April 2005
Mosaic is the monthly news bulletin of Rosedale Mennonite Missions and is distributed through CMC churches. Because this publication may contain information about workers and ministries in sensitive locations, the entire content is not available online.

The Life of a New Missionary: Language Study
An RMM missionary currently engaged in language study in the Middle East recently wrote the following about the joys and disappointments of language learning.

“High time: This happened three weeks after my arrival here: I am going to church one Sunday morning and, in the local language, I talk to the teenager sitting next to me. She asks ‘Are you learning English?’ She thought I was a local man!

“Low time: This might actually be the most frequent scene. I am approaching a corner, and a guy asks me, in English: ‘Excuse me, can I talk to you?’ How in the world does he know that I was a foreigner? Maybe because I am the only person in the street wearing a light-colored shirt, and no coat, when everyone is was wearing winter coats and dark clothing. I AM a foreigner here.”

The NY Times on Global Church Growth
In a March 27 editorial in the New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof writes that the incredible growth of Christianity in the developing world should cause the American Church to re-evaluate its priorities. “[W]here faith is easy, it is fading; where it's a challenge, it thrives…That's worth remembering in the debates about school prayers or public displays of the Ten Commandments: Faith doesn't need any special leg up. Look at where religion is most vibrant today…and the obvious conclusion is that what nurtures faith is not special privileges but rather adversity.”
Where are the Christians?
Although some areas are predominantly Christian, much of the world still doesn’t have an adequate Christian witness. This can be illustrated by comparing the percentage of the world’s population with the percentage of the world’s Christians that live in each “macro region.” For example, North America is home to only 5% of the world’s 6.3 billion inhabitants, but has 13% of the world’s 2.1 billion Christians. Asia, on the other hand, has over 60% of the world’s population but only 16% of the Christians.

See a more in-depth analysis of this information for the world’s 18 sub-regions.

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