“We’ve spent a lot of time trying to encourage parents to release their children to the mission field,” Rachel says, “but now we’re saying to young adult couples who have babies and need grandma and grandpa nearby, ‘You need to release your parents to go!’” 

Dan and Rachel work at Ashland Grace Church in Ohio, and this was a need they noticed after returning from a recent ministry trip to Southeast Asia. Rachel says, “We had one couple on our team who said their kids were not excited about them going.” They told her, “You know, because we babysit while our kids go to work, and now they have to find somebody to cover for us.” 

Rachel says, “So now our challenge to young couples is: Let your parents go!” Oh what an ironic twist of fate this is…. 

The need for young couples to release their parents to the mission field might be getting greater and greater. In recent years, Encompass has noticed an uptick in retirees who are interested in participating in international missions. And there are plenty of ways for them to serve:

• Coaching: With many global workers now embracing business as missions models, Dan says, “People like us who have been in business have so much value to offer with their questions and their insights.” On their recent trip, they found that the global workers were asking for their opinions on how to improve their business ministry.
• Teaching English: In many countries, people are eager to learn English because of how many doors it opens to new opportunities. Rachel says, “If you’re a local who is willing to teach people English, you might get a dozen people who are interested, but if you’re a native English speaker, you’ll have 100 people show up!” People just want a native English speaker to converse with, and that can always lead to gospel opportunities.
• Being Grandparents to MKs: On their recent trip, Dan and Rachel’s team didn’t realize how helpful they would be by serving as surrogate grandparents to the missionary kids. Missionary kids don’t get to see their grandparents often, so they were extremely grateful when Dan and Rachel’s team took several of them to the zoo and just did “normal grandparent things” with them. 

Reflecting on their trip, Rachel concludes, “I think I had overestimated the fact that I can’t speak the language or do the big stuff, but I underestimated how much of an encouragement I could be by doing the little stuff like playing uno or changing diapers to free up the missionaries.”

After hearing about Dan and Rachel’s recent trip, we’re reminded of how global missions is a sacrifice for all parties involved. It’s a sacrifice for the goers to leave their comfort zones, it’s a sacrifice for the financial partners to invest their finances, and it’s a sacrifice for the people who stay home and feel the absence of one being sent. 

The important thing for us to remember is that we’re all in this Great Commission together, and whatever we let go for the sake of the gospel will be well worth our sacrifices in the long run.

If you know someone struggling to release their loved ones to the mission field, please share this article with them.