Hi fellow SEND-ers

Bertha and I returned from leading another MOP in the Philippines on February 1. A smaller group this time, but still a very profitable time of learning and growing. I continue to be amazed at the different giftings and experience that God is bringing into SEND.

For years, I have telling new missionaries that cultural adjustment and enjoying life in a new culture is a just matter of time. I would say that we all begin in a honeymoon phase, but then the differences of the new culture begin to overwhelm us and we don't enjoy life in this culture any more. But eventually we get through that phase, and our enjoyment level steadily rises. In other words, it has to get worse before it gets better. Recently I have to come realize that there is no research that supports that upside-down “bell curve”. Instead researches have argued that the degree to which we adjust well to new cultures has much more to do with other factors than the length of time that we are in that culture. Darlene Jovellanos, who works with me in SEND U and who has done some research in this area, has written a blog post on this topic on the SEND U blog - Questioning the Validity of the 4 Stages of Cultural Adjustment. I encourage you to read it, and share your thoughts in the blog comments or on the SEND U secret Facebook page.
The Entrust training that many SEND women have already participated in has been renamed to W2W (Women to Women ministry training). This training will be offered here in Ukraine at the end of this month, facilitated by a few SEND women who have already taken the training. It is great to see the trainingreproducing itself. But the Farmington campus is also hosting another edition in mid-October, and you can find the registration forms and info for it on the send.org website at this link.
A few years ago, a number of us were able to travel to Florida a couple of times in January to attend a 5-day mission leadership training workshop called“LeaderLink”, sponsored by what is now called Missio Nexus. One of the unique opportunities afforded by that training program was to rub shoulders with and get to know other leaders from other mission agencies. Well after a hiatus of probably five years or so, LeaderLink has been revived and is now being offered in Kandern, Germany and Bangalore, India. If you attend two years of LeaderLink plus a couple of web workshops, Missio Nexus is offering a Certificate in Mission Leadership. If you are in Europe or Asia and would be interested in this learning opportunity, check out this page.

What's new on the SEND U wiki:

• the Youth Ministry page is being developed
• Church Planting Financial Code of Ethics added on Church planting page.

Keep learning,

Ken

Ken Guenther
SENDU Director
living in Kiev, Ukraine
email: kguenther@send.org
SEND U blog: https://sendublog.com/
SEND U wiki: http://www.senduwiki.org