At Reservoir Baptist Church (RBC), we have a dedicated person who puts a tremendous effort in bringing Missionary News to us all year round. Every year, in May, she’ll also set RBC up for the Global Interaction’s May Mission Month. RBC has a proud history (since 1926) of not only financially supporting missionaries, but also sending them out from our church.

During May Mission Month, we shared videos and stories of the cross-cultural workers and candidates with our diverse congregation. Each week, we learnt something new about the least-reached people groups, and we saw God’s amazing work through Global Interaction’s projects. This year, we learnt something different from each of the people featured in the videos we watched.

We also had the privilege of having Graeme and Pat Barnden presenting at our church on the last Sunday of Mission Month. Graeme and Pat have been building relationships with the local “B people” in South Asia from 2011-2014. They told us that even though they are now based in Australia, Graeme and Pat are committed to returning to South Asia at least once a year for up to four weeks (limited by visas) to provide valuable training.

During their visits, Graeme continues the mechanical training and driving school work he began, providing encouragement and extra support to the current driving instructor as well as helping with building maintenance wherever needed. Pat continues English teaching and provides support in other vocational projects.

Through their stories and sharing, we saw the deep passion and love that Global Interaction and the cross-cultural workers have for mission. It has also become more apparent for us that missionaries do not have to go overseas in far flung nations; they can be right here in Australia. We hope that this hit home to the least reached people who also make up our diverse church: that we too should, “Grow where we are planted”. In turn, we should reach out to our own people who might feel lonely and isolated in what is a foreign country to them.

At RBC, we will keep on celebrating our diversity with the understanding that a lot of us came to Jesus because someone sowed their care and prayer into us. We hope to do the same and know we can truly grow where we are planted. Every month should be missionary month, for the need never disappears.