Theology in the Raw - Partnering with Indigenous Leaders in Global Missions: Janice Allen

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Janice Rosser Allen is CEO and President of International Cooperating Ministries (ICM), the global ministry founded by her father, Dois Rosser, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. She has served on ICM’s Board of Directors since 1986 and has led the organization as CEO since 2008. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Duke University, Janice worked in clinical and academic oncology nursing before God called her into full-time ministry with ICM. Widowed at 51, she is an ordained elder, author of God in the Crossroads, and she’s passionate about empowering indigenous Christian leaders worldwide.00:00 — Introduction: How ICM Is Growing the Global Church06:07 — Albert Schweitzer's Missionary Legacy and Radical Faith08:09 — Indigenous Missions: Why Local Church Leaders Matter11:46 — Cooperating with local, indigenous leadership in missions16:12 — How Technology Is Transforming Christian Missions18:07 — How Mission Organizations Vet Trusted Partners22:07 — What the Global Church Can Teach Western Christians29:37 — Powerful Mission Stories from Vietnam and Rwanda34:31 — American Christianity vs. the Global Church41:41 — Church Growth in Iran, Nepal, and Other Restricted Nations45:54 — Why Christianity Is Growing in Thailand47:03 — Prosperity Gospel and Persecution: Challenges Facing the Global Church50:08 — Building local churches with local workers and materials51:20 — Are Short-Term Mission Trips Helping or Hurting?56:56 — How You Can Support Indigenous MissionsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We work exclusively through partnerships with existing ministries within the countries where we work. We come alongside offering them translated Bible study materials in addition to funding for them to buy materials to build their own church. I mean, the congregations exist already. We're just throwing fuel on the fire for a greater presence of the gospel within that community. Hey, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology and around my guest today is Janice Rosser Allen, who is CEO and president of international co-operating ministries, ICM, the global ministry founded by her father, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

She has served on the board of ICM since 1986, and she has led the organization as CEO since 2008. She's a graduate of University of Virginia and Duke University and has worked in clinical and academic oncology nursing before God called her into full-time ministry with ICM. She was widowed. Janice was widowed at 51. She talks about that a bit in this episode. She's an ordained elder and author of God in the Crossroads. And she's also, as you'll hear, very passionate about empowering indigenous Christian leaders worldwide. I have a huge heart for missions, the global church. And I think many of you know that if you've listened to the podcast for a while. So I always love, love, love hearing people who are working in some kind of field of missions, especially those like ICM that is focused on coming alongside and supporting the work of indigenous leaders

rather than just parachuting in from the West and telling people how to do stuff. so and that's kind of a caricature, but sometimes it's not. Anyway, really enjoyed this conversation. I think you will too. So please welcome to show for the first time, the one and only, Janice Rosser Allen. Hello, Janice. It's great to meet you virtually. Thanks for coming on Thealjean.

I'm really excited about the conversation. Well, I'm excited to be able to share some of the things that I'm experiencing, watching God do through the ministry I'm part of. Well, I can't even remember, and hopefully it's not insulting for the person that gave me your name. I remember somebody suggested you and I get tons of suggestions almost every day. Somebody, hey, check out this out, check that out. And I, most of the time, you know, I'll take at least a few minutes. And I'm like, all right, I'll check this out. And I was like, oh, man, I started getting lost in your website and your background. And I was like, this seems like an amazing ministry,

especially the focus on partnering with indigenous leaders and ministries. And that just really captures my heart. So I do want to talk about that, but first, I want to get to know who Janus is. What's your background? You can start from, you know, birth to now or, you know, whatever you want to share. But yeah, tell us about your Christian journey and how you got into the work you're doing at ICM. Well, and, you know, Preston, I love seeing the way God works. I've had a very circuitous life experience, but, you know, as I reflect, see how God was connecting every single dot along the way, which he does, to bring me to what he's doing today. But it really started.

