Why do missionaries need to be "enriched"? or 'How our plans changed at the Enrichment conference"

Over the years we have attended a number of ME (Missionary Enrichment) or All Brazil conferences. What is the benefit of these conferences?, you might ask.

ABWE has specific purposes in mind when planning and requiring missionaries to attend these conferences.

The ME Conference is more global in nature, involving ABWE leadership, staff and missionaries from around the world. Spiritual enrichment is provided to encourage and challenge the missionaries. Times of sharing vision and focus are shared by our president, Paul Davis. Missionaries displaying faithful service over many years are acknowledged as a way to encourage them and others. Workshops are offered to treat many special needs and situations, both ministerial and personal. We can make appointments with the different departments that serve us: financial, medical, IT, member care, etc.

Each of ABWE's regions has their own conference, gathering together the missionaries from their region providing an opportunity for fellowship with those who serve in like contexts and deal with like pressures and challenges. Spiritual enrichment is always a major ingredient as well as workshops and opportunities to meet with certain home office staff that attend..

As an example of the benefits of these conferences, we gained information at the ME conference we attended in July, that encouraged us to change the plans we had been presenting in our supporting churches the first 6 months of this year. We had been sharing with our churches that we were planning to make a "shift" in our financial support in September when Jerry turns 70, as we understood we would need to do. This would mean reducing the support we receive from churches and individuals to about 25% since we would begin taking Social Security and our ABWE pension. However, that would classify us as only serving part time and would remove us from ABWE's good health plan, yet we would be continuing in the same ministries as "full-time".

During the ME Conf., we attended workshops on retirement and had personal conversations with the Finance and Insurance Departments. They helped us to understand where we had wrong concepts and gave us some important information that caused us to adjust our previous plan. Wisdom would say we should continue in the "full time" category a bit longer. Thus, we would NOT begin taking our ABWE pension, but only Social Security, and we would continue with several other items on our financial support plan to qualify us as "full-time". This would include remaining on ABWE's wonderful overseas insurance plan long enough to care for some urgent medical issues -- like a possible hip surgery for Lynda and checking out other issues for Jerry. So until the end of the year, we would need about 50% of what we get from churches and individuals right now. This information was so very important to our tranquility of mind and planning going forward!!

We are very grateful for the way that ABWE cares for their missionaries! As an organization, ABWE does so much to prepare and train those that serve under her umbrella. ABWE has a well developed Member Care ministry to provide counsel and spiritual support. Not only does she serve in these ways, but also in helping missionaries to make the best decisions as they look ahead to the time they won't be serving so intensely, or even retiring to different types of service.