Missionaries are sent out to proclaim the message of Christ and care for the world but who cares for the missionary and proclaims the message to them?
What happens, for example, when a missionary loses a child? Or, who helps the missionary recover from an unhealthy team dynamic? What about if there was a moral failure or they were sexually harassed by the people they were ministering to? What about if they saw such an abundance of fruit from their ministry that they had worked themselves out of a job? These are all very real situations that missionaries live through and sometimes, they can be very wounding or hard to navigate.
David and Heidi Onken (pictured with their 5 kids) work for Cru (formally Campus Crusade for Christ) and help give direction to a program Cru has developed for situations just like those listed above. Every year, their team welcomes around 50 missionaries from all over the World for a 10-month program (called Lake Hart Stint) where they walk alongside these missionaries who are needing healing and/or direction for anything from post-traumatic stress disorder to transitioning back to living in America after having been gone 30 years.
They themselves have served with Cru for over 15 years with 8 of those years being in Paris, France for David and 14 years in France for Heidi. They have 5 kids with the first 3 being born in France and the littlest 2 in the States. They are currently living in Orlando, Florida (the headquarters of Cru) and would love your prayers and to share more with you about their ministry.