I mean, if we can go that far back, when I was a little girl growing up in kind of mainline denominations, missions was very, very much a part of the experience that we had. And I grew up often hearing missionaries from the field and, you know, hearing just so many ways that God was working. But I really became captivated by missions when I was 12 years old, read a book about Albert Schweitzer, who was a medical missionary to Africa. And so at 12 years old, I decided I was going to do medical missions. And so I went the path of going into nursing school, and my goal had really been to go to the mission field until I fell in love and married someone who was in medical school at the same university, and we were married, and he wanted to stay in academic medicine, which kept us

in the United States. But early in our marriage, we started doing short-term medical mission trips. So that was part of kind of my experience. We had three sons. I became an at-home mom. And parallel to what I was going through, God was also working in the heart of my father, who was a businessman. And at the age of 65, God started doing something new.

in his life, which I'll talk a little bit more about because that is the origin of ICM. Yeah, yeah. But when I was in my late 40s, my husband was 49, he was an ophthalmologist, and he got eye cancer, which meant overnight his career as a surgeon was gone. Wow. And he passed away five years later. Oh, I'm sorry. from cancer. And it was at that point, you know, that I was having to reassess what my life, you know,

was going to be because I had just launched my last son to college and I was a widow and I was 51 years old. And you're not going to believe, well, I was going to say, you're not going to believe this, but going back, Albert Schweitzer was one of my heroes. Oh, you're kidding. No, because, Okay, so I'm an academic at heart. Okay, I, I, you know, got it, went and got my Ph.D. I love the rega. I can, I love, love, love the depth of scholarship, but I'm also, I also like people. And I, and I, um, I had this weird blend of, I love academia, but I love practical, radical engagement in the kingdom of God. And so he bought, I mean, he, the, the dude got four earned. PhDs, theology, medicine, music, I think, and I think philosophy.

I mean, the guy was one of those brilliant people in the 20th century. And yet he spent his life, right? I mean, he took, I mean, he took, I'd be like 100 years ago, took a boat, traveled miles and miles and miles deep in the jungle to do medical missions. Yeah. After he got four PhD, like, it was, I'm just like, this is the guy. I found out later that he had kind of some kind of odd views on the people he was reaching out to. But whatever, we have our flaws.

But he just modeled for me that blend, that being an academic doesn't mean you don't take radical steps for the gospel. So anyway, sorry. You said nobody talks about Albert Schweitzer. I don't think I've ever even talked about that on the podcast. No, if I asked in a room of people, if anybody knew who he was, most people do not. Well, so it's interesting because he, yeah, obviously an academic. So my specialty is Paulian theology, Paul Paul's Paul. And he actually wrote like a groundbreaking book 130 years ago, early 1900s on Paul that was a game,

as well as books that nobody realized how significant it was until like 50 years later or something. So that's how I even heard about him. Anyway, that's a long unnecessary detour. So you, when did you start working for? for ICM. Wait, did you start the ministry or did you come, was it around for a while? No, my father started the ministry. Your father started, okay, oh, wow. And so he, and it was just fascinating to watch, you know, from a distance how God was working in his life, taking a very entrepreneurial, very visionary businessman. And it was almost like the, you know, the prayer of

Chavez, you know, watching God continue to move his tent stakes out. And where initially growing up, his involvement in ministry was very local, you know, very much part of his church. And then began to broaden his horizons and get involved with a lot of parish church ministries over the years. And it was really through his involvement with helping coordinate the Billy Graham Crusade, and our community, that God began connecting him to people with a global perspective. Okay.

Yeah. And that was, you know, watching my father with his own resources because God had blessed him with wonderful business acumen and had financially blessed him as well. And watching the generosity and stewardship of my father. And so back in the 1980s, my dad participated in a men's Bible study that did a survey of the entire Bible. And he said, here I am, you know, someone who never went to college, never went to Bible school. And I'm understanding scripture for the first time in my entire adult Christian life. and my father was serving on the board of trans world radio at the time, which is a global radio

back then for Christian content. And so my father started funding himself, they're doing the translation of this survey of the Bible that we currently call foundations by ICM. And my father just started funding it in Hindi, Mandarin, doing translations that would be broadcast and in his desire to go to India and follow up with how is Transatl radio in India following up

with all these people that are coming to faith listening to the radio and it was in that trip that he began to hear from the indigenous leaders that they needed Bible study material in their own language, but they also needed an actual physical church building to create permanence and sustainability for congregations that were emerging

as first-generation believers in many instances. Talk to us. Tell us about the, you mentioned, church buildings and, you know, Bible studies. What are some of the, what does ICM do? Like, what's the specific work? And what are some of the values that drive? What do you guys do? Great question. Great question. So, yeah, telling about all those, those other things, getting back to truly the essence of ICM. ICM stands for international cooperating ministries. So we work exclusively through partnerships with existing ministries within the countries where we work.

