The Last 12 Feet

Before arriving here, our time at the mission house was incredibly sweet. We were constantly surrounded by people who saw every part of our journey to the mission field through a lens of deep understanding. We were with our people, those who knew the long road behind us and the call ahead.

The CIT cohort has taken that sense of community to the next level.

Here, we are two of nineteen people standing on the precipice of very similar transitions. We’re all headed to different places and different ministries, but we’re walking through this preparation season side by side. Among our cohort are people preparing for things like:

• Ministry among Vietnamese refugees in the floating villages of Cambodia

• Establishing a youth program alongside a village church plant in Lesotho

• Opening a coffee shop and community center to disciple new believers in Albania

…and so many other incredible callings.

While the locations and assignments vary, we share a singular focus: to glorify King Jesus to the ends of the earth. Scripture says we overcome “by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony,” and hearing story after story of God’s faithfulness has been such a gift. We are continually encouraged as we watch how God is at work in His people, as he draws us to Himself and sends us around the world.

Honestly, the people part of this training has been the part we needed most, and we didn’t even know it.

Alongside those relationships, we’re being deeply stretched in how we think about culture, humility, and presence. One of the strongest themes woven through our training has been a call to enter new cultures with open hearts and open minds. We’ve spent significant time wrestling with the idea of ethnocentrism, the often unconscious belief that our own culture, values, and ways of doing things are superior.

As one definition puts it, ethnocentrism is “the unconscious tendency to interpret or judge other cultures in terms of one’s own cultural categories.” Another describes it as a blinder, something that prevents us from seeing the world through the eyes of others.

We’ve been challenged to honestly confess the biases and assumptions we carry, many of which run far deeper than we’d like to admit. One quote that has especially stayed with us notes that sometimes the first 12,000 miles of a cross-cultural journey are the easiest. The last 12 feet, the daily, close, ordinary interactions with people, can be the most challenging of all

As we reflect and grieve over the things happening in the U.S. and around the world, we’ve found ourselves asking hard questions. What would it look like if we approached people not with an urgency to fix behavior, but with a posture of curiosity and compassion? What if we prioritized understanding stories before offering solutions? What if we trusted that the light of the gospel is powerful enough to meet people in the dark places, both around us and within us?

This season is teaching us that missions isn’t just about going somewhere new. It’s about being changed, together, before we ever arrive.

It’s hard to believe we’re already in week three of training.

We came into this season honestly not knowing what to expect. And even now, it would be difficult to fully express everything we’ve learned and experienced so far. What we can say with confidence is this: we are deeply grateful we said yes to coming.

The relationships we’ve built and the content we’ve been able to study have been absolutely priceless.