MK forum

this is not entirely inconsistent with my long ago post in which i estimated that, at any given time, there are no more than 5% of NTM'ers physically located in a tribe. the rest are elsewhere...telling others they should go to a tribe, getting marriage counseling back "home", supporting support workers, vacationing in their home countries for months on end, selling stuff on the side using various multi-level marketing schemes, "representing" NTM, and other essential activities without which the 5% actually located in tribes could not function properly. It's an interesting 95/5 methodology.

Nicely put, Thai MK!

It's atrocious, really.

There's also the strategy employed by several couples I know personally (so I can only imagine that it is currently in use by many others), which is that you can spend a huge majority of your time living in your comfortable home in the United States, but still list a foreign field as your country of service, as long as you make occasional longish visits over there. Visits during which you do something more productive than lounge on the beach, of course.

This keeps everyone happy, healthy, impressed and generous.

(It's a challenge drinking my morning coffee with my tongue lodged in my cheek. How are you managing, Thai MK?)

Ah, I just learned that this creative strategy of working looong distance from passport-country home has a name!

They call it "itinerant ministry assignment"!

Just think of the possibilities! Through the miracle of the internet, one no longer needs to sweat out your life swatting bugs in a muggy office room of your tribal hut to get your translation work done! Isn't this amazing!

I bet we could come up with some out-of-the-box suggestions for these aging missionaries located all over America. Ways they could expand their ministries even further. How 'bout a Chronological Teaching Through Facebook page? Or You Tube literacy classes?

Or maybe, since not all of the tribal villages have internet cafes yet, someone should distribute simple record players, and record sermons on vinyl records.

They could call it Gospel Recordings.

No, wait .... I think I've heard that one before ....

Could always get one of those drone things and drop the recordings. They can be remotely operated from anywhere in the world.

So it's called "Itinerant Ministry Assignment" ay? Hmmmm, not really ministry, me thinks, more sort of "Creative Whereabouts".

Yes, this takes "Creative Access" to a new level.

Creative access to The Money.

The words "bitter" and "bitterness" keep cropping up in correspondence with Tribers and ex Tribers. Sometimes it just slips into conversation and sometime it is used as a deliberately accusatory label.
The more appropriate word is "hurt", which is a justifiable emotion given the trauma that so many have suffered.
To label victims as "bitter" because they speak out, is a symptom of "cult" thinking. To act with compassion and recognise the "hurt" in others lives is a sign of humanity.

So true, Bemused. I wish we could eliminate the word "bitter" entirely. It is very subjective and very judgmental. Sometimes people are passionate, emotional, even angry. Labelling them as bitter is such an easy excuse for marginalizing and minimizing them, or ignoring them.

I like this saying I read today, and I think it relates to this subject:

"Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded.
It's a relationship between equals.
Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.
Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity."

Pema Chodron