And we come alongside offering them the resources of translated Bible study materials in addition to funding for them to buy materials to build their own church. Okay. We do not come in and, I mean, the congregations exist already. We're just throwing fuel on the fire for a greater presence of the gospel within that community. That core operating piece to me is so important. You know, for so long in missions, it's like as, you know, Westerners would move to a country and kind of do the work for people, you know.

And I think there's been a shift in, a good shift in missions. It hasn't, you know, maybe it's still a minority of missions that are doing this, but at least a growing number of people, it seems like. But rather than coming in and doing the work, they're coming alongside and underneath and in a sense, almost working themselves out of a job, playing a more supporting role to the local leaders in the community. Has this always been a value of ICM? Always. Okay. Wow. So you were ahead of the game, it seems like.

So my dad was able to participate in the very, very first Lausanne Congress in 1974. Oh, wow. And that covenant, the Lausanne covenant is really one of our foundational documents. But there were a couple of takeaway premises. from this document that was written by Billy Graham and John Scott and some of those heroes of the evangelical world at that time. But a couple of the takeaways, which really did become foundational for ICM, was truly answering that question, how do we reach the entire world for Jesus Christ? and the premise was the only way to do it, and the scale and efficiency that would be necessary was to equip the indigenous church.

Equip the indigenous believers. So that became foundational to ICM. And then the other premise within the covenant was the necessity of having Bible study materials in the language of the people. within the country. And that is truly not dubbed material from the U.S., but available for them to be part of development of material in their own language. Summer nights can be brutal. You crawl in a bed, already warm,

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they do like Bible? Or are they just doing Bible translation? They're doing Bible translation. You're doing discipleship material translation. But what we now are able to do because of the better technology, more capacity on microSD cards, we partner with a lot of other ministries that allow us to add their content to the devices that we distribute global. So besides our survey of the whole Bible, we partner with other entities like Biblica, Faith comes by hearing that have the audio Bible.

We partner with Jesus film that we can put the Jesus film in that language on the devices. We partner with CBN for Superbook, for kids' content. So we can, through our partners in the country, we can give them a full digital library. library of Bible resource materials. And you say on your website that I forget the percentage, but a very high percentage of people around the world learned orally, not written. So a lot of your resources are orally driven. Is that right?

That's absolutely correct. And, you know, what we have found that even if it's complete illiteracy, even in the U.S., people have preferences for, you know, learn their people. now, you know, rather than reading content. Right. So we feel like in many ways we were ahead of the game on that, being able to provide so much of what we provide in either a video or audio format. Okay.

Oh, that's great. How do you, I'm curious, you say you partner with indigenous ministries and leaders. How do you, I'm trying to think of the right phrase to use you. How do you assess the quality or faithfulness or genuineness of these ministries? You know, you've been in this work for a while. You know, I've done lots of missions, been around the world, and there's lots of amazing ministries out there. There's also some that are look good on the outside, but there's, you know, there's kind of some corruption and people with like the wrong motivation. You know, it's in some context, you know, becoming a Christian leader can,

earn, you know, get you connected with Western money and give you social status in the community. There's kind of motivations that are like, and this is something that oftentimes career missionaries, it takes them, you know, a couple decades to understand like, oh my gosh, like I'm seeing like lots of stuff behind the scenes. It's a little more not as good as I thought it was, you know? How do you go about assessing that this is a trustworthy ministry to partner with? when it's in a context that, you know, you may not know very well. Yeah. Well, and yeah, I would say, having done this for 40 years now, we've, they've not all been

winners, you know, but the way the auditing system that we have set up and the vetting system we have set up, the extreme amount of accountability that we have in the partnership, their skin in the game is huge for us. So I would say we might begin assessing if it's going to be a healthy partnership. And we court for a while. We just date for a while, if you will. And we do have people on our team in the United States that are assigned to each region of the world that develop a relationship with the partners.

We have some ministries that we partner with that we have been working with for 30 years, 35 years. It's a partnership. They do their part. We do our part. Together, all the boats rise, you know. And I think that's one of the beauties of a long-term relationship. It's not we float in once and done, you know, that it really.

is that you know, we're investing in the growth of their ministry as a whole. But we have a significant amount of accountability in place for managing every single construction project and have, you know, experience that over the years. But, you know, I think one of the things that that we have seen is the mutuality, the respect that is placed in, you know, that is placed in the fact that are, and we work with almost 300 different ministries around the world. We're building in over 100 countries. But it's the relationship. It's that relationship built out of mutual respect and accountability.

