We’ve had to explain the change in writing to a few concerned people and churches. We appreciate your concern! I’ve copied and pasted parts of what we’ve sent to them. If you would like more information on anything discussed below, please let us know.
The reason we were led to change missions agencies are mainly twofold: 1) to provide better healthcare for our family, which will give us more peace of mind, and 2) to be better stewards of the finances God has given us.
God willing, we plan to continue serving in Japan, partnering with local Japanese pastors in growing the Kingdom of God, helping to plant churches, and ministering to the Japanese people. In so doing, we want to make sure our family is healthy. Up until now, we have been paying out of pocket for all of our medical expenses in Japan, which has been in the range of $500 to $1000 per year thus far, except for when we had our baby. This includes all the preventative care we've received , care for illnesses and accidents, and any medical costs prior to us having our baby in Japan. We actually have not taken all the preventative healthcare measures we should have in order to save money, which I know isn't best, but we thank God that we and our children have been pretty healthy.
Pioneers has pretty good international health insurance, for which we were paying a pretty high premium. With the deductible also being pretty high, we never reached our deductible and therefore paid all our medical expenses out of pocket. We asked Pioneers if we could join the Japanese national healthcare system so we could receive care at a reasonable price, and opt out of the Pioneer's group plan. Pioneers said we could join the Japanese healthcare system, but that we would still be required to continue with Pioneer's group insurance as well. We were not allowed to opt out of the Pioneer's health plan. To us, paying into both wasn’t a wise decision.
So as we were praying through this, we asked God what we should do.
Practically speaking, joining the Japanese healthcare system will enable us to 1) take better care of our family by paying more attention to preventative care, which we have been lacking, 2) reduce our medical costs significantly because our monthly fees for Japanese National Health Insurance would be approximately half that of Pioneer's insurance, and 3) our visits to the doctor would be covered by the insurance so we won't have to pay out of pocket for all the healthcare services we receive.
So as we've been praying through all this, asking God for leading, and asking Pioneers to allow us to opt out of their group insurance, we looked into various options.
We came across World Outreach Ministries, and saw that they provided the flexibility we were seeking. After reviewing their website, their statement of faith, and researching about them online, Peter felt this could be a good option for us. After much prayer and consideration, he contacted Jason Peebles, the founder and president of WOM for more information. Through Peter’s interaction with him, he seemed like someone he can trust and be able to partner with for the Kingdom of God.
There are two main differences between PI and WOM. PI is a "sending agency", WOM is a "service agency". What this means in a nutshell is that Pioneers is a lot more "hands on" in terms of member care. WOM, on the other hand, doesn't provide this member care. WOM mainly helps us by being our back office in the US providing administrative support to our financial supporters.
This lack of member care might be a point of concern, but we don't think this is the case for us. Although we won't be able to receive "hands on" member care from an organization, we will be able to receive member care resources and referrals from WOM as needed. Also, and more importantly, our missionary network and partnerships with pastors and missionaries in Japan will provide us the relationships through whom we can continue spurring each other to grow spiritually and provide spiritual accountability. Pioneers actually has a team in Fukuoka, and we will continue meeting with them in fellowship. If God opens the door, we will also be partnering with them in various ministries too, especially with regards to college ministry.
As we've been praying through this decision, here are some of the pro's of making the change to WOM.
1) Better and more affordable health care for our family.
2) Better financial stewardship with lowered medical costs
3) Flexibility in ministry. Working with Pioneers has been great, but we were limited to working with only Pioneers and their direct partners. Although we were able to fellowship with other missionaries and pastors in Japan personally, we weren't able to work directly with them. (This is now changing within the PI Hiroshima Team.) Joining WOM will provide us the flexibility to partner with specific churches, and also work directly with other various missionaries and pastors as occasions arise. WOM leaves much of the decision making to the missionary on the field as they believe that the missionary on the ground knows the situation best.
The con's we thought of are...
1) No longer receiving member care from Pioneers, but we think our spiritual, emotional, and mental health will constantly be kept in check by our local brothers and sisters in Christ (fellow missionaries, pastors, church members in Japan, and many of you!).
2) No longer having the close fellowship times with our Pioneers team. We will still have fellowship with them, but not at an organizational level.
Pioneers sent out a very thoughtfully written letter to all of our financial supporters in July to let them know we are transitioning out of Pioneers, not because we had any problems, but rather with their blessing.
So, as sad as it is to leave Pioneers, we are excited about our new relationship with WOM. We have peace in knowing that this decision is best for our family, our long term commitment in serving the people in Japan, and the best stewardship of the finances God provides us.
We hope you agree. :)
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