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World Evangelism Fund
Through the generous giving of Nazarenes to World Evangelism Fund (WEF), the denomination has provided the infrastructure in Malawi and Romania for Jon and Margaret Scott to serve there as missionaries, and for local and national leaders to set vision for and carry out partnerships with collaborating local churches in other parts of the world.
 
Learn more or give now. 

Decades of partnerships fuel missionaries' hopes for Africa

By Margaret Scott on March 23, 2012
 
Editor's note: Missionary Margaret Scott spent time during her journey back to the U.S., earlier this year, reflecting on highlights of her missionary career.
 
Today is the day Jon and I take leave of one heartland -- Malawi -- then fly in three planes to arrive at another heartland -- Boston. Today starts in summer and ends in winter. Today has 9 hours added to it so it has 33 hours instead of 24. Today started as we managed to put all of our things into only three suitcases (a record low for us, I think).  On campus at NTCCA (Nazarene Theological College of Central Africa), we circled up with beloved faculty members and students for one more time of prayer together.
 
Sigh.
 
We leave Malawi with many hopes:
  • that the bachelors’ level study programs offered by both Africa Nazarene University in Kenya and Nazarene Theological College of South Africa to our diploma graduates will succeed with learners in and around Lilongwe;
  • that the three Work & Witness teams scheduled for 2012 plus some other visitors will be able to stay on campus in order to avoid the brunt of the continual fuel shortages;
  • that our most vulnerable friends, the refugees, may gain gracious favor in the hearts of those who are able to help them;
  • that our long-time friend and co-worker, Rev. Albino Banda, from Mozambique, will get corrective surgery for the back injury that has sidelined him from active ministry for months;
  • that health and strength will continue to be granted to church leaders in Malawi for the heavy challenges they face day after day. The shortages of fuel and electricity are definitely among these challenges, but shortages of leaders trained properly for management, hospitality, accounting, special education, early childhood education and curriculum design also make the task heavier for the current leaders.
These hopes move us to pray more often and more specifically. These hopes also reinforce our belief that cross-cultural partnerships within the global Church are one of the most significant keys to the completion of Jesus’ mission charged to us, His disciples.
 
Complementary strengths
I come away from Malawi very certain that we in America, Europe and Asia, who are apparently “richer,” have an important role to play as partners with the Church in Africa and other world areas where the Church is growing so fast. We bring to partnerships strengths like expertise, experience, material resources, planning and organizational skills. Our optimistic, “we-can-do-it” attitude is also a strength we have (as long as it’s tempered by careful listening to our African partners).
 
Christians from other cultures bring different gifts to our joint efforts – they contribute patience, long-suffering, faith, cheerfulness, resourcefulness, songs and dance. They bless us with these gracious strengths, wrought in the fires of difficulties and even suffering.
 
In the most successful partnerships, the Africans also contribute forgiveness. They forgive us for the decades of unfair practices and double standards that were used by most of the colonizers and even by some of the early missionaries. With forgiveness and mutual respect in place, and with people on both sides motivated by the love of Christ (not by desire for personal gain), cross-cultural partnerships can provide great benefits for all the participants.
 
Partnering with Romania
Partnerships seem to be a relevant, rather new way for Nazarenes to personally participate in the Great Commission (see sidebar links for more information). The success of cross-cultural partnerships depends on relationships that are enhanced by good communication, teammanship, selflessness, flexibility and trust.
 
During our years as global missionaries of the Church of the Nazarene in Romania and Malawi, we have been the partners hosting on foreign soil for several State-side initiatives that have been very successful.
 
In 1992, at the beginning of the Nazarene work in Romania, three groups partnered with the infant church. Dr. Randall Craker, then pastor of a local church in Kirkland, Washington, U.S., visited us, and recruited volunteer missionaries and Work & Witness teams for the first three years of the work. Almost 200 people came with vision and love to bless Romanians because of his partnership with us on the field.
 
The second set of partners came to Romania from Great Britain. They came in droves, driving lorry loads of donated goods, time after time, for more than a decade. Some of the Nazarenes there organized a formal charity called “RomAid” which spearheaded the truly amazing demonstrations of compassion from Northwest Europe. Others organized Work & Witness teams and short-term volunteers from their local churches in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
 
The third partnership group to Romania came from New England. Waves of volunteers came to help us conduct compassionate ministries and to start the Church of the Nazarene. One came to stay -- Professor Dorothy Tarrant, who only now in 2011 is retiring from the innovative Semester Abroad Program she envisioned, then established, first in Bucharest then in the geo-center of the country, Sighisoara. Students, faculty and other New Englanders poured themselves into people in Romania.

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Partnership built on relationship
Jon and I made a list one time of over 900 people who visited Romania during the first eight years of the Nazarene work there. Dozens, maybe even hundreds, of meaningful relationships are still flourishing between Romanians and people from afar who responded to Romania in the hour of need and flocked in to be their friends.
 
Effective and significant cross-cultural partnership between Mozambique and the Northwest U.S. is another beautiful story which Randall Craker, now superintendent of the Northwest District, U.S., tells very well. Also Rev. David Rodes, now pastor of Puyallup Church of the Nazarene, in Washington, U.S., shares how a short visit to Zimbabwe lit a fire in him that burns for Africa and led him to partnership with us years ago in Northern Mozambique and then in Malawi for the last four years. Effective partnering results in transforming infrastructures and systems through changed lives and empowered leadership.
 
Our second plane is about to board to fly to our stopover in Europe. We leave Africa on it – but Africa will never leave us. We are partnered for life! The longest day continues, but the whole story never ends.
 
-- Jon and Margaret Scott have been Nazarene missionaries since 1974. They served in Malawi since July of 2007, and previously served in Mozambique from 2002. They have also served in Portugal, the Azores and Romania. In each assignment they have worked in leadership development. They opened the work of the Church of the Nazarene in Romania in 1992 with an initial emphasis on compassionate ministries, and then education and leadership development.
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