Wow. And God has really blessed that. I love that. And I love how you, the courting image is so great. Yeah. So you don't rush into something. You take time to establish, you know, a connection, relationship, trustworthiness. And, yeah, that's awesome.

So over 100 countries. Have you been to, how many, have you been to a lot of these countries? I've been to quite a few, yeah. I think at last count, maybe 30 of them I've been to. And that, for me personally, has just been an extraordinary blessing. I have been a part of the ministry for the 40 year. This is our 40th anniversary year. Wow.

And so I had been a part of it either on the board or in a staff capacity, but I've been a CEO for 20 years now. Wow. And so it has been a blessing beyond anything that I could have ever dreamt or imagined. But going back to what God originally placed in my heart, you know, about the love for missions, about a vision for that, I'd tell you, Preston, it was, you know, probably a few years into my new role at the ministry after my husband had passed away, sitting in a church in Africa, watching the worship of the people there.

And it just was like this wave of the Holy Spirit saying, daughter, I have you. I brought you back to what I put in your heart as a 12-year-old. And I'm now giving you an opportunity to not just minister to the physical needs, but the spiritual needs. And it just, it frankly was overwhelming to see the goodness of God in that. You've been in this work for a while. What are some main lessons you've learned? Maybe even looking back at mistakes that you've learned from or things you understand much more now than you did,

you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago. You know, I think the passion and the zeal of, Christ followers in some of these places that materially

where they have nothing where their joy in the Lord is so pure and their dependency

upon God is just pure you know I remember one time we were in India and We were driving through this village, dust all over the roads, you know, dust getting everywhere.

And there I saw this hunched over elderly woman and her sari with a handmade broom sweeping the dust off the street that we were stirring up, right as we drove over it again, she was still sweeping. And I remember asking the pastor who was with me, you know, about. her cast, her lot in life. And he said that was what she was born into, as Street Street Street. And that is what she will always be stuck in that. But he said she was a person without hope, least of ease in every sense of the word.

But she started getting involved with one of the churches there in her village. and he said the 180 degree change for her is that her life will never change, but she has the hope of eternity embedded in her heart now. Yeah. And that, you know, lessons that you learn from these people are I'm just so humbled that we are able to, in some small way, be a part of what God is doing. those villages to transform in so many ways, socioeconomically. I mean, I could talk a lot about that, how it changes the life of kids, of abused women,

I mean, all those things. But ultimately, it's bringing the most important hope of all, the hope of eternity, the hope of the gospel. Wow. I remember I was involved in a ministry that partnered with indigenous leaders in Nepal for a number of years. And, you know, there's a lot of, like, activity in Kathmandu in Nepal. Once you go outside Kathmandu, it's pretty, it gets very indigenous. But gosh, the gospel is just, I think the Christian population is quadrupled in the last couple decades from like 0.5%, you know,

yeah, 0.5% to like 2 or 3%. But man, the believers are just, like you said, like just against all, odds just doing amazing work. And I love seeing places that are not, there isn't that motivation of being connected with the West. So like we went to the south part of Nepal outside of a town called Hotoda down towards the border. And we drove out a couple hours in the jungle. I'm like, where are we going? You know, like we're just driving through this dirt road jungle. All of a sudden kind of opens up a little bit and we're coming to this village. I felt. like I was back in time 200 years. I mean, it was, you know, people carry, you know, pulling carriages and the thatched roofs and every building looked like it was out of some

scene of Lord of the Rings or something, you know, and like, and then I'm like, what are we doing? You know what? And we show up and we visit this church. We hear this noise. We park into city square and we get out. We go inside this building that I, I thought it was about the fallover. Like it was a scary thing. You know, we go upstairs and, I found out later there's a bunch of snakes underneath, you know, cobras, I think, or something. We go upstairs and people are just belting praises to Jesus. And most of them are women. And we heard from one of the local leaders that, like, you know, a lot of these women were converted to Christianity through kind of miraculous circumstances.

