About Jonathan Parsons

Jonathan thinks and writes about practical aspects of missionary service to help train and equip missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission. Jonathan ministered in East Africa with the International Mission Board. He now serves in the International Ministries office at the headquarters of Word of Life Fellowship coordinating logistical and administrative matters. He and his wife Amy live in the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York.

Foreign Travel Insurance

As important as it is to maintain good insurance as you serve overseas, it is equally important to have the right kind of insurance and know how to use it.  Whether you are serving for a couple weeks or a lifetime, you need to make sure your insurance will travel overseas with you.  Here are some things to look for in an insurance policy.

  • Medical Coverage – accident, sickness, evacuation/repatriation, family travel, accidental death & dismemberment, hospital deposit/cash advance, return of mortal remains
  • Security Coverage – crisis management, political evacuation
  • Liability Coverage – legal defense
  • Worker’s Compensation – extension of US worker’s comp

Two agencies that specialize in missionary insurance are listed below.  They offer insurance for mission agencies, churches, short-term trips, and others serving overseas.

Treating Your Clothing with Permethrin

You can help protect yourself from mosquito bites (that cause malaria) by wearing clothing treated with insect repellent.   A popular line of clothing called “BuzzOff” is available or you may treat your own clothing with a chemical called permethrin.  This is also effective on mosquito nets and curtains.  The figure below from Travel Medicine illustrates how to treat your clothing.  Read the CDC article on treating clothing for additional information.

Maps

Are you looking for a good map of your area?  If you are like most missionaries, it helps to visualize where you work with a map.  I like to have a large political map for general reference, a map of the locations where I work, and a handy atlas to look up places.  Look for these items at a bookstore that sells school textbooks.  If your map is laminated you can write on it with a dry erase marker.  You should also take advantage of the missions maps that are available, showing percent evangelical, bible translation, church strength and other valuable information.  With Google Earth and more technical GIS software, you can create your own custom maps, showing the churches, schools, clinics, or other places you serve.  Here are some links to maps.

General Maps

Missions Maps

Online Maps

Mapping Software

More links to Maps

Staying Informed

As a missionary, you are likely aware of the emphasis placed on some news (often US news) while other important stories are barely mentioned. How can you stayed informed on the important world news and keep you eye on what is happening in your region of the world? Here are some good ways to keep up with the news.  I prefer to have the news emailed to me instead of visiting websites.  They are listed in order,with the most useful ones first.

  1. AirSecurity HOTSPOTS – this covers major world events, with an emphasis on air travel.  It includes US, UK, Canadian, and Australian travel advisories.  Subscribe to this daily email
  2. OSAC Daily Newsletters – this covers the US State Department travel warnings and announcements, as well as links to news articles.  Subscribe to this daily email More about the OSAC
  3. CNN International – the non-US edition  Sign up for email/sms alerts
  4. BBC – See the mobile site and regional news services Signup for email/sms alerts
  5. Google Alerts – get notified via email when keywords that are important to you are posted online
  6. Google News – a customizable news and search website with country editions
  7. Press Display – view newspapers from around the world online
  8. Twitter Search – search real-time Twitter posts

Other Sites that may be helpful

Radio

Sending Newsletters as PDF Attachments

Sending regular newsletters has long been a staple of maintaining relationships with ministry partners and raising missionary support. While many missionaries still send paper newsletters, most missionaries send email newsletters as well. I work with and know many missionaries, so I regularly receive these monthly, quarterly, or occasional email newsletters. Many missionaries do not carefully consider the file format they use to send newsletters. I would like to provide several reasons why missionaries should use the PDF format for these attachments.  PDF stands for Portable Document File.  It can be created and read by many applications.  The developer of the PDF file is Adobe and the most common viewer of PDF files is Adobe Acrobat Reader.  You can identify a PDF by the letters “pdf” after the dot in the file name, as in newsletter.pdf.  The icon on the right is commonly associated with PDF files.

  • PDFs files are opened with a free (an very common) viewer.  If you use a proprietary file format from Microsoft Publisher, Adobe Photoshop, or other applications, the recipient will need this same application to view your newsletter.  Even more common formats such as Microsoft Word’s DOC and DOCX, require a viewer that some users may not have.  Anyone can open a PDF file with a free, popular application.
  • PDFs do not contain viruses.  Files like Microsoft Word can contain macros, small programs that may harm your computer.  Some email applications will block these as a protective measure.
  • PDFs allow you to use your favorite font.  If you use a special font that your recipient doesn’t have, your words with either be displayed in another font, or will be displayed as complete gibberish, resulting in unattractive or unintelligible text.
  • PDFs insure that your recipient sees the document the same way they would if you printed it and mailed it to them.  PDFs are like a virtual printed copy of your newsletter.  You can rest assured that no one will see anything else on their screen.
  • PDFs make it easy for your recipient to print your newsletter.  When your recipient prints the document, it will be the same as if you mailed it to them.
  • PDFs make it sure that no one can alter your newsletter.  It is what it is.

So, now that you understand why it is important to send your newsletter as a PDF file attachment, how do you do it?  Many computer applications allow you to save the file as a PDF file.  You may also install a small program that functions like a virtual printer, turning anything you can print into a PDF.  Some free programs that do this are PDFCreator and PrimoPDF.  They install on your computer are shown as printers.  Instead of printing paper, they “print” the file and convert it into a PDF file on your computer.  You can then attach this file to your email.

Learn How to Use Your Computer by Watching Videos

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Are you trying to learn a new computer program or just keep up with the technology?  Lynda.com is an online video-based training tool.  I recommend Lynda.com to missionaries regularly as they have quality videos that teach many standard applications.  While many computer programmers and graphic artists use Lynda, they also have a good selection of videos for the rest of us.  Videos cover the changes between Office 2007 and Office 2010 and advanced topics such as mail merges and Excel macros.  The cost is $25/month for unlimited classes.

Topics include:

  • Excel
  • Facebook
  • Gmail
  • Google Docs
  • Google Apps
  • OpenOffice.org
  • Outlook
  • Picasa
  • PowerPoint
  • QuickBooks
  • Quicken
  • Twitter
  • Windows 7
  • Word
  • WordPerfect

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is standard method for expressing the range of sounds of that we use in the languages of the world.  This is a useful tool for linguists and language learners as it is the way to write every possible sound.  It often is helpful to see the “big picture” of all the sounds and how they relate to each other.  It can also help you understand how to get your mouth to make the desired sound in your new language.  If you learn the IPA, you will be able to write the proper pronunciation or every word in every language.

Learn more about the IPA:






Electrical Outlets

Different parts of the world have various electrical outlets.  Here is a chart that shows the common types of outlets.

Type Description Picture Type Description Picture
A (North American/Japanese 2-blade)
Flat blade attachment plug		 B (American 3-pin) Flat blades (same as type A), but with round grounding pin
C (European 2-pin) Round pin attachment plug D (Old British plug) Round pins with ground
E (French 2-pin) Round pin plug and receptacle E F (“Schuko” plug) Round pins with side ground contacts F
G (British 3-pin) Rectangular blade plug G H (Israeli 3-pin) Oblique blades/pins with ground H
I (Australian plug) Oblique flat blades (inverted V-shape) with ground I J (Swiss 3-pin) Round pins with offset ground J
K (Danish 3-pin) Round pins with spade ground K L (Italian 3-pin) Round pins with ground (in-line) L
M (South African plug) Round pins similar to type D but larger and with one oversized pin M

This information is from ElectricalOutlet.org