Daniel’s Day: What if we Willfully Welcomed and Strategically Sent Designfully Discipled Internationals?
Written by Dr. Yaw Perbi in association with the Lausanne North America ISM Strategy Group
For over a decade-and-a-half now, my African family has been domiciled in a cosmopolitan North American city swarming with Internationals, temporary and permanent. The city of Montreal is home to not only one of Canada’s top three universities but also the global headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Be they in the city to study, work, reside, or just to survive, as there are many refugees also, Internationals in today’s hyperconnected world—thanks to jet travel, telephony, the internet, social media etc.—constitute a much more significant movement of people across borders than has ever been seen in history. Today, there are over 300 million people on the move across international borders.
A BIBLICAL INJUNCTION
Could these be the days Daniel, the former Israelite international student and statesman across three successive foreign governments—Babylonian, Persian, and Medo-Persian—saw and prophesied about, that “many will roam about, and knowledge will increase” (Daniel 12:4 New American Standard Bible)? We know both are true of today: massive travel and abundant knowledge. But even more interesting is the intersection between international travel and education, for another way this scripture is put suggests that the actual reason many will travel back and forth is for studious purposes: “Many will go here and there to increase knowledge“ (New International Version, emphasis mine). Either way, many are coming to our churches from around the world and many are leaving from our local congregations to various nations on the globe.
Just before Fall 2025 began, as a missionary family we paid a visit to one of our partner churches, the Peoples Church of Montreal, which sits right across Sherbrooke Street from the main campus of McGill University, a citadel of 12,000 international students from 150+ countries. Already the nations had begun arriving for the new academic year, excited and anxious. That frenzied incoming stream always seems more striking than that of those who are already members of the same congregation completing their various courses of study and leaving for their home countries (or a third one) or simply local students going elsewhere in the world for studies. Full undergrad or graduate studies, for only a year or even just a semester-long cultural immersion program, what if we were more intentional in sending those who go?
Daniel spills the beans on end-time demographics, mentioning who the smart folks that will leverage this current, above situation will be: “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” (Daniel 12:3) What an unprecedented opportunity to wisely disciple the many who travel the globe back and forth for studies into a Kingdom multitude!
AN AFRICAN EXAMPLE
After pastoring an English-speaking Chinese church in the French city of Montreal for four years and serving as President/CEO of International Student Ministries Canada for eight, I relocated to Ghana with my family in 2021. This was in direct response to the fact that Africa had become the continent with the most Christians in the world since 2018, and we felt the Lord would have us go and contribute our quota to deepening the missional discipleship of the African Church to transform the continent and transmit the gospel to the rest of the unreached.
Seeing that the continent has the youngest population in the world and is also the most Christian numerically, it made sense to kindle the fire of intentionally preparing the Christian international students as they go to see themselves as missionaries of the gospel. At the time, not only did China have 40,000 African international students out of the half a million of them worldwide, but France also hosted 100,000 Francophone African students; not to speak of Turkey, India, and the like. Imagine if even half of these were Christians and a tenth of those were missional!
An initial 2022 research Kwiverr conducted on the missionary preparedness of African Christian International Students (ACIS), past and present, from 16 African nations, produced results which made us entitle the study report as ‘Not All Who Go Are Sent.’ It revealed that while 77% of ACIS pursue studies in Global North countries, most embark on this journey with little to no intentional missional preparation. Although half considered themselves missionaries before leaving Africa, only 34% had any form of missionary training, and 62% had no relationship with a local church at their destination. Strikingly, over 82% of African Christian alumni later said they wished they had prepared better to be missionaries in their host countries, with nearly 70% expressing willingness to attend cultural and missionary training before departure. Kwiverr itself has since put together an online course, currently in its beta version, to help close the proper preparation gap.