And their husband hadn't. And that caused a lot of abuse in the marriage. And these women were just belting out praises to Jesus. and it's like there is zero humanly speaking reason why they should be there to choose Jesus which brought a lot of more suffering

than they already were experiencing and it just gave me said it just gives the gospel so much credibility when there's like I'm you know I'm just a skeptic, I'm always a skeptic at heart like well you know and here it's like there's no reason other than the power of the gospel why these people

are here in this remote village with there's been and again it wasn't planted by a western mission they never even seen a westerner my yeah um and yeah it was just golly there's no other explanation to this so yeah i imagine you have many stories like that where you're like am i doing this for them or for me like there's so much like spiritual impact it comes with you know experiencing god's work around the globe do you have any um yeah Yeah, it's a weird, I don't know, I want to ask, like, do you have like a favorite place you've been to? But the word favorite just feels a little weird, but maybe memorable a place in the world that you've experienced something like that.

You know, just the work of God that is just like has impacted you. You know, I heard somebody say once at their favorite Bible verse is the one they just studied, you know. Yeah. And there are different reasons that stand out for, you know, places I visited. For me, personally, Vietnam will always be an incredible example because of all the history between, you know, the United States and Vietnam and all the conflict and everything. and to see, you know, story after story of how God has worked to redeem, you know, hearing from people in the mountainard, you know, people that lived up in the mountains in Vietnam, and how they expressed gratitude for the conflict, the war, because the American soldiers were the first time they ever heard of Jesus Christ.

Really? Wow. And just seeing the redemption of God and that. Now, I don't know, this is going to date myself quite a bit, but there was a Life magazine that came out during the Vietnam War with a photo, black and white photo of a little girl running down the street with her flesh falling off because of a napalm bomb. Her name was Kim Fook. And a few years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Kim Fook, who now lives in Canada.

And after she was so gravely wounded, she, in the course of how God worked, she ended up coming upon a Bible, becoming a believer, and ended up a refugee out of Vietnam, and praying that back. home in her village that eventually a church would be built there and that her family would come to faith, the village of Trang Bang. And I was able to visit Trang Bang, where in the way that God connects all these dots, we unknowingly approve the application to build that church in Trang Bang, not knowing that God was going to use ICM through our partnership there with the even evangelical church of South Vietnam, that God was going to answer the prayers of Kim Fouk that a church would be built in her village. And just, you know, being kind of on, I would say it's kind of being the front row seat

of watching God work in very tangible, very specific ways. Going to Rwanda, oh my gosh, you know, the horrors of the horrors of the, you know, the genocide there, you know, where this man-created animosity of one people group against another people group that led to millions being massacred and having the opportunity to meet two gentlemen, Stephen and Matthias, one had been the slaughterer of the other person's family. Oh, my gosh. and the pastor had forgiven him, and these two men are brothers in Christ now. And this whole redemptive work that God has done in Rwanda using the local church to give that message of hope, redemption, and reconciliation.

Rwanda is a different place because the government said the only way to bring true reconciliation is to do it through the Church of Jesus Christ. Yeah, I remember studying about the genocide several years ago. It's just one of the most horrific events in the 20th century, you know. And it was one of the most Christianized nations, I think 80, 90% of people prior to the genocide all went to church, you know? And like, you know, those percentage that go to church, you know, it's hard to imagine how many, yeah, what percentage of those people were actually walking with Jesus

when you have a genocide that breaks out where 800,000 people were slaughtered in 90 days. That's, that's, golly. I'm curious, you know, I hear a lot from missionaries that given their experiences like what you're talking about when they come back to the states. In your case, you're in the States. Is it, is it hard to go to church or to be a Christian here in the U.S. Given how you've experienced the global church? Or how do you, you know, I know a lot of people go, you know, either on short-term mission trips or full-time, you know, there have been career missionaries that come back. And it's just there's just like,

I don't know. Like it's hard to kind of get back into the American scene. And do you ever experience that, that kind of disconnect? And how do you manage that? Well, you know, the ICM's vision statement is a healthy church within walking distance of everyone in the world. And, you know, there's so much meaning behind that because, you know, we can unpack even, you know, defining a healthy church. but I want to really emphasize the walking piece because in so many instances, we see people,

they will walk for three hours to do church for five hours and then walk back home three hours. And we complain because we've got to drive over 10 minutes to go to an air-conditioned place that gives us coffee. And they went over five minutes of the service. in the in the in the 70 minute service. I'm an hour now. I've got to get on to my next thing. And that's being pretty crass. But anyway, I do think there, there is that sense of, oh, wow, we are so blessed.

We are so blessed. How do you, does that, does that challenge, like, what does that do to your personal faith? Is it discouraging? Is it, yeah, how do you, how do you navigate that? I would assume you kind of feel like you're almost living in two different worlds, you know, when you have your kind of rhythm of church life here in the U.S. And then the ministry you're involved in. Like, how do you navigate that?

