How I Became a Cross-Cultural Storyteller

Hi, I’m Jenifer, and I’m really passionate about telling good missions stories. That is, I feel called to tell the stories of the work that God is doing in the world, through cross-cultural workers and their friends. And I feel called to tell these stories in an engaging and ethical way. I want to share with you how I realized this calling.

I’ve been a storyteller for nearly my whole life. I have stacks of notebooks and journals to prove it.

For much of my life, I’ve also been interested in global missions. As a kid, I loved when missionaries visited my church. I would hang on to every word they shared about life in other places and their friends who lived there. I think I’ve always been enamored by the beauty that exists in the world. It’s so incredible to see our Creator’s creativity played out in the form of color, clothing, food, language, music, customs, and more.

I felt called to missions from a young age, and was sure that was where God would lead me after I graduated high school. To my surprise, He led me to journalism school instead. I went on to work as a reporter for South Dakota Public Broadcasting Radio, where I was encouraged to pursue truth, accuracy, and well-researched stories.

Eventually, I went on a missions trip that took me to eleven countries in eleven months. I thought for sure God would cause me to fall in love with a place, and lead me to stay there. But that didn’t happen! I liked most of the places we visited. I did discover, however, that I really liked sharing my experiences with my friends and family back home.

“Is there such a thing as a missionary journalist?” I wondered.

For most of my life I had a pretty limited understanding of who became missionaries and what those people did. I assumed that missionaries were people who were Very Special, and mainly did things like teach school, pastor churches, or run orphanages. It turns out, however, that people engaged in global mission work can actually be Quite Ordinary and even Normal. And they can do all kinds of work and use all kinds of skills. I did a little googling, and discovered that many organizations had openings for communications positions. There is a need for writers and storytellers!

It’s been about eight years since I first felt the call to the role of missions storyteller. I’ve learned and grown a lot in that time. I’ve realized that stories about cross-cultural work need to be told carefully, so that they don’t perpetuate stereotypes or rob anyone of dignity. I’ll talk more about this in later blog posts.

My goal is to tell ethical and engaging stories that uphold the dignity of all people, helping the Church in North America to see the image of God in others, so that the Church may love well, be more aware of God’s work in the world, and be able to pray, speak, give, and go more intentionally.

For the next several weeks, this blog will primarily focus on the issue of missions and nonprofit storytelling. I’ll talk about what I mean by “ethical storytelling,” why stories are important, how we can do a better job of telling good stories, and more.

Join me for new posts every Tuesday and Friday, and feel free to ask me any questions you may have. I find I continue to learn more and more about this topic. Let’s learn together!