Resources for preparing for cross-cultural service

// you’re reading...

« Of families and money in China

All eyes on the Middle East »

Resources

Resources for preparing for cross-cultural service

Posted by Justin Long ⋅ September 1, 2006 ⋅

Email This Post ⋅

Print This Post ⋅ View comments

Bugs, Bites & Bowels (Dr. Jane Wilson Howarth, Cadogan Books, $15.95) is a guide for travellers to the tropics, sub-tropics, mountainous regions and other remote areas where standards of medical care are often poor. It covers prevention, diagnosis and cure for a wide variety of ailments.

Another similar book is David Werner’s Where There is No Doctor—A Village Health Care Handbook (Hesperian Foundation), covering things that affect the health of villagers. Special importance is placed on cleanliness, a healthy diet, and vaccinations. Covers in detail both childbirth and family planning.

J. Herbert Kane’s Life and Work on the Mission Field (Baker Book House, $16.95) is an introduction to the complex life and work of the Christian missionary and an eye-opener for those considering and preparing for missionary service. It deals with many practical issues: support-raising, keeping in touch with one’s home church, culture shock, health on the field, educating children, coping with loneliness, adjusting to primitive living conditions, and more.

Living Overseas–A Book of Preparations (Ted Ward, The Free Press, $9.95) is another introductory text providing not only specific information necessary for a successful move, but also the awareness and sensitivity that can make an overseas assignment the experience of a lifetime. Includes information on bargaining, handling beggars, seeing sights, and choosing schools and dealing with the anxiety that often comes from not knowing local customs.

Yet another book is the Manual for Today’s Missionary–From Recruitment to Retirement (Marjorie A. Collins, William Carey Library, $10.95). This covers Covers field experience and retirement as well as missionary preparation, orientation, and training.

L. Robert Kohls wrote an excellent, short little book entitled the Survival Kit for Overseas Living (Intercultural Press, Inc). Written for Americans planning to live and work abroad, this book covers the whole range of complex issues involved in living overseas, including the mystery of culture, the influence of values, the way stereotyping occurs, strategies for entering a country to live, what questions to ask about a host culture, developing communications skills, and managing culture shock.

John Paul Jackson’s Needless Casualties of War (Streams Publications) looks at the spiritual strategies of Satan and shows how you can protect yourself and escape his unforeseen and unperceived attacks.

Practical Steps to the Mission Field is a 25-page booklet published by AIMS covering the definition of a missionary, preparation for missions, stages of preparation, stages of work, ways to go, finances and communications. Includes suggested books for reading.

When you’re ready to come home, Peter Jordan’s Re-Entry—Making the Transition from Missions to Life at Home (YWAM Publishing, $7.99) will help. Writing from experience of counseling hundreds of returning missionaries, the authors share the re-entry challenges and opportunities awaiting missionaries returning from field service.

Neal Pirolo writes for those who stay at home but are interested in mission in Serving as Senders (Emmaus Road International, $7.95). Those who go and those who send are like two units on the same cross-cultural outreach team. Both are equally important, dynamically integrated, and moving toward the same goal.

Traveling with a child? Mauren Wheeler’s Travel with Children (Lonely Planet publications, $9.95) can show you how, with the right preparation, there are few places you can’t go or things you can’t do with a children in tow.