That's a great question. You know, I think for me, it's probably deepened my own sense of reliance upon God. the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God. Whatever environment we live in, we will have challenges. They're going to look different, but they're still there. I mean, the heartache, I'm sure, friends or family that you experience, cancer, mental health, drugs, whatever it is. But it's the same powerful God. And I think what I've seen modeled is, you know, the miraculous nature and the power of God that I might see, you know, globally is the same God for me here, dealing with whatever I'm dealing with.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I've had to battle cynicism. Because you don't want to do that, right? you don't want to go, you know, go overseas, experience the global church. And sometimes we can kind of almost glamorize it, like, you know, and then we come back and like, oh, these aren't even real Christians, you know, they're not living as radically as those people over there, you know. So there could be, you don't want to do that.

And yet I do understand some of the frustration or some of the, I don't know, how it can kind of like dampen your faith a little bit when you go and experience. God in what seems to be really radical ways, you know, that you come back and it's just, it seems very overly comfortable or just people are kind of going through the motions or they're complaining about stuff. You're like, really, you're complaining about that? Or there doesn't seem to be like, yeah, you know, people are walking to get three hours for a five-hour service and you come back and like, how many people in my church would go to church if they had to walk three hours for a five. Would anybody be here? And what is that? And so I could see where people

would, I don't know, like, like, it could send people down. And I've seen that happen among missionaries that come home, you know, sometimes they can't even go to church. Because like, I just can't do this, you know. So I don't know. It's that you want to take these experiences and incorporate it into your faith in healthy ways, but you want to avoid cynicism. And being overly judgmental, I love what you said. Like, there's, different kinds of suffering in different parts of the world. Suffering isn't just, you know, economic suffering, you know. Like, yeah, we have loads of mental health issues and people are physically abused by loved

ones here in the state. You know, you can live in an affluent country and still have legitimate suffering. It just maybe looks different. Yeah. Even as you were talking, I was thinking, about an experience I had in a worship service in Africa. And, you know, it was typical drums beating, everybody kind of dancing. And they began collecting the offer.

And I kind of loved the way they would do it because it wasn't just passing, you know, the plate while you sit in the pew. Everybody got up out of the seat and started dancing down the aisle and dancing to put, their money in the little basket. And I was like, oh my gosh, just to have that generosity of spirit that there was so much joy. But I'll never forget this elderly woman coming forward, reaching into a pocket of this robe thing she was wearing, and pulling out a chicken egg and putting that in the basket. And I was like, that was probably her lunch today.

that she was giving her lunch. And yet I see people in the U.S. being equally generous of spirit and generous in their stewardship, just at a different place. Yeah. And that, I think, is just the way the spirit is working in different places. So, you know, the same spirit is alive. And people in the United States are responding in so many generous ways to, I think, you know, encourage the global church.

And I have the opportunity to see that level of generosity very, very often, which is an encouragement for my faith. I think I read on your website the ICM's doing, sorry, I'm pulling up right here, you're doing some work in Iran right now with the underground church. Is that right? We have done some work there. Yes. And Bible distribution.

What are the unique challenge? That's a, I mean, every place has its own uniqueness, but especially right now. It's, you know, it's obviously in the news a lot and it's not about missions. What are, are you able to talk about what God is doing among the underground churches there? There is a tremendous movement of the spirit right now. I keep hearing that. For several years, we've been able to work with a partner there in country to distribute some micro-SD cards loaded with all kinds of Bible content. The latest opportunity was distribution of actual physical Bibles that we were able to do there.

unfortunately there are a lot of places we work where I cannot speak you know about it but you know I you were going back mentioning about Nepal and the incredible movement of the church in Nepal it's it's incredible how quickly the church is growing there and we're also seeing that happen in Thailand and we're you know participating with once again this is all through ministries that exist within Thailand. And we're supporting, you know, their work, but they're having record number of public baptisms. And you can see these pictures and, you know, rivers where three and four thousand people

are coming out for baptism. And it's incredible to see some of the, extraordinary things. You know, today, there are about 75% of Christians are not in the West. Yeah, isn't that cool? And, you know, to just say, how can we better equip our brothers and sisters in some of these other places? And, you know, even when we're, when ICM looks at the provision of our Bible study

