Our furlough has been a blessing in several different ways. For one, we are able to share with churches we are partnered with how the Lord is working in the ministry in Argentina. Our girls have also made friends and are growing spiritually during this year. Lily and Piper have both surrendered their lives to be missionaries if that is what God has for them! Ivy believed on Jesus for salvation a few months back! Isla is only 5 years old, we are praying for her. Another blessing of furlough is that the church we planted in Lanús, Buenos Aires is continuing on and growing without us being there. Pastor Matías and the church are pushing forward and we are praying for them! Please pray for them with us.

We are on our way to a mission conference in Maryland. Please pray for our safety if it be His will and that God will use us for His glory!

Serving Together, 

Patrick, Leslie, Lily, Piper, Ivy, and Isla Henry

Missionary Spotlight: Dallas and Ashley Brown

Dallas and Ashley Brown are heroes! I love them and am so encouraged by them. They are missionaries out of our home church. I have been honored to have Dallas Brown as my friend for many years now. He and Ashley are being greatly used by the Lord. I recommend to any pastor to have them in for a meeting. He will be an encouragement and blessing to the church. I recently contacted Dallas, he shared with me a short update and a few prayer requests. The Browns are heroes and we are grateful to call them friends!

Update from Dallas and Ashley Brown

A man was saved at the church a few weeks ago week and he has been coming faithfully ever since. They are in the midst of constructing a church building and it is moving along steadily. They plan to add doors and windows this week. There are three guys interested in ministry who will be starting Bible college with Dallas in a few weeks.

• Pray for the construction of the church building.
• Pray for the three men who are interested in ministry.
• Pray for the Bible College classes that will start soon.

I have enjoyed this blog series on the characteristics of an effective missionary. I believe each characteristic is important! This week’s post will be no exception. An effective missionary keeps in contact. We are living in an era when staying in contact is so easy! With the technology and widespread use of it, we are able to communicate in an instant. If it is via email or website, most people don’t even have to wait to get home, they can get updates on their phones. This is so common place, that it almost sounds silly that I am making a big deal out of it, but this is relatively new. 50 years ago, missionaries could not communicate with ease. In 2022, we can be almost anywhere in the world and keep people up to date with what is going on in the ministry. 

Today there is no excuse that we have to not communicate with others and communicate often. There may be a few exceptions, but they are few and far between. At the drafting of this blog post, I am sitting in the airport in Los Angeles, California. Lord willing we will be taking off in a few hours to head back to Atlanta. We have enjoyed the meetings with churches we have been in through this past week, but we are also looking forward to Atlanta (even if it is for a day or two). This morning, from California, we have already been in contact with people in Argentina, Leslie spoke with a missionary friend who was just in New York City, and I am hearing from friends in other countries via a text message group. It is amazing how easy it is to stay in contact with others. 

With that in mind, an effective missionary should stay in contact. I am going to break this down into two categories. 

• Monthly prayer letters sent through the mail. Sending a one page prayer letter each month is easy. There is always something to share that is going on in the ministry. When a missionary is on deputation, he should be traveling and can share how God is working as he raises funds to go to the mission field. When he is learning the language and culture, there are things that he can share about things he is learning and the small opportunities he has to witness, and when he is planting a church, there are many things going on to share as well. Most churches ask that missionaries send a prayer letter a minimum of once every three months. I think we can do better than that. Prayer letters should be sent every month, there is no reason not to. If you want people praying for you and the ministry God has given you, then you need to keep people up to date with specifics, so they can pray for people by name, and pray for specific events, etc. An effective missionary sends prayer letters to partnering churches monthly. 
• Emails should be sent weekly. Physical prayer letters have a cost (although it is not that much). Emails are free! An effective missionary keeps people up to date each week. You do not have to write a novel, just a short paragraph about what has happened, or what is coming up. Be specific and be consistent. Be specific about the the names of people you are working with and about the special events that you are holding, be it a special day or an evangelistic campaign. Be consistent in sending quick update emails each week. 

