NZCMS Personnel Manager Passes on the Baton

By Mike Robb, NZCMS Personnel Manager

A story from Papua New Guinea

Late Novem­ber, my wife Ruth and I were speed­ing along a river in a dinghy in a remote part of the low­lands in the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea. We had been paying a pas­toral visit to our NZCMS Mission Part­ners, Scott and Nikki Wheeler and had left them for a couple of hours to preach at a local village church service downstream.

As we returned to Kapuna Hos­pital where the Wheel­ers live, I reflec­ted on how I had first driven our own wee dinghy down this exact stretch of water in 1981 when Ruth and I were serving our first term at Kapuna Hos­pital. At that moment, I saw another dinghy and out­board approach­ing us in the oppos­ite dir­ec­tion. As it came closer, I could see that it was being driven by Scott Wheeler, accom­pan­ied by Nikki and their three chil­dren. It was too much of a coin­cid­ence that we would be trav­el­ling towards each other sim­ul­tan­eously, and I quickly became aware that this moment had been orches­trated by God.

As we called to each other in sur­prise and waved, this deep com­bin­a­tion of sadness, joy and peace washed over me as I real­ised what this meant. Sadness that Ruth and I are in our mid 60’s and could prob­ably not cope with living long-term in swampy low­lands envir­on­ments anymore. Joy that God has enabled us to meet, recruit, prepare and send a younger family to Kapuna to con­tinue the min­is­tries there. Peace from the Hebrew word ‘Shalom’, which can be trans­lated as ‘when everything is func­tion­ing as God intended’.

Just as I had served in cross-cul­tural mis­sions in Kapuna and driven down this same river over forty years ago, another young couple was doing similar work and driving down the exact same river! As we passed each other, in a very real sense, I was able to ‘pass on the baton’ of cross-cul­tural mis­sions service in Papua New Guinea low­lands to the next generation.

Train­ing 100s to reach 1000s

About thirty years ago, Ruth and I had a pastor pray over us as we pre­pared to return to Papua New Guinea. The pastor said that he saw a picture of those little ‘Hun­dreds & Thou­sands’ sprinkles and believed that God was calling us to “Train 100s to win 1000s”. Not only that, but the pastor sug­ges­ted we buy a canvas picture frame and glue a whole pile of ‘Hun­dreds & Thou­sands’ sprinkles to it and write the phrase at the top. Which we have done!

In pretty much all decisions we have made in the last thirty-plus years, we have tried to pray­er­fully make in the context of this phrase and calling upon our lives. Any sig­ni­fic­ant changes or shifts have been pray­er­fully pre­faced and dis­cussed in the context of “How is this moving towards or act­ively con­trib­ut­ing to train­ing 100s to win 1,000s?” This has been hugely valu­able and helped us pri­or­it­ise many things.

A Time to Resign

This brings me to the present time and my announce­ment that I am form­ally resign­ing from my role at NZCMS and per­man­ent full-time work as a whole! Who knows when we are saying or writing our final words? Not many, if any. But I do know that I am writing my final offi­cial words as a Per­son­nel Manager for NZCMS. This has been my life, my calling and my passion for the last six very full years. It has been a mixture of excite­ment, sadness, hope, des­per­a­tion and some­times even tedium! Ruth will con­tinue in her role as Per­son­nel Manager for NZCMS going for­wards, and my prayers and love go with her in this con­tin­ued work.

As I men­tioned earlier, Ruth and I have been involved in over­seas mis­sions, pas­tor­ing churches and teach­ing in bible col­leges since 1980. Most of it has been amazing, and some has been tough. Working for NZCMS has been such a bless­ing. I have had the joy of speak­ing, teach­ing and praying for mis­sions and finding, recruit­ing, train­ing, sending and vis­it­ing a won­der­ful bunch of mis­sion­ar­ies overseas!

I’m also excited to follow the appoint­ment of NZCMS’ Māori Evan­gel­ists. I believe this has a huge, excit­ing future and that tangata whenua will lead us all into the next great revival that will sweep across our land and beyond!

I’m excited to see the new gen­er­a­tion of mis­sion­ar­ies coming through! There is energy, cre­ativ­ity and desire for a Godly com­munity that is refresh­ing, chal­len­ging and excit­ing! I pray that, as an older mis­sion­ary and pastor, I will be involved, even if that means con­tinu­ing to cheer them all on as they explore how God wants to use them in the great commission.

Ka tonoa te katoa. Every­one sent.

Bless­ings and aroha nui.
Mike Robb

Mike was recently gifted with a Toko­toko by one of our Māori Evan­gel­ists couples, Howard and Gladys Karaka, during their visit to NZCMS in Decem­ber. The Toko­toko recog­nises the author­ity within the holder to speak and the mana that they hold in their community.