As I mentioned in the March Training Tracks, one of our SEND U goals for 2022 is to gather resources that can foster unity on our fields. Thank you for the feedback and ideas that you have given me since then. Please keep sending me ideas and resources that you have found helpful in strengthening unity on your team, with your colleagues, or in your church.

I have just finished reading/listening to “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” by Jonathan Haidt. Although I disagree with the evolutionary foundation of Haidt's premise, I appreciate his emphasis on the importance of looking at both our group attachment as well as our individual interests when we try to understand why we do what we do. Haidt says that human beings sometimes put their group above their own personal interests. He calls this the “hive switch” because, in these special times, we function more like bees in a beehive, who are willing to die to protect the hive from invaders. I believe that we see examples of this selfless self-sacrifice throughout the history of the church and particularly in mission work.

How do we encourage people to put their belonging to a group ahead of their individual preferences and differences? Haidt suggests, “Increase similarity, not diversity. To make a human hive, you want to make everyone feel like a family. So don’t call attention to racial and ethnic differences; make them less relevant by ramping up similarity and celebrating the group’s shared values and common identity. …. There’s nothing special about race. You can make people care less about race by drowning race differences in a sea of similarities, shared goals, and mutual interdependencies.” (p. 277).

I think this is a fascinating idea that I would like to explore further. In most of the training that I have received about multicultural teams, most of the emphasis is on how different we are from one another in our values, customs, and worldviews. There is a place for this, I believe. We must not assume that everyone is just like us, particularly if we are from the majority culture. But we see that the apostle Paul addresses the problem of disunity primarily by emphasizing how much we have in common (Rom 12:4-5, Eph 2:14-22, Eph 4:3-6, 1 Cor 12:12-13, Phil 1:27, Col 3:12-15). The Gospel writers never make a big deal out of the differences between Jesus' disciples, even though the Twelve included both a tax collector and a Zealot.

What do you think? Do you think we should emphasize our similarities more than we should talk about our cultural differences, even in the context of a multicultural organization? Or should we continue to spend a lot of time exploring our cultural differences to make sure that we do not ignore the importance of diversity? Please post your thoughts on the SEND U channel on the International Services Team (as replies to the April Training Tracks post).

In the past 2 months, SEND, and particularly SEND Eurasia has been thrust into refugee work in an unprecedented way. Over 4.7 million people have now fled from Ukraine to neighboring countries. Many of our SEND workers who formerly resided in Ukraine have been involved in helping refugees in Poland at various locations. Other workers from the Europe region have also been helping with this refugee crisis as they are able, as they have helped and are helping with serving Syrian refugees. SEND has been involved with refugee work for decades. But the opportunities for expanding our work among refugees who are also unreached people have grown exponentially in the last few years.

But I am realizing that we have very few training resources in SEND U for equipping our people to work with refugees. I would welcome your recommendations in this area. We will set up a new wiki page with resources on this topic. You can send me your recommendations by email or post them on the SEND U channel on the International Services Team.

The following training has been recommended by those who have been working with the Ukraine crisis:
• Psychological first-aid in disasters - Simple and helpful training provided by The Resilience Resource

Here are a couple of training resources that I have benefitted from:
• The Role of the Church in a Refugee Crisis - a free 1-hour training course produced by the training arm of the International Association for Refugees.
• Strangers in the Kingdom: Ministering to Refugees, Migrants, and the Stateless by Rupen Das and Brent Hamoud

In the IAFR training, they talk about their Continuum of Response which I found very helpful. This diagram shows that addressing the humanitarian disaster is only the first step in helping refugees. The second phase of recovery work and then integration takes a lot more time, and this is work that churches and Christ-followers are much more suited to do than government agencies.

The Seeds Global Innovation Lab has been providing in-person and online training for some of our SEND leaders in innovation and design thinking. Now their online training is being offered for free. “In an effort to equip the global missions community for the emerging world, as well as catalyze an open innovation ecosystem, Seeds has made the pivot to create and offer FREE courses.” Two courses are being offered: 1) Design Thinking for Innovation and 2) Mindsets and Postures. The “Design Thinking” course must be taken first. Both courses are self-paced, independent study courses that come with a downloadable workbook, a facilitator's guide, and a number of short videos that are available online.

If you or your team are interested in taking these courses, you can learn more and enroll at this link. Please let me (Ken) know if you have decided to take one of the courses.

Since the beginning of SEND U in 2008, we emphasized the importance of coaching and providing training in coaching. Beth Eckstein has pursued both coaching and further training in coaching for many years. Recently she was awarded the Professional Certified Coach credential by the International Coaching Federation. This means that she has received 125+ hours of training in coaching and has logged 500+ hours of coaching. Join me in congratulating Beth on this significant achievement. I know that many of you have been coached by Beth over the years. We commend her for her diligence in continuing to improve her coaching skills.

• Apr 25 - 5 Voices Workshop - Discover your leadership voice and learn to communicate effectively with everyone you lead. This free 2-hour online training is offered by our Alliance partner, TEAM. Sign up on this form.
• Apr 25 - Jun 5 - MOP 201 - A 5-week online course for all mid-term and long-term members of SEND. It looks at worldview, cultural values, cultural stress, incarnational ministry, and safety and security. Facilitated by Bethany Reedy. About 5-6 hours of work per week.
• May 2-9 - Learning Culture through Purposeful Observation - This is called MOP 301 in SEND. It is a one-week online course designed to help new cross-cultural workers begin to put into practice their culture-learning skills. Requires 4-6 hours of learning time.
• May 11-18 - Contextualization and Culture Study - An 8-day Grow2Serve online course that introduces foundational concepts of contextualization and its importance for effective ministry and underlines contextualization’s inseparable link to purposeful culture study.
• May 24 - Kingdom Transformation Gathering - a Women's Ministry Connection Call facilitated by Lisa Gustafson. We will talk about how our Community Transformation Initiatives provide markers in establishing shalom that leads to healthy, whole, reproducing churches. Sign up at this link.
• July 4 - Aug 5 - TESOL training - A 5-week in-person training in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The 5-week certification contains 120 hours of teaching and 20 hours of practicum in a real-life teaching situation.
• July 10-22 - MOP 202 - A 2-week onsite Member Orientation Program for appointees going long-term with SEND, who have been cleared by their coach, and have completed MOP 201. This training will be hosted at Ward Church in Michigan. Mid-term members are welcome to attend, but not required.
• Jul 11 - Sep 2 - TESOL Online Part 1 - An 8-week online TESOL training for an introduction to teaching English, filled with many creative teaching ideas and some in-class practice teaching. If taken in conjunction with Part 2 the student will receive TESOL certification. Go to www.actesol.com for more information. $100.
• Aug 17-24 - Sustainable Resilience - A two-week online course designed to raise awareness and develop perspectives and lifestyle choices that will increase resilience and keep cross-cultural workers true to their God-given calling. The course asks you to invest 8-12 hours of learning time over the 15-day period.

All these can be found on the SEND U Training Events page on the SEND U wiki.