TJ Gause  

 

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I leave with a team of health care professionals/teachers this Saturday for a week in Helene, Honduras. We will be hosting another Missionary Care Retreat with the purpose to equip, train, provide counsel and generally help our staff deal with life as a missionary. In addition to training, the health care workers traveling with me will make themselves available to staff for personal “appointments”.

I will be adding pictures during our trip to this blog entry, so please come and check us out. Feel free to leave a comment while you are here.

Topics we plan to address:

1. Boundaries

2. Communication Skills

3. Grief and Loss

4. Depression or Suicidality (how to identify and create a “safe” plan for those you find in this situation)

5. Self Insight for the Missionary - how does your personal insight impact your mission?

6. Couples Session: Getting Deeper with one another in marriage and ministry

7. Singles in ministry

8. Cross-Cultural Issues in Missionary Work

9. Choosing good team members using the Alternative Missions staff and intern processes

10. Traits of a healthy team member / Signs of personality issues or dysfunction

11. Teaming

Please be praying for us this week.

Serving Joyfully,

TJ Gause

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 4th Update:

Photo: Here we are heading “down island” with the Helene staff and the Missionary Care Team (MCT). Our missionary care team consists of Tom; director/founder of Alternative Missions (hawaiian shirt in back, right corner); Danny Machado, teacher/counselor (orange shirt); Wendy Grimm, teacher/counselor (white shirt, sitting in front of Tom); and myself (front right corner).

Photo: Upon our arrival to the small island of Helene, we gave out gifts to the staff that included an ice cream maker and various ingredients. I was able to purchase & bring down these gifts based on the generosity of my supporters. Thank you! Needless to say, the staff are pretty excited.

After spending our first night on the main island of Roatan, the Missionary Care Team arrived on the small island of Helene just in time to tour the grounds and eat dinner with the staff. It has been great to re-connect with the staff and see how each of the various ministries are progressing (I had the privilege of visiting Helene for about 3 days, a year and a half ago). This is a unique ministry location in that all of the staff live & work in close community with eachother and the island community. Since Helene is only about 1.5 by 3 miles big, that makes this a small community. Yet, I am always impressed by their ability to enjoy, have conflict, and grow with one another. I look forward to this week full of teaching and counseling sessions, for what it will mean for each of the individuals on staff and as they work together as a team.

Please be praying for us this week for:

- Vulnerability to share with one another as well as grace to be given when someone has shared something important and personal.

- Wisdom, clarity of thought and mind for Danny and Wendy, our counselor/teachers.

- Time for everyone to reflect and “chew” on the material presented throughout the week.

 

May 6 Update:

Today is our 2nd day of the missionary care retreat in which we continued discussion on various ways of communicating. Yesterday, we studied the Self in an attempt to greater understand how each of us operate. Today, we took a look at these results in light of how they play out on the team. I respect our Helene staff for their continued desire to grow and adapt various methods of communication.

Please continue to pray for the staff this week as we begin to discuss deeper traumatic events they’ve experienced; and that God would bring hidden things into the light in order to heal and restore broken places.

Photo: Below is a picture of Danny teaching on Reflective Listening.

 

May 8th Update:

The last few teaching sessions have spurred some great conversation regarding traits of a healthy team and healthy team members. I’ve been really impressed with the amount of healthy traits this Helene team already exhibits. At the same time, I’m encouraged by their desire to go deeper and really weed out any unhealthy characteristics.

One of the more enlightening conversations has centered around stress & burnout. In the process of clearly defining each of these terms, spontaneous conversation emerged regarding what major amounts of stress look like for each individual on the team. As a courageous leader, Larry Benson, also director of this team, opened by sharing how he reacts under stress (which most team members agreed with). Quite easily & in a safe manner, the rest of the team began to comment on ways that they know when Larry is stressed. Then, time was taken to identify things that re-charge Larry.

As we continued this exercise for each individual on the team, great new insights were being recognized as individuals were being validated in their personal need as well as challenged to grow in ways they react to stress. These sorts of ideas and spontaneous conversations are a vital part of the missionary care retreat. Having the Missionary Care Team available to help generate and facilitate discussion has opened new doors of discussion and allowed for deep insight. Praise the Lord!

Photo: Wendy leads the group discussion on stress.

In Conclusion:

What a great week we had together! Hear what some of the staff have to say about their week with the Missionary Care Team….

“Reflection on how each individual handles stress was very helpful.”

“I love it! Totally awesome! Come back!!”

“I got real and practical ways to deal with challenging relationships. I know who cares about my health as a missionary in A.M. Yeah!”

“It was great to hear from God about His love for me and my expression of love for Him.”

“Thanks for coming to help strengthen and unify our team.”

“What a wealth of discovery about myself and my team! So much of our lives are dealing with the here and now going on in our ministry/life, it is difficult to stop and find time to sort out personal issues. Personal issues that have hidden elements not easily seen until a professional can guide and recognize. What grace to have this opportunity to deal with my past in order that God can change me as I go into the present and the future. I can’t wait to do this again!