Webinar: Honoring and Caring for Missionary Seniors

Description:

Current demographics indicate that more and more workers in our mission organizations are reaching retirement age. We appropriately allocate resources to get new workers to the field. However, we often fail to, or don’t know how to, care for and honor the faithful saints who have invested their lives serving the Lord through our organizations. For several years, a number of people from a wide variety of organizations have been meeting to discuss this issue and share best practices to honor and care for the senior saints in our midst. This “Alliance for Missionary Seniors” will be hosting a webinar where we discuss some of the biggest challenges facing our seniors and share suggestions that may lead to better practices for dealing with these challenges.

Presenters:

John Lewis, Pioneers
John is married 29 years to Heather and has three sons. They served 12 years in Turkey and 2 years in Uzbekistan with Pioneers. They left for field in 2004 mid-career (Accountant) returned to TX to care for aging parents & help with college transition for boys. Now serving as Director of Alumni Network Director which is a relatively new initiative at Pioneers whose purpose is to cultivate meaningful connections with Pioneers Alumni (i.e. former employees) for encouragement and potential Kingdom Impact.

Sara Krupke, SIM
Sara is the Retiree Coordinator for SIM USA and has been in this role for 3 ½ years. As retiree coordinator, she cares for those that have retired from SIM USA as well as help prepare active missionaries for retirement. Prior to joining SIM, she spent many years teaching children and leading a children’s ministry program. She is also a wife to Nathan and a mom to Trevor, Kristin & Samantha.

Jim Thorp, WorldVenture
Jim served with his wife, Corinne, in North Brazil for 18 years doing church planting and leadership development. Then moved to Mozambique for three years training leaders and working with churches. For the next 14 years, they were the Global Director for the Americas with WorldVenture, basing in Brazil and then Oregon. They stepped out of their role the end of April 2022 and will continue to lead the Emeritus Seminar on retirement each year. Jim finished his doctorate in Member Care at Columbia International University in 2021.

Rachael Powell, South America Mission
Rachael and her husband David have been members of South America Mission for 42 years, having served in Peru for 38 of those years.  Their ministry focused mainly on teaching Bible, both to indigenous and non-indigenous Peruvians, in various settings: Bible institutes, church biblical academies, Bible studies, mentoring and discipleship of individuals and small groups, and missionary children’s school.  In addition, David served in field leadership and Rachael taught continuing education to nurses in a local hospital. Soon to be retired, Rachael and David continue to disciple and encourage Peruvians through online communication. Rachael recently began volunteering as SAM’s Retirement Coordinator.

David Greenlee, Operation Mobilization

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