By Dean Smyth
In the second week of May, I joined administrators from around the world at an international gathering in Colorado Springs. I had communicated with many of my colleagues by email over the years or had recently connected with them online through our Bible study Zoom calls in the lead-up to the gathering. It was wonderful to finally meet them face to face.
What I didn’t expect was how quickly this group would become the closest of friends, with relationships going surprisingly deep. I hadn’t experienced anything like it since my Bible college days when I lived in community with fellow believers for several months. God connected us powerfully and uniquely.
Among the attendees were people from cultures similar to our own: Australia, Canada, the UK, and the United States, but also from vastly different corners of the world, including Kenya, South Africa, the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Germany, Norway, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, the Caribbean, and even North Cyprus. It was such a joy to hear how God is at work across these nations. To me, it felt like a little taste of heaven, and I was reminded of John’s vision of the great assembly of saints praising God in Revelation:
“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” — Revelation 7:9
A few distinctive features stood out about this particular gathering. Not a single person was late to any session, not even once. Everyone understood just how much work had gone into organising it, and there was tremendous praise for the US team, who had done an incredible job hosting us all. It was also suggested, tongue firmly in cheek, that this was the first international gathering of Navigators introverts. This claim was swiftly shouted down by the extroverts present, who refused to be associated with such an outrageous suggestion. Organised, hardworking, and vocal—that’s us.
One of the great themes of the week was just how different each of our contexts was. We were all doing broadly similar work, yet the challenges varied enormously, shaped by the scale of each ministry and the local legislation governing how that work could be done. My colleagues in the UK worked with the same kind of staff budget spreadsheets as I do, but they navigate far more complex tax laws across two separate bureaucracies. Others had no paid staff at all. The contrasts in organisational size and governmental requirements across our various contexts were staggering. Same Navigators, same CORE, but almost from different planets.
Scale didn’t make things any easier either. More people, bigger budgets generally meant more layers, more complexity, more challenges, and a greater need for clear communication. Sometimes, small really is beautiful. The contrast between the 330-plus staff working across the four-storey US Navigators headquarters and my friend, living just south of the border, who does the Navigators accounts on his son’s computer while the boy is at school, was quite something. Home offices were common among our group, including one colleague who kept a couch in his workspace so that, in his own words, “the boss could keep an eye on him and make sure he does his work properly.” It was later revealed he was referring to his wife.
The World Missions department of the US Navigators, which sends out American workers globally, posed a fascinating question to us: What are the hardest countries in the world to place US workers in? The answer might surprise you—Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, owing to our rigorous immigration and employment legislation. This was something I could wholeheartedly affirm, having spent considerable time working with both the US office and our Canadian friends to get the arrangement working well here in New Zealand. The Canadians even gave us a shout-out during one of the sessions for our patience as we worked through it all with them.
It was not hard to be caught up in a spirit of grace. Every nation represented was diligently reaching out with the gospel, undergirded by the organisational systems that enable and sustain that work. Everyone wanted to help everyone else, however they could. The camaraderie was instinctive, regardless of native tongue or role. Everyone was pouring themselves out for the gospel and genuinely wanting the best for one another.
It was a privilege to attend as the only Kiwi and to forge friendships with so many excellent fellow labourers. The collaboration and connections formed there have ignited something very special, and I believe the Worldwide Partnership as a whole will be richer for it.