Thank you for being a part of this journey with us.
We invite you to take a moment to discover and celebrate what God has accomplished through our team in South Asia over the years. Here, you’ll have the opportunity to listen to an inspiring conversation with a former South Asia missionary and/or read a text inspired by his challenging and humbling perspective on missions. We hope this encourages you to continue firm in your own faith journey. Enjoy!
The Transformative Power of God's Kingdom
A simple story from South Asia, one of many, illustrates beautifully some of the abundant fruit God has granted to us as we have worked toward our mission. In 2018, a graduate came out of our South Asia program. While there, she was trained, equipped, challenged, and encouraged by our overseas staff in her pursuit of God’s calling on her life. After spending three months with Cafe 1040, she felt prepared to take the Gospel to the most unreached parts of the world. When she returned home she quickly began interviewing with long-term sending agencies and was deployed two years later to a country in the 1040 window. For several years now she has lived and served in this nation, forming deep relationships with the lost and seeking daily to tell them of the good news of Jesus. Her life is a great representation of what we dream about at Cafe 1040 - a young adult giving her life to tell the story of Jesus where it has never been told. We praise God for this student, and for the many other graduates like her who are now faithfully working out their role in the Great Commission.
But if you look underneath the surface, there is so much more to this story than what first meets the eye. As told above from 30,000 feet, the trajectory of this student’s life appears to be a straight line from graduating our program to faithful, fruitful long-term missions work. However, like many young, aspiring missionaries, that wasn’t the case. As God would have it, this student began her time overseas during what quickly exploded into a global pandemic. The outbreak was severe in the country where she serves, and within a short time it had gone into a strict lockdown. Suddenly, all of her visions for what life on the mission field would look like were shattered and she was confronted with an unpleasant reality: this is harder than I expected.
And she isn’t alone.
As human beings, we often experience the painful realization that expectations and reality are rarely the same thing. Faulty assumptions affect us in whatever we do and wherever we go, and that includes embarking on a missions mentorship to South Asia. Consequently, many of our South Asia students have initially faced discouragement when they witness God working in ways that don’t match their presuppositions. It’s one of the greatest challenges faced by new missionaries. Over time, however, through experience many of them learn a valuable lesson: we don’t celebrate and praise God for what we expect Him to do, but for what He has done regardless of our expectations. And the only way to do this is to fix our eyes on Jesus. It’s by looking at Him that our perspectives are transformed to see what is really taking place.
During His earthly ministry, as Jesus was preaching about the Kingdom of God from town to town and working miracles at every turn, He asks this question: "What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?" (Luke 13:18) Before hearing Jesus' answer it might be good for us to reflect on what we would say. What is the kingdom of God like?
The word “Kingdom” usually conjures up grand images of castles and kings. For this reason, often when we pray “Your Kingdom come” and go out into the nations saying “Your will be done”, we expect and hope to see our missionary efforts succeed rapidly with the force of a conquering army. With this in mind, we would probably expect Jesus to compare the kingdom of God to something that matches our ideals, maybe likening it to an unstoppable hurricane or a consuming fire that envelops everything it touches. But what does our Lord say?
"It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden…" (Luke 18:19)
It’s by looking at Him that our perspectives are transformed to see what is really taking place.
Talk about anticlimactic. This is a far-cry from the metaphors most of us would choose to describe God’s rule and reign extending over the face of the earth. But Jesus isn't trying to give us a picture of the splendor of heaven; there are other places in the Bible for that. What Jesus is trying to get across is the slow-moving, steady-growing, expectation-shattering transformative power of God's Kingdom. The power that we have seen at work in our ministry in South Asia, North Africa, and Southeast Asia for the last twenty years.
While we have taken time to celebrate some of the stories that illustrate the mission and vision of Cafe 1040, we also want to reflect on the consistent Kingdom advancement we have been a part of that doesn't often show itself as clearly and dramatically. In other words, we want to pull back the dirt to reveal the deep roots that we believe are growing underneath.
For starters, our entire program was designed with this view of God's Kingdom in mind. It's why our trips last for twelve weeks rather than twelve days; we want students to get a taste of the long-term commitment often required of those who pray "Your kingdom come". And by God's grace, many do. Testimonies abound of both students and staff who started with us overseas filled with a big-picture, tent revival vision of success only to find themselves weak and humbled as they came to grips with their inability to force a seed to quickly become a tree. Through this often painful process, their zeal, confidence, and energy are tempered with much-needed patience, humility, and prayerful trust in God. Witnessing this heart transformation is one of our greatest joys.
But what happens after these students return home? Are they then immediately sent out to launch effective ministries among the unreached? Some are, but most are not. Again, we are reminded of the seed. Our role in sending the next generation is to plant and nurture Kingdom values and desires in their hearts, but only "God gives the growth" (1 Cor. 3:6). This means we have to be content with His timeline. Though the student described above was sent out in a relatively short time, many of those who come through our program at 19 may not be deployed as missionaries until they are 29, and some may never go at all. For this reason our goal has never been that everyone should go, but rather that those who do go, whether in six months or twenty years, go well.
And that is exactly what happened with our South Asia graduate who began her time as a long-term missionary in the midst of a global pandemic. While facing unprecedented challenges beyond what anyone could have imagined, she sent an email to one of our staff members who helped to equip her in South Asia. An email full of gratitude. She wrote that despite the difficulty of her situation, she felt that what she had learned from our program gave her the long-term vision she needed to persevere. So she decided to stay where God had placed her, and the result has been increased credibility in her community, more opportunities to share the Gospel, and a significant deepening of relationships. The fruit of steadfastness.
While we hope to see hundreds more students come through our program and be sent out to the unreached, we hope even more to see faithful cultivators of this mustard seed planted around the world. We want to seek after the steady growth of God's Kingdom as it penetrates all nations through the faithful work of committed Christians. And we know that in God's timing we will see what Jesus promised:
…and [the mustard seed] grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
As you consider partnering with us this year, we hope you are reminded along with us of the great joy it is to serve the Lord as He is making Himself known among all nations. His Kingdom is guaranteed to flourish. Thank you for joining us in the sometimes slow-moving, steady-growing, expectation-shattering work that requires.
