Shannon's Corner

Ready.  Set.  Equipped. These past two weeks have been packed full with learning, activities, worship, and fun.  Some of the classes have been on truth, what is it?, worldview, contextualization, conflict resolution, family matters, team dynamics, and multicultural teams.  This past Friday we finished with a wrap-up of all we learned these past four weeks and where we are, celebration, and saying good-byes to our fellow classmates who are leaving. My class was divided into six different groups and we each had to make up a culture based on the criteria that we were given for our culture.  My group's culture was called Nupe.  We were a collectivistic group, had one voice for the group who made the final decisions but yet we were a culture with power.  We are a part of a multicultural team and we were getting ready to plan a week long conference with everyone.  The Nupe culture was assigned worship for the conference.  We had to decide wh...

I am really blessed to be able to have this opportunity to come to Union Mills, North Carolina to receive training on equipping missionaries for 4 weeks.  The course is equipping for cross-cultural life and ministry.  Equipping the heart and mind of the servant.  Before the training began we were given two books to read prior to arrival, "Cross-Cultural Connections" by Duane Elmer and "The 3D Gospel" by Jayson Georges, along with some online assignments. The two weeks since I have been at CIT have been very intense, overload, overwhelming, but very rewarding.  Just to give you a list of some of the topics we have covered are transitions, characteristics of effective teams, mind styles, ethnocentrism, views of culture, tools for cultural awareness, folk religion, spiritual warfare, sexual purity, moveable marriage, singles in missions, genders matters, cross-cultural communication, social context, what is truth, and worldview.  There are still two more weeks. ...

SHANNON’S CORNER July 2016 The last two weeks of our summer program has been great!  We had all 17 of our interns back in Jarabacoa to celebrate the 4 th of July together.  It was a fun weekend with fun activities such as hiking to a waterfall, running a maratón (race) with the kids from the Ark Children’s Home and finished with a BBQ.  It was such a blessing to hear as everyone shared a struggle they have faced, a surprise they have had, and any prayer requests.  Many of our interns shared that their struggle was also where they found their surprise—an “Ah-ha” moment with God. Some of my favorite things that I have done this summer are building relationships with our interns and some of our missionaries.  I enjoy listening to people’s stories and how God is working in their lives.  I enjoy listening to their struggles which there have been some conflicts between some, yet how they are looking and searching f...