What happens when tentmakers return home after their job contracts have ended and their work visas have expired? In my 22 years of mobilizing tentmakers through mentoring, equipping and follow up, most end up off the radar which makes it hard to track their journeys. It is an unfortunate part of this ministry as the relationships that get built during the process are valuable.

Here are some of the stories of returned tentmakers

Some attend further tentmaker training courses and are urgently wanting to return to a new job so they can continue their mission. The return to the field rate is fairly high among them.

Most do not return. Many are disappointed in themselves feeling they have failed and have nothing to share about their time abroad. Yet, there are many stories of how God has taken the seeds that have been planted and made something miraculous. Discipleship movements have started even though the tentmaker has no recollection of having had a faith conversation with anyone. But that is another story.

God sends them to us

One tentmaker who had been in the country long enough to get fluent in the local language was kicked out of a closed country for passing on a Christian book. He was devastated and had to return home.

Many years later, people from that culture and language group started arriving as refugees to the tentmaker’s own country. These people did not speak any other language except their own. The returned tentmaker started working with these refugees as an interpreter and helping them settle. He was also instrumental in getting Scriptures translated into their language.

It is widely known that during their first months in a new country, refugees are most open to the Gospel. There are hundreds of churches in Europe that have been started among refugees from many countries.

As someone has said, we couldn’t go to them, so God sent them to us.

Equipping the next generation

Other tentmakers have joined training teams and are now teaching new ones to get ready.

Most, if not all, have a profound sense of the urgency for mission work among the unreached and are involved in their churches and others have joined mission agencies to mobilize others.

God is not finished

God is not finished with us even when our own evaluations of ministry success are limited to human understanding.

By Ari Rocklin