As our world changes rapidly each day, caring for mission workers has become increasingly important and crucial. Susan Strong, Member Care Coordinator for SIM couples and families, is part of a team dedicated to providing pastoral care to equip and support workers to not just survive but thrive on the mission field.  

Mission workers preparing to serve with SIM can come from truly diverse and complex backgrounds. The Member Care Team’s goal therefore is to help alleviate and deal with any difficulties that an applicant may face, whether that be physical, spiritual, or emotional. 

“SIM wanted to create a tool that would help prepare our mission workers prior to departure and then support them with individualised care while on the field. The question we asked ourselves is how can we provide support for people from a variety of emotional and social backgrounds? We want to be wise with how we care spiritually for our workers rather than pretending they have no struggles in their lives,” said Susan.  

EMBRACING GRACE  

To equip everyone in this area of emotional wellbeing, Susan, along with Doreen Thomas, Personnel Director, developed the SIM Embracing Grace tool which the member care team helps facilitate. This tool enables understanding, acknowledgement, and exploration of challenges that all people face either in their past or possibly in their present.  

Embracing Grace enables mission workers to move towards any reconciliation, forgiveness and healing they may need to do before they go on the mission field. This then becomes a way of equipping and supporting our workers for the long haul, and a tool they can bring to any context. 

Embracing Grace also helps our workers to be equipped to navigate various issues that they may face on the field such as battling language learning, sometimes disunity in teams, mismatch in skills to ministry need, reduction in financial support, boundaries, family, self-care, education for kids, and aging parents. 

HELPING WORKERS THRIVE DESPITE CHALLENGES 

SIM is committed to supporting mission workers at every stage of their journey. Embracing Grace and other mission learning tools are a small step towards us helping to develop the resilience of our workers and their reliance on God, so they feel heard, they feel seen, they don’t feel alone, and that they know that someone is ‘in their corner.’ Susan went on to say that it is a privilege every day to walk alongside and journey with our workers as they are sent and empowered to share the Gospel in difficult places. 

PRAY 

Pray for our Susan and the Member Care Team as they continue to provide guidance, love and compassion to help workers thrive in their context. For more prayer points, visit sim.org.au/strong.  

GIVE 

Consider giving a financial gift to our Home Ministry Team to enable the work of equipping and sending workers to places where Jesus’ name is not yet known. Your gift enables resilience for our workers through member care in a changing world.   

Please visit sim.org.au/homeministryfund for more details.  

GO

To help you engage with Global Mission, you can find a range of SIM resources by visiting sim.org.au/mission-resources.  

If you are interested in cross-cultural work or preparing yourself for overseas mission work, speak to one of our Mission Mobilisers today by visiting sim.org.au/talktous.