April 01, 1985 by John A. Holzmann

Case Studies of Younger Leaders

Frank Underhill: Mission Educator

Frank Underhill is headed for a lot of responsibility. A 36 year old college professor, he's just been named Interim Executive Director, Interim Director of Mobilization, and Director of Training at the new Midwest Center for World Mission in Oak Park, Illinois. He, his wife Cherish, and their six children axe moving from Seattle, Washington to the Chicago area so that he may take up his new responsibilities July 1st

With a background in education in general (he is working on his Ph.D. degree) and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) in particular, Frank comes to these positions with a long history of interest and involvement in world evangelization.

During his teen years he was strongly influenced by Elisabeth Elliot's Shadow of the Almighty, the story of missionary Jim Elliot and the band of five men martyred trying to teach the Auca Indians. That story became almost a textbook to Frank of what a mans life ought to be, and also had a major influence on his wife's mission vision. When Frank discovered a film of the five missionaries' approach to the Aucas, the missionaries' deaths, and the search party that went after the bodies, he showed it to Chena.

Says Chena: It was down in the basement, the projector was some ancient contraption, and the film itself was definitely not professionally made, but you got a sense of what those men had on their hearts!"

One time Burt Elliot, Jim's brother, came to Frank's church. "I don't know if he had any impact on the adults," says Frank, but he made an impact on me! You get a guy like that, who's sold out to the Lord, and he's going to speak to the young people,'

The week after Frank and China were trained, a woman from their church sent them to a mission meeting sponsored by their denomination in Wheaton, Illinois, Tom Skinner was there and gave them a desire to reach out to inner city people. They decided to move into government housing to learn about cross cultural communication.

Several times over the years, the Underhills attempted to go overseas, but each time they were thwarted  their visa didn't go through, a child was about to be born.

To Chena, it seemed missions was out of the picture. But not to Frank. One day in early spring, 1976, he received a phone call from an old fiend living overseas. "Frank," said his friend, 11 you've got to apply for a position with this new company here in the Middle East. There are great opportunities. And you could provide a Christian witness in an area few Christians are ever seen."

That conversation led to six years of ministry in a "closed' country. Frank worked for a company coordinating an educational program and in a national university teaching English.

Today, that educational ministry will continue in Oak Park, Illinois as Frank and Chena seek to enable other young people to go where the gospel has not yet been preached, where the Hidden Peoples still wait.

Michael Pocock: Personnel Director, TEAM

Dr. Michael Pocock is the Candidate Secretary (Director of Personnel) for TEAM  The Evangelical Alliance Mission  in Wheaton, Illinois. He has held that position since 1976, when he was 34 years old. "Mission recruiters are often young," he says, "but at the time I became head of Personnel here at TEAM, I was the youngest member on Personnel staff. It was a bit unusual."

Pocock may have been young, but he was far from Ut prepared for his job. He acquired his M,Div, and 1b.M. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, pastured a church and worked with youth during his' seminary years, taught apologetics, homiletics, cburch history and systematic theology at Tuccoa Falls College, and served one term with TEAM in Venezuela before coming to the TEAM Personnel Department. There, his unique blend of experience and training has stood him in good stead.

"My Th.M., was in Systematic Theology," says Pocock. "You might wonder what that has to do with my work in Personnel. It has a lot to do with it. The Personnel Director is in charge of quality control. the quality of the personnel. In an agency such as ours where' we have people coming from all different theological and church backgrounds, I have to know what their beliefs are, and I need lobe able to explain our position to them so they can understand it.

"We have to deal with, say, the issue of infant baptism. A Lutheran comes in. he'll have a different view of things than a Baptist will. Or the charismatic/noncharismatic issue. Or 11! have a woman come in who has been divorced. She was married to a non Christian husband who has left her. She thinks she is free. I have to explain to her why our mission can't use her .... My background in systemacics comes 111(0 play every day."

The need for background, for experience, is crucial to effective work in missions, says 1¬'ocock. He recommends that any person who thinks God might be calling him or her to a cross¬cultural ministry should get overseas for a summer, or for some kind of short term experience, and test out their skills. "You should confirm through experience whether or not you have the gifts and skills necessary to do the job."

But Pocock mentions a second prerequisite to effective service that's not so widely recognized. "People think mission agencies send people overseas. That's not true. We help churches do what they want to do. If you want to serve as a missionary, talk to your church. Talk to them before you ask for money. Ask them, 'How do you see me fitting into world evangelization?' Ask them, 'Do you recognize the gifts in me that would prepare roe for the task? Do you think I'm ready? What do you think I should do? Where should I go?'

"You ask your church leaders these questions and they may stare at you in shocked silence. We can't answer those questions for you! We don't how!' Yet more and morn churches are engaged in vocational counseling: a trend which should be encouraged."

Mike Jaffarian: Mission Executive

Mike Jaffarian has not quite reached that golden milestone of his 30th birthday. He was born September 2. 1955 in Seattle, Washington.

In 1980, as a student at the Fuller School of World Mission, he went to the International Student Consultation on Frontier Missions held in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was there that he and a few other seminarians were encouraged to begin an organization to mobilize seminary students for involvement in frontier missions, Theological Students for Frontier Missions (TSFM) was born soon after the Edinburgh conference, and E. Mike was its first president  a volunteer position he held for a year.

Mike's wife, Dawns, received her degree in International Development from William Carey International University in 1983. With educational credentials behind them, and several years of administrative work to his name (during his seminary career E. Mike worked for 3 1/2 years at the Charles E. Fuller Institute of Evangelism and Church Growth in Pasadena), the Jaffarians applied to and were accepted by the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society (CBFMS) to serve in India as development workers and church planters.

But persistent attempts to obtain visas failed, and, early in 1985, the Lord led the Jaffarians to look at ministry opportunities in other countries. Meanwhile, F. Mike put his failure in getting a visa to work: he is putting the final touches on a 200 plus page report concerning visa possibilities for India.Recently, in a search for service opportunities, Ii. Mike visited Asia and stopped in at the offices of the Evangelical Fellowship of Singapore. It wasn't long before the Singapore Centre for Evangelism & Missions, a new mission information and research center, came up for discussion. 'We need staff!" said the Singaporean Christians. "We have a board. All we lack is people to run the place."

E. Mike was given the opportunity to help provide leadership in the venture. "I'm definitely the junior partner," he says. "Tom Chandler, who is right now the #2 man in the Mission Commission of the World Evangelical Fellowship, will be working there with me. But I feel God has given me a great opportunity. '1 will be involved in student mobilization, publications, study of the Tamil language (there are 100,000 Tamil speakers in Singapore, many of them Hindus, and E. Mike hopes to have an impact among them), and, possibly most important, I will be helping with research  acquiring data for the Global Mapping Project and disseminating information among church leaders in Singapore."