The WWW
It’s called World Wide Web for a reason. It’s all over the world. This wonderful thing that makes it easier for us missionaries to keep in touch with family (I’m supposed to video chat with the fam back home in just half an hour). It allows us to stay connected to communities of other Jesus followers so that they can pray for us. It even allows us to network and share the Gospel with people that don’t know Jesus over a DSL line (I recently heard a really cool story about a Bible study with half of the people in one country and the other half in another). But one of the down sides to making the world a smaller place is that the world’s a smaller place. It becomes important that missionaries be careful about what information they share about themselves and the people they’re serving among, because it can pop up anywhere, and anywhere is just a quick search and a click away on Google no matter what country a person is in. At the same time, there’s a tension because we want to share about our work candidly, so that people can pray. Prayer is important, and we need lots of it. So if you’re a missionary, or someone who receives updates from a missionary, be careful about what you do with the information you’ve got. Use it to glorify God, but be responsible. What seems like a good story for the church bulletin which also gets posted on the church website could get someone thrown in jail. We don’t all have freedom of religion.