ON-THE-GROUND CASE STUDIES
Following conversations around ‘intentional student sending’ and a piercing question asked by the Lausanne North America Strategy Group for International Student Ministry about “Who is Sending Students Well?” Kwiverr decided to find out who actually is, in collaboration with the African Centre for Mission Mobilization and Research (ACMMR). This study explored the involvement of African churches and mission organizations in Ghana, the United Kingdom, and Nigeria in sending students abroad as missionaries. It examined their vision, operational structures, destination countries, support systems, outcomes, challenges, and successes. The main research method was surveying. An invitation was thrown to twenty-three churches and agencies. In the end, only eight, including the West Africa missionary sending office of SIM, responded in the affirmative and were deeply surveyed. The study highlights both opportunities and gaps in current practices and offers recommendations for enhancing the effectiveness and sustainability of student-as-missionary programs.
“Sending a missionary well” means to fully support a person embarking on a missional journey by providing the necessary spiritual and missiological formation, adequate financial, logistical, emotional, social, and practical preparation, ensuring they are well-equipped to handle the challenges of their mission field, and continuing to care for them throughout their time away and upon their return. This, essentially, means sending them with the necessary tools and support to effectively fulfill their mission while being mindful of their well-being. Some organizations reported having sent missionaries to over 30 African countries, while others are still in preparatory stages and have not yet deployed students abroad. This indicates a varied level of experience across organizations, with some in exploratory phases and others already well established. Vision must be matched with capacity and structure; many still lack comprehensive support systems (e.g. language training, logistical support).
The top three most common assistance (62.5%) are leadership development, spiritual support (e.g., prayer and spiritual direction), and mentoring. These are the most emphasized areas, indicating that many organizations recognize the importance of preparing missionaries in leadership, spiritual grounding, and mentorship in formal, semi-formal, and informal ways. Moderately common support (by about half of the respondents) includes fundraising assistance, commissioning (sending out ceremony or process), connecting students with contacts at their destination, and member care (ongoing support after deployment), particularly emotional support (counseling). The least common support is cultural and cross-cultural training, language training, and providing hosts and logistical support.
Still, the overwhelming majority of these students travel without adequate missional preparation, clear accountability structures, or sustainable support from their home churches. This gap presents both a challenge and a remarkable opportunity. The full report survey is available upon request. Again, the findings have been sobering.
ACTIONS TO TAKE
Perhaps, it is the turn of North American counterparts to give the same survey questions a try. Church and mission leaders can examine their 21st-century, ‘last days’ mission preparedness of their young people using the said survey.
Also, for years international student ministries by local churches and mission agencies alike in North America have typically focused on welcoming the nations, primarily the unsaved and/or unreached. What would it look like if we opened our eyes to see the Christian co-workers God is already bringing our way from around the world to join hands with us to reach the hitherto unreached in our context? And what would it look like for your church or organization to be more intentional in preparing the 400,000+ North American students who go for both short and long-term studies in some 180+ destinations in the world?
CONCLUSION
Daniel’s Day is here. No doubt. So are you. Now that you are more keenly aware of this, how could we be strategic about what this could mean for the largely unfinished task of world evangelization? What if we more willfully welcomed and better strategically sent designfully discipled Internationals? Whether we do anything or not, many people will still travel to and fro to acquire knowledge, and indeed knowledge will increase. The question is, to what extent will today’s leaders be Issacharic enough to understand the times and leverage the moment (2 Chronicles 12:32) for Kingdom advancement, especially an increase in the knowledge of Jesus among unreached people groups? Church leaders with not only good theology but also sound missiology are the ones who will be counted on by God as wise to rise and ardent to act, and they shall be richly rewarded with forever stardom because they rightly discerned the times and duly discipled the nations at their doorstep while firmly forming and strategically sending those who go to go well. While specifically targeting those whose going is imminent, just the mere über mobile nature of our world today requires that missional discipleship becomes the order of the day—the normal way of being and doing life—for every church and congregant in every city, for the nations are wherever we are, not just where we are sent.
NB. This article was written by Dr. Yaw Perbi in association with the Lausanne North America ISM Strategy Group and first published on the ACMI website. ACMI is the Association of Christians Ministering among Internationals.