resources. You know, we know that in the regions where we work, that there are 80% of the pastors really don't have training. We had an incident. We were working in South Africa, and, you know, these pastors were pastoring congregations there, but they didn't have much Bible training. So they were taking portions of scripture literally when they were saying, you know, you're the shepherd and the sheep. And so they would send their congregation out into the pasture, tell him to get down on their hands and knees and eat the grass because you're the sheep. They were like, oh gosh, we need some training here. And you were talking a little bit earlier about some of the incorrect theology that can permeate Africa. The West has done such a poor job of

controlling the prosperity gospel. Yeah, yeah. You know, have lots and lots of people coming forward thinking that, oh, if I become a believer, then, you know, I'm going to get all these material benefits.

And so, and we've had people, partners that we work with there, saying, you know, people will come to faith over and over and over again, you know, because they think that's going to bless them financially. Do you run into that a lot?

The prosperity gospel kind of well-win throughout various Africa very much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's unfortunate.

With, with Thailand, seeing all these people come to faith, what's behind that? I mean, and obviously it's God. But is there,

is there, is there like human agents involved? Or is there other thing, not other things, besides God, but what's God doing to lead to?

to lead to, you know, the height. I would, you know, it's really a church planting movement. Okay. That has been going on. And we have seen that through a number. We work with, I think now, four different ministries that are based there in Thailand. And a couple of them in particular have an exponentially expanding, church planting movements within the Thai pastors and the church planters. And it's exploding.

But it's all, you know, based from within the Thai church. Okay. I love that so much. Thailand is primarily Buddhist. Is that correct? I've never, I've never been. And animus. Yeah. Animus and Buddhists. Is that, does that create tension or is there like opposition? Is there persecution between like Buddhists and the growing Christian church. Do you know? You know, I would say there's evidence of that and the majority of places where we work, whether it's the existing Orthodox Church, maybe Eastern Europe or, you know, the Hindu extremist, you know, Muslim. Yeah.

So that's probably evidence of that in many, many places where we work, where there's just, you know, a fear or desire to, you know, help swelch the growth of the church. So that's a very real thing that our brothers and sisters face, you know, they can stand for Christ. Yeah. Wow. It's amazing. How many people work for ICM? Give us a picture of how big the ministry is. I'm not a big numbers person.

So you can say three and I'd say awesome. You could say 3,000. I'd say, great. Like, I don't really care about it. But just to give people a visual. And I think that this is really, to me, what is pretty incredible, the way that we maximize technology in order to be more efficient in the number of employees. So we've got just over 60 employees.

Okay. But we keep almost 900 construction projects going on all the time. Wow. But it's because of the partnerships we have with the ministries and country. They're the heroes. But we have developed a custom website that everybody all over the whole world uses that same website. We don't do one sheet of paper. All the updates are entered.

by our partners in the country right where they are, and they update all their photographs, all their applications, everything is done on a common, secure website. And that enables us to really be efficient and maximize what we're doing. We have six individuals on our team that oversee six regions of the world, and it's been interesting over time those individuals, nine times out of ten, they grew up in the region that they now oversee from our headquarters in the United States.

They are from that region. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. And that gives them, and to me, extraordinary insight into understanding how to work with these partners and how to be the bridge, you know, between headquartered in the United States and the partners we work with globally. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. With the church building, so you're trying to help build churches within walking distance of everybody in the world? That's the ultimate. But you don't come in and just build the building for people. No. It's their building. It's their building.

So this to me is some of the mutuality of the relationship because we first find the ministry leader. Okay. And then he will find the congregations under his. authority that meet our requirement. And the congregation or partner has put in the land, and they themselves, a congregation is involved with the construction process. All we send is money for them to buy materials locally. Okay.

So they get the deeds. They get the permits. The name is their name on their church. And, you know, I think that is what I was referring to, kind of the, kind of the, in the game. Yes. Because it's theirs. I don't know.

