Editor’s note: Global Missionary Partners, like Adam Lee, are national church-planting partners based overseas who work with IMB teams but are fully funded through a local church, a network of churches or a Baptist convention. This article has been translated to English.
I’m from Taiwan and I’ve been serving as a Global Missionary Partner in Africa for about six months. In this time, I learned to humble myself and make myself equal to everyone. I learned to love others, identify with them, embrace their culture and study their language. I’ve seen that when I do this, people can feel it. In return, they will identify with me.
A rainbow reminds Adam Lee, Global Missionary Partner, that God's promises still hold true. The young Taiwanese missionary works alongside an IMB to share the gospel in Africa. IMB Photo
One testimony I have about this is with my French teacher. She is a Muslim and my teammates and I have embraced her. We’ve been to her house to visit and eat an African meal. We ate in the traditional way, using our hands, even though it was very different for us in our Taiwanese culture.
Through this, she felt our love for her and understood that we saw her as family. On a Muslim holiday, we attended the festival with her in her hometown. It was my first time to be part of this holiday.
In his first six months, Adam Lee has learned to embrace a new culture. This has allowed the Taiwanese Global Missionary Partner to be accepted in his new place of ministry in Africa. IMB Photo
The entire village, nearly 10,000 people, went to a large open area to worship their god and listen to teachings from the Koran. There were rows and rows of men at the front, with women and children at the back.
We had never attended this worship activity before, but I began to sense God was at work in this place. My teammates and I prayed God would have compassion on the crowd. I know God was really moving. Why do I know this?
Well, as they worshiped, after not even five minutes, the whole venue was suddenly dismissed. We asked our teacher why everyone was dismissed. She told us the microphone broke. Because of this, the worship service was over in a short time.
So, we really felt that God is a God who hears our prayers. In that meeting of 10,000 people that only happens once a year, why did their equipment break? Isn’t this God’s work? If not, then whose?
At that time, we felt God is really a God who hears prayers, and He is really coming to rescue them.
So, if we want to experience God at work, we have to go out where He is working. When we walk with God, we don’t need to walk out in front of Him, but just in step with Him. If we pray to God, He will show us that He is indeed with us.
The IMB has a goal of mobilizing 500 Global Missionary Partners to work alongside IMB teams by 2025.
Names have been changed for security.