Message from the Executive Director

by Richard Haney

I recently taught some history lessons from the Perspectives missions course. Lesson 8, “Pioneers of the World Christian Movement,” includes William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Cameron Townsend and Donald McGavran. Carey and Taylor took the Gospel to the coastlands of India and inland China in the 1800s. Townsend founded Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1934, and McGavran organized Fuller Seminary’s School of World Mission in 1965.

We honor the legacy of trailblazers who carried the Good News throughout the world. We realize, however, that numerous stories remain hidden or rarely told— and many of these unsung heroes are women.

A closer look at history reveals mission pioneers like Gladys Aylward, who went to China in the 1930s to serve at an inn for traveling caravans. She later became a health ambassador to support the local government’s efforts to end the custom of female foot binding, preaching as she went from village to village, and rescued 100 orphans during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Mildred Cable and sisters Evangeline and Francesca French spent 15 years ministering to the unreached across 1,000 miles of the Gobi Desert. Dr. Helen Roseveare served for two decades in the Congo, building hospitals and training medical workers. Despite enduring imprisonment and abuse at the hands of rebel forces during the civil war in the 1960s, she later continued her ministry as she helped the nation rebuild.

On the home front, we celebrate our associate director, Telile Badecha, who recently earned a Doctor of Ministry degree and is committed to sharing the Gospel with her Arsi Oromo people. We need to hear and tell these stories as we mobilize young women in the next generations of cross-cultural workers.

This issue of the Frontier Journal is focused on women in Central Asia. We’re happy to welcome a new associate director, Rita Johnson, who served many years as a mission worker in the region. Rita adds capacity to our partnership efforts in this area of the world that faces many barriers to the Good News of Jesus and where women suffer from various forms of marginalization, abuse and lack of opportunity.

As our team travels throughout the world, we encounter places where women have unique access to conversations, perspectives and opportunities rarely available to men. I’m grateful for co-laborers who help us engage in these contexts, caring for and elevating the lives of women in their communities. We believe women are essential to the growth and leadership of the global Church as teachers, preachers, artists, counselors, scholars, social workers, translators, healthcare providers and every calling in between.

As God continues to empower women to take the Good News to the world’s frontiers, let’s open wide the doors for more to build and serve His Kingdom.