4 Ways You Can Serve: SAMS Missionary Cathy Donahoe

4 Ways You Can Serve: SAMS Missionary Cathy Donahoe

by | Sep 5, 2018 | Dominican Republic, SAMS-USA

SAMS’ long-term missionaries will go on Home Ministry Assignments (HMA) every few years to reconnect and visit with family, their home church, and Senders. SAMS Missionaries also stop into the SAMS Home Office to share their ministry happenings and to debrief their time in the field.

Cathy (right) visits the SAMS Office and gifts Associate Director with a collage of ministry photos from the Dominican Republic.

Recently, Cathy Donahoe, who serves in the Dominican Republic, made her journey back to the States to spend time with her Senders and the churches that are involved in her ministry.  Cathy serves in several ministries in the Dominican Republic. She is a physical therapist, teaching classes at the university in the capital city. She also has a consolation ministry in her neighborhood, which involves members of her church bringing words of comfort and scripture to those in the community. In the recent years, Cathy took on a construction ministry, helping restores homes in the community that were affected by last year’s hurricane. She has a full schedule in the Dominican Republic, making Home Ministry Assignment an important time of rest and renewal, and while the HMA calendar can fill up fast, there are ways to help your missionary during this transitional time. Here are four ways you can serve them:
  1. Set up a time to Share: As a church, give your missionary a designated time during the service to share how the Lord is working through their ministry. It allows those who support them to hear about how their prayers and giving have contributed. It also may inspire new people to get involved.
  2. Invite Missionaries to join your Bible study: This is a time of refreshment in the Lord for missionaries, but they may have been away for a long period of time, making it difficult to get connected with a community. Reach out and invite them to take part in your prayer or Bible Study group.
  3. Ask Intentional Questions: Let your missionary know that you want to hear about their ministry.  By showing an interest in the details of their ministry, you are letting missionaries know you care about their life and work. Some examples are:
    • What is your typical day like for you?
    • How have you seen God work in a person’s life while on the field?
    • How can I be praying for you?
  4. Be an active Listener: Sometimes just sitting and listening to someone is all the help they need. According to Serving as Senders by Neal Pirolo active listening says, “I am with you. I will take the time. I will put energy into really hearing you, not just what your surface words are saying.”
What are some ways you have served missionaries on home assignment? Missionaries, what’s a way someone has really blessed you during this time? Leave a comment!
Why Go with a Sending Organization?

Why Go with a Sending Organization?

by | Apr 16, 2018 | SAMS-USA

Are you thinking about mission, but unsure where to start? Where are you to go? How are you to serve? What about all the logistics of traveling to a different country?

The Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders is a missionary sending community. Through building relationships with the worldwide church, SAMS experience the power of God manifesting itself in the broken restored, the wounded healed, the hungry fed, and the lost found, all by the love of Christ. Serving in mission through a sending organization like SAMS-USA is worth considering for several reasons.

Missionary Care

What happens if you need assistance, support, or counsel? SAMS is committed to the Great Commandment and values caring for the people with whom God entrusts us. Meeting urgent needs during crises or transition restores and strengthens servants to either return to their ministry or find new places of fruitfulness in their lives and for the Kingdom of God.

After returning from the mission field, SAMS recognized that we were burnt out. When we went to SAMS for help, they were able to meet our needs. If it was not for the Missionary Care Fund, we may not have been able to return to the field.

John and Susan Park

SAMS Missionaries

Training

How do you prepare to go without a missionary sending organization? With SAMS, missionaries are able to go through a discernment process as well as pre-field training. Missionaries may do language learning as part of their cross-cultural training. What about when you return? There is a time of adjusting when returning from the mission field. SAMS helps Missionaries debrief their time spent in the mission field.

Without a sending agency, I might have left the field just after a year, but SAMS has been there for me praying, helping me with finances, and even visiting me.

Janine LeGrand

SAMS Missionary

Prayer Support

Prayer is powerful! With SAMS, there is a whole team of people back home praying for you. SAMS Staff is committed to praying every day for Missionaries. With tools such as a prayer calendar, the needs of Missionaries are shared and those all around the world pray for you and your ministry.

I love receiving the SAMS Prayer Calendar. It reminds me that God is working in so many different ways. As a supporter, I am part of that mission happening around the world.

A SAMS Sender

Loving and Encouraging Your Missionaries

Loving and Encouraging Your Missionaries

by | Feb 8, 2018 | SAMS-USA

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

Your SAMS Missionaries love to hear from you. Maybe you are not sure how to get involved with the missionaries you or your church send. How can we show love and encouragement to them when they are so far away? I reached out to your SAMS Missionaries and this is what they said:

  1. Sign up for their newsletters and reply to them

“It’s so encouraging when someone replies to my newsletters, especially when I can tell from their message that they read what I wrote!”

  1. Let them know you are praying for them

“It is a blessing getting notes from people who detail how they are praying for us. It conveys very powerfully that they have put a lot of thought and effort into their note.”

  1. Follow them on Social Media

“When we post things on Facebook, many of our senders will take the time to write a reply. It doesn’t have to be long, it is just nice to know they took a moment to let us know they are aware of what is happening in our lives.”

  1. Invite them to events

It is meaningful when people invite me to things when I am in the states or even to things when I am not. It reminds me that my supporters are thinking of me.”

  1. Share their ministry with others

“It blesses my socks off when folks tell others about my ministry and those folks start supporting!”

Sometimes it is the little things that encourage us all. How are you taking a second to encourage and love your missionaries, and others today? For when we show love, we show God because God is love (1 John 4:8).

Are You a Sender?

Are You a Sender?

by | Jun 22, 2017 | SAMS-USA

SAMS is made up of short-term and long-term missionaries. A huge part of SAMS are those who send them! What is a sender and are you one?

Familiar words given to us by the physician Luke:

“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” (Acts 2:44,45)

These words give a sentimental idealism to our idea of the early church. Yet, in this era of local to global, these words are more prophetic than nostalgic. Today, Senders, those who respond to God’s call to mission through prayers and donations, sell property and give sacrificially just like those early believers.

Throughout history of the church, those who journeyed out cross-culturally always had need of spiritual, moral, and physical support. Today’s cross-cultural workers are the same. Are you one of those who gives so that others might go? Maybe you never realized that you are a member of the Acts 2:44,45 club!

This week at Assembly 2017, join SAMS in prayer about how you are called to mission. Perhaps your calling is to send! Make sure to meet us at the Exhibit Hall in the Beamer Center.