Missionary David Joannes speaks with Pneuma Review about his book, The Mind of a Missionary, and about sharing the story of Jesus no matter the cost.

PneumaReview.com: You are involved in cross-cultural missions. Please tell our readers how long you have served overseas and where.

David Joannes: I got started in missions in 1994 at the age of fifteen. I went to Russia with Teen Mania Ministries and have never been able to shake the missionary call. At age eighteen, I bought a one-way ticket to Kunming, China, and have been living overseas for the last twenty-two years. Southwest China is home to hundreds of ethnic tribes and was the perfect place to launch out into ministry among unreached people groups. After years of evangelism, discipleship, and church-planting, my wife and I founded a ministry called Within Reach Global. Working alongside the underground Church, we have seen God move in the lives of countless unreached communities.

PneumaReview.com: What kinds of resistance or persecution have you experienced while serving in ministry overseas?

David Joannes has a burden for unreached people groups. For approximately twenty years now he has ministered in Asia bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to those who have not heard it. The Mind of a Missionary is his second and most recent book. In addition to his writing and missionary work, he is also the co-founder and president of Within Reach Global, a ministry which serves to spread the gospel in Southeast Asia.

The main body of the book is divided into four sections, each section comprised of three chapters. Section One is called “Motivations,” Section Two is “Expectations,” Section Three is “Risks,” and Section Four is “Rewards.” Some of the topics of these sections are internal matters and some are external, but they are all issues that missionaries have to grapple with. As the author explores each of these areas he discusses the ministries of real missionaries. A number of the missionaries he writes about are now dead but some are still alive. The missionaries whose stories provide the basis for each chapter are: Jim Elliot (and his team), C. T. Studd (the Cambridge Seven), Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, Robert Moffat, Jackie Pullinger, David Eubank, Nik and Ruth Ripken, William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael, Don Richardson, and Heidi Baker. If you are familiar with past missions history many of these names will be familiar to you. A few in this list are still actively involved in ministry.

However, this book is not a compilation of missionary biographies. Some of the experiences of the individuals mentioned above are highlighted in the book in order to shed some light on the motivations, expectations, risks, and rewards of missionary service. But there is more in the book as well. In addition to the missionaries already mentioned Joannes shares some of his own experiences and those of other people in missionary work. It is encouraging to learn about some of the things that are happening around the world through people and ministries whose names are not widely known.