There are other ways that missionaries can stay in touch. Some use social media, some directly message faithful prayer warriors. Both are great options. The point is that it is easy to communicate with others. An effective missionary keeps in contact with those who are “holding the rope” back home.  

I know it may sound strange, but Wednesday was the first day of Spring in Argentina (in the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons are reversed). It is a day that people celebrate throughout the country, winter is finally over and the flowers are beginning to bloom! To celebrate, the ladies ministry held a special Spring Bible Study at the home of one of the leaders. It was a blessing and encouragement to the ladies, they gathered together, prayed for specific prayer requests and one of them taught a Bible lesson. I am thankful to the Lord for special days like this! Thank you for praying for the ministry in Argentina.

Serving Together,

Patrick, Leslie, Lily, Piper, Ivy, and Isla Henry

Leslie and I are in California, we have meetings in Victorville, Sacramento, and San José. It is a blessing to be here and to enjoy this beautiful part of the country as we share what God has done and is doing in the ministry in Argentina!

A missionary must learn the language of the people he serves in order to be effective. This is not an option. I know first hand, that learning any language is not easy, it is a process that takes a life time. There are many words that I do not know in English. If that is true about my mother tongue, how much more true is it about the second language I have learned? But just because it is hard, or just because it takes time, doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth it. A missionary who serves a people but doesn’t know their language is limited. Some will tell you that they can minister to nationals through an interpreter. This can be true, but only to a point. Here is an illustration, if a man wants to talk to the missionary about a sensitive subject, something that is taking everything inside him to go to the pastor to talk to him, do you think he will share something so private with a peer to interpret the conversation? The answer is no! I would never be able to do it either. The people that the missionary serves must be able to go to him in confidence and share their heart, even in private sometimes. As we all know, this is such a hard thing to do. I am thankful for my Pastor, but if the only way I could speak to him was through an interpreter, the threat of a peer (the interpreter) knowing about that “private issue or struggle” would only cause me to keep quiet, which can lead to a lot of pain!

Learning a language is a process, and “fluency” is not a line the language learner crosses one day, but is made up of different stages. There is always more to learn! So there are important questions that come up with a missionary and language learning…

• “How does one learn a language?”
• “What are some effective ways to learn a language?”
• “When is a missionary ready to start a church?”

Here is how I answer these questions…

How do I learn a language? You learn a language by practicing. This is the key to learning a language. Most people point to language school as the key. While this is important, it is no where near as important as practicing the language. You practice the language by listening, talking, reading, and writing. First off listening and talking. These two things should take up the majority of the missionaries time when he first arrives to the field. A language school teaches you rules, but at the end of the day you still will not be able to understand others or articulate your thoughts by being in language school. It is all about practice, listen and talk, do it again, spend hours listening and talking. At first you will not understand anything, but in time you will understand a few words. Practice, then practice more, then practice more. You learn a language by practicing it!

What are some effective ways I can learn a language? If you learn a language by practicing it, the most effective way to learn the language is staying around people that speak the language. Pray for someone who will take you under their wing, someone who will teach you how to speak, who will correct you with every mistake, no matter how small. You need to spend a minimum of 50 hours a week in the language, and the vast majority of that should be interaction with other people. This is the most effective way to learn a language.

When is a missionary ready to start a church? Leslie and I were married on June 19, 2004. It wasn’t long before people started asking us when we thought we would have a baby. People would tell us, “If you wait until your are ready to have a baby, you will never have one.” This is the same thought I have about church planting. The missionary will never be “fully ready”. There is always room for improvement and experience. but after two years, it should be time to start a church. Those first two years are vital to the missionaries ministry, but that is for another post (one that I wrote a last month). Once those first two yers are over, I believe it is a good time to start the first church.

Speaking the language of the national people should not be an option. Dear missionary friend, give yourself to learning the language, practice the language by listening, talking, reading, and writing. You will get it. An effective missionary learns the language.