By Caryn Young
International Missions, Director of Administration
A Review of Without a Passport: Reaching the Global Community Living in Our Community by D.H. Bud Fuchs
Bud starts Without a Passport by making us aware of the unique opportunity to welcome international guests in our midst, an opportunity to lead, serve, and learn from others. “The mission field has come to our doorsteps,” he writes. “God has brought the foreign field to your school, workplace, and neighborhood.”
Without a Passport is both an invitation to step out of our own culture into another and an opportunity to look in the mirror, to see who we are through the eyes of guests visiting our culture and country, many for the first time. To read this book is to experience both, without even leaving your home, literally. “God has placed us in the Western world for reasons other than being comfortable and well-fed. He has given us the privilege of being the answers to the prayers of many missionaries and mission-minded organizations. This is both a blessing and a responsibility.”
Nearly three hundred current and former world leaders have taken part in academic programs in the United States. “The influence Christians might have on future world leaders is astounding, but the influence those leaders have on their home countries is equally astounding. “
Without a Passport
is an authentic, honest, and sincere read full of personal stories and examples that address missteps, assumptions, and successes. In addition, it is a refreshing how-to book full of practical resources and tools for building relationships with international guests, including a few appendices with helpful tools and and guides and a link to a video study at the end of the book. One of my favorite features of Without a Passport is the discussion questions listed at the end of each chapter. These questions are great for individual reflection and group discussion. They do more than just summarize the topics from the chapter; they actually address and draw out our own stories and experiences and how God is at work in us and others.
Ultimately, this book has the potential to surprise you. Reading Without a Passport just might reveal what is in your heart that you were not aware of and make you aware of others around you whom you had not noticed before. Whatever is discovered – fear, prejudice, great love for others, gift for hospitality, curiosity, a new calling – there are great things to be learned in these pages. I would encourage you to read Without a Passport and then listen for what God might do in you and through you in your neighborhood.