Our recent Gathering in Indianapolis celebrated our transition from a start-up led by Founder Mark Canada to a growth-oriented venture led by our new CEO, Herbert Severin. We celebrated God’s faithfulness and reaffirmed our core commitment to our MDE Members—men and women making money and making disciples in the world’s least-reached marketplaces.
We serve Members using MDE’s secret sauce: Volunteers. BAM Team Managers walk with our Members for a season, providing business mentoring and coaching. Missional Mentors help them live as faith-filled, disciple-making disciples of Jesus. Missional mentors are experienced disciplers who are able to provide accountability, encouragement, and prayer support to our members.
The third group of MDE Volunteers is our Faculty of Advisors, who provide just-in-time expertise to Members. They may be invited by the BAM Team Manager for business-related niche areas or by a Member’s Missional Mentor for assistance in areas like language learning or homeschooling.
We find our service model to be as encouraging and spiritually rewarding for our volunteers at home as it is essential for our BAM members in remote places.
Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of launching a subsidiary, serving as president, and, most recently, as a sales manager. While I’ve found great satisfaction in my work, the prospect of volunteering with MDE fills me with excitement for my retirement years. Currently, I’m collaborating with one MDE member and eagerly anticipate working with many more. It’s been truly rewarding to witness the lives positively impacted by the business venture I’m coaching.
I volunteered to be a mentor because it seemed God had been laying this way of serving Him in my heart. As I have thought about my years as an educator, I realized that “coach” is an accurate term for what I enjoy about teaching. In some ways, mentoring with MDE is like being a coach, someone wanting to come alongside to listen, cheer, and challenge.
I was intimidated by the thought of mentoring a young person until she said one day, “I don’t have anyone else that’s praying for me like this!” Suddenly I relaxed. And so in listening and in prayer – month after month, hour after hour – we just journeyed on through all these different circumstances. It was an exceedingly rewarding time for me to see God’s faithfulness to her.
What About You?
Is the Lord giving you a heart for the lost millions in closed or unreached places around the world? Do you have business expertise, mission skills, passion, or experience? Might He be calling you to use those gifts to serve Him as a BAMer? If you are not called to “go”, He can use your gifts to serve BAMers as a volunteer. Either way, we’d love to speak with you and help you discern the Lord’s leading. Let us know how we can serve you.