Interview with Missionary Joy Sheraden

How long have you been a missionary and where have you served?

I have been on the mission field for almost 4 years in San Jose, Costa Rica.

How do you describe your current position?

My current position is the assessment and evaluation director for the global team of Boy with a Ball. Basically I track information so that we can see how our programs are running, what we need to change, if we need more personnel to make programs better, start new programs, or stop others.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you measure the American church’s global missions efforts? Why?

I haven’t had much contact with lots of other churches so I wouldn’t know how to answer that. I think there is some preparation for churches to send teams, but I’m not so sure that there is much preparation for long term missionaries within the churches. It’s great to go on short term trips, but what is the long term vision?

We agree that the gospel is the greatest spiritual need of the world. What is the greatest physical need?

I think that the greatest physical need is clean water, food, and education.

If you could stand in an arena full of church leaders, what would you say to them about fulfilling the Great Commission?

First of all, to the leaders, my question to them would be. Do you have a passport? Have you ever used it? Before you can ask other people to go you need to go yourself. I think that in some cases that teams get sent and they have not been properly prepared. There has to be lots of communication before, during and after any trip. Also having an ongoing relationship with the place that you want to serve is a huge thing. There has to be someone on the ground that has done the prep work and that will be there after to do the follow up. It’s great that you had 100 kids say "the prayer," but what happens to them after you get on the plane to go back to your life and they go back to theirs - Where they aren’t sure they are going to eat tonight, or even be safe? Who is going to teach them to walk it out?

Are you excited or concerned about global outreach in the next decade?

That is what excites and worries me. Who is going to be the one to do the follow up and who will support those that are the ones doing it?