What I found with my kids, if they had to buy something themselves or work for something themselves, they took a lot better care of it. Yes, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I've learned by studying both missionaries but also sociologists, some are Christians, some are not, the unforeseen negative effects of building, projects when Westerners come over with all their tools with their paint brushes, they go and

they do the work. And yeah, the negative, the potential negative impact that has even on the local economy when you are not using the resources that are provided by the local people, you know. And in fact, one study I read, it broke my heart. And it was like, oh, gosh, how come we haven't thought about this. Like, he raised a question, like, what is, what is it due to the local painter who's looking for work, who's desperate for work when a bunch of people from the West come in and do all the painting? They paint this building, which was painted last week in the week before and the week before in a week, you know, it's like five inches thick of paint, you know? it's like what what is that due to the local painting industry it's like I never

nobody even told me to ask that question it's like no we're doing a good deed we're painting this building and all of a sudden like I went down this rabbit trail like okay wait wait what are we missing here like what are the what are the potential negative effects of well-intended you know short-term often short-term trips and it just made me like oh my gosh we really need to think more deeply about how we are truly coming in alongside and empowering indigenous ministries holistically, you know, in the community. Well, and it's in one of my sisters is an ordained pastor here in the United States. And, you know, I think being sensitive that there is a place for short-term mission.

I mean, she says what, kind of to your earlier point, she says, when a team goes, experiences something out of their comfort zone, feeling God stretch them, then what they bring back infuses the whole congregation back home. And so, you know, there's value in that. But I do think being mindful, to your point, just being mindful of that book when helping hurts. Yeah, yeah. So just to be mindful, but there is a place. So I hate to diminish what God can work in all of it. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, yeah, be mindful. Training. Having a realistic goal, because we're so goal-oriented project. What did you do? People come back. Would you do? Would you accomplish?

And sometimes just connecting with local believers is the most helpful thing for everybody. It's just hard to kind of sell that. to the people that funded your short-term trip back home. What did you accomplish? What'd you do? Give me ROI. What do you do? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

And yeah, I think really relying on people, whether it's a career missionary or indigenous leaders, to help you really understand what's the most helpful thing for this long-term local ministry that's going to be there that was there before you got there. It's going to be there after you got there. like because sometimes a short-term trip could have negative effects on the local ongoing ministry but they'll never you know especially in honor shame culture they'll never tell you that you know like they'll just kind of pick up the pieces well you know that you

that you left and keep doing no more so i think just really being yeah having uh what was that book by is it living stone uh doing missions with short-term missions with eyes wide open or seen with eyes something by eyes wide open anyway but like yeah being aware having just a broader scope on the impact of what you're doing and doing your best to make sure that your short-term contribution is actually helping the local ministry, not putting a roadblock in front of it. Well, and, you know, the point you made earlier about the temptation of an indigenous group or an in-country group to see people from the West coming in with money and what temptation. that offers, but we were with a partner in Kenya, and he shared about this ministry that was hosting some donors coming in from the West that thought they had funded an orphanage.

And so the person would go out prior to their arrival and pay street kids, rent a building, pay street kids, give them a uniform, do a dog and pony show, and then as soon as the donors left, send them back out to the street. And that breaks my heart to see things like that go on. So that's why eyes wide open on every account is really important. Because there is that temptation that sits out there that we just need to be very mindful. That's good. Well, Janice, thanks so much for the wonderful conversation.

Loved hearing about your journey in ICM. Encourage people to check out ICM. I got the website pulled up here. It's ICM.org. That's easy to. Yeah, that's easy to get to. ICM.org. Look at that.

Yeah, encourage people to check it out. Is there any way people can get involved if they're like, want to hear more? Is there, yeah, what would you want people to do if they're like, hey, I want to check out ICM. Well, certainly go to the website. Yeah. And, you know, there's a way for them to enter their own information that someone from the ministry will be back in touch with them. Okay.

We have representatives from the ministry that are living in all different parts of the United States and can connect somebody to answer any questions that they might have. I will also say the Bible resource material that we offer is foundations by ICM. And we have audio 66 lessons, 66 languages, and we also offer it in a video content. And that's all free. Anybody doing any kind of ministry with people's needing content in other languages, point them there and encourage them to use it if it'll be a blessing to them and their ministries. I'm looking at it now, all this stuff on here.

So anybody can do this isn't just for people outside of America for anybody, right? Anybody. It started out for an English-speaking audience, but be very quickly moved to predominantly translation for other places. but it is wonderful material for anybody to listen to. Your website's amazing. I run a non-profit too, and every different link on our website, I'm like, I don't think it's, we need to fix some stuff here.

Yours is, I love the clarity and accessibility of it. Yeah, so anyway, give props to whoever is behind the design here. It's just, you have very clear messaging across the board. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, thanks, Janice. Really appreciate you and blessings to you and the work of you're involved in. Thank you so very much. Appreciate you.