For the past year, SEND International and Christar have been ironing out the details of a partnership agreement. This spring, both organizations signed that agreement. This new partnership will allow SEND members to serve on Christar teams and Christar members to serve on SEND teams.

The partnership is a good fit for both organizations who share a core focus: planting churches among unreached people groups. Don Parsons, SEND’s Director of Globalization, says, “We are on the same page with the big picture. Their orientation is church planting and that is our bottom line as well. We have the same goals.”

The agreement opens up exciting possibilities for both SEND and Christar. Brent McHugh, International Director of Christar, hopes the partnership will bring about “Healthier teams and an accelerated pace of planting the church among the unengaged.” Don Parsons is excited to tap into Christar’s experience in working among Muslim people. He also points to the Bible, specifically John 17, saying, “You can see all across Scripture the value of partnering together for the sake of the gospel.”

Initially, the focus will be on mobilizing missionaries to reach refugee communities around the world. According to the UN (in a report published June 18, 2015), there were 59.5 million forcibly displaced people worldwide in 2014. Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, has said, “We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before.” Christar has found that these refugees, being away from home in a new environment, tend to be very open to new communities and ideas. This provides an open door to help these hurting people physically and emotionally as well as spiritually.

Both short-term and long-term missionaries are needed to meet these needs. Brent McHugh says that they are “looking for people who have a desire to plant a church among unengaged people groups. We look for boldness in sharing Christ and moving people along in discipleship.”

Many of these opportunities will be posted on the SEND International website, http://www.send.org, in just a few weeks. To learn more about either organization, visit http://www.send.org or http://www.christar.org.

SEND International is an interdenominational faith mission agency with around 500 missionaries in more than 20 areas of Asia, Eurasia, Europe and North America. SEND’s mission is to mobilize God’s people and engage the unreached in order to establish reproducing churches. SEND members are multinational and are recruited and sent from sending offices and partner agencies around the world. For more information on SEND’s mission and ministries, visit http://www.send.org.