Before leaving for Portugal, I sent out a prayer letter to my “One Minute Prayer team” (established in 2001), asking for people to pray that we would find key people at the course who would step up to be a part of a tentmaking movement in Portugal.

Imagine my joy on meeting one lady engineer. She was so excited about the tentmaking model which she had never heard about. She wanted to be part of a team to promote and inspire people from Portugal to become tentmakers. She made me promise to return for future courses which she would help to promote. Lord willing of course.

As my flight from Lisbon to Vancouver arrived very late in the evening, I needed to take my first ever Uber ride to my homestay for the night.

The driver’s name and picture appeared on the app which indicated that odds were good that he was a Muslim. It is rare to get a heads up that you are about to meet someone with whom you can share your faith.

Well, this time, I had 10 minutes to focus and pray for divine leading for a 20-minute ride.

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.

As we have been running tentmaker courses in a dozen countries to hundreds of new candidates, the fact remains that not everyone ends up going to the unreached. Some join traditional mission agencies and see that as a valid model of mission for themselves. Even as the challenge of raising funds gets tougher, the mission agency model is still by far the larger vehicle for mobilizing and sending new missionaries.

A developing trend is for tentmakers to be directly sent by their home church.

We have seen many mission agency leaders and staff at our courses. They have taken what has been learned to change the direction of their agency. This is one of the most encouraging outcomes of our work.