My friend and Thrive Director, Lorrie Lindgren (click above or www.thriveministries.org ) told me about some stats she uses when presenting the need to reach out to Christian workers around the globe. She found these statistics from Christianity Today and other sources.

Lorrie states, “There are approximately 75,000 North American women working full time around the globe.  There are 130,000 full time workers.  Knowing that more than half of them are women, we project the 75,000 number.”

The Thrive purpose for reaching out to global women with a 4 day retreat in four different places in the world each year, is mainly focused on rebuilding, renewing and caring for women missionaries to help meet their needs spiritually while on the field. Thrive hopes they will not just survive, but thrive where they are and and do the work for the kingdom that they went to do.

As you can imagine…as the saying goes, “If mom ain’t happy…” in this case…the missionary family may leave and go home.

When most of us are unhappy, we have a lot of options. We can find support pretty easily. We have resources that those overseas don’t have.  Let’s try to understand how we can support missionaries when they are on the field and when they come back to your town or mine. Let’s make sure we reach out and get to know them. Our friendship may be just what God uses.