Do not neglect to show hospitality…for you may be hosting angels without knowing it.

There is an urgent need for returned tentmakers to find a place to live temporarily, to regroup and to rest as they try to learn what God’s next steps are for their lives.

The pandemic has thrown almost every tentmaker we know into a challenging time. Will we ever be able to return? What do we do in the meantime? What do we tell our friends, families and our church?

In 2007, I was walking and praying for the many Kingdom professionals that are a part of my ministry and my family. I was grieved over a recent email from one of them, who was nearing burnout and whose job contract was about to end. They had nowhere to go once they got back to their home country. This is a fairly common occurrence and even though they can stay with family and friends, it is not always an ideal situation for reflection and restoration.

During my walk that day, I felt God challenging me to do something about this. “You help people go to the darkest places on the planet where they are my emissaries, now build them a place where they can find rest and hear my voice.”

I immediately thought that this was a great idea, but where would the money come from? I felt God saying: “That I leave up to you.” The vision was the easy part; finding the resources to do it would require a miracle.

How can the wonderful, connected world of instant communication be seen as a challenge? Are these “channels” not an incredible way to remain connected with family, friends, co-workers and even the church back home? Have you noticed that most video calls are now high definition?

The vision of every tentmaker I have ever worked with is to bring the Gospel message to hard places, where few if any Jesus followers are seen or heard. It takes a commitment to that vision every day if we are to see people being transformed and disciples being made.

As I review conversations and meetings with tentmakers from the past year, a few frequent issues have become increasingly prevalent. The first of these is cultural adaptation. One would think that in our connected world, cultural differences would slowly melt away as people travel more and interact with people from other cultures in their own homelands, particularly when you factor in the desire to reach another culture group with the Gospel.

The often-quoted four stages of culture shock first proposed by Kalervo Oberg, a Finnish Canadian from British Columbia, puts this process into four simple stages: Honeymoon, Frustration, Adjustment and Acceptance. For some reason, people are struggling with the Frustration stage. A tremendous amount of time and energy is spent comparing the new culture with their home culture, seeing the negatives of the new and only the positives of their home.