessions we had at ICC and also a couple of culture sessions with the youth director at the JAARS campus.  They also prepared and presented a research project on Colombia and Riohacha. They enjoyed attending the JAARS youth group.  Andrew got to attend a young adults retreat our first weekend there where he got to meet other MK’s and got plugged in right away.  And our teens and little kids enjoyed spending time with the other missionaries in training with us at ICC.  I loved how the singles included our teens in activities they planned.  Everyone was so friendly and we were all intentional about getting to know one another and sharing in each other's lives. Outside of class time, we had meals together, played games and watched movies at each other’s homes, played volleyball, played in the snow, and just hung out.

We are grateful for our time at ICC.  While some of what we went over about living and serving in different cultures we already have some experience and knowledge about through our military career, there were great refreshers, reminders, and new information that was beneficial to prepare us for the mission field.  We really value the opportunities we had at ICC to glean from long-time missionaries, grow with new missionaries, be encouraged in our souls through study of scriptural truths and principles, and be prepared to understand our new culture and learn our new language.