By Steve Rabey
Religion Correspondent

Global tensions that are raising costs for American consumers are causing pain for Christian ministries that work around the world.

Colorado Springs-based international ministries have delayed or limited travel, canceled events due to threats of violence or terrorism, and seen the people they serve face financial distress and war-related trauma.

Navigators, which serves in 123 countries, hosted some 40 leaders from 25 of those countries for a recent Worldwide Partnership Administrators Consultation at its headquarters near Garden of the Gods.

The first-time gathering included training on ethics and accountability as well as expressions of gratitude for a group that’s often invisible and whose work is sometimes seen as less spiritual than the missionaries they support.

“If guys like me don’t have administrators, we’re in trouble,” said Eddie Broussard, Navigators’ international senior vice president. “They’re central to us completing our core calling and living out our values and vision.”

Broussard, with Navigators since 1980, says the economic effects of the war in Iran have rippled around the world, raising costs for ministry and subjecting foreign workers to increased financial stress.

“We now do a lot more work on fundraising to cover the higher expenses, said Broussard. Most Navigators staff raise their own funds, placing the increased burden on them. Some donors balk when ministries are forced to spend more money on overhead and less on program services.

Managing costs and risk

Greater Europe Mission has responded to higher airfares by pausing a planned fall gathering of its key leaders from more than two dozen nations, said John Gilberts, GEM’s senior international vice president.

Inflation causes “death by a thousand cuts,” said Gilbert, who has been with GEM 32 years. “This has raised the stress level for the average missionary family, which now have to raise additional support but wonder if they can afford plane tickets to come home” and visit their supporters.

GEM had to abandon much of its work in Ukraine following the 2022 Russian invasion and shifted resources to ministry to refugees. With refugee traffic slowed, it’s now working with Samaritan’s Purse to offer prosthetics to people injured in the war.

Social instability and violence have forced GEM to cancel some events in European cities. “Our risk management people work overtime trying to keep an eye on different countries to make sure our missionaries are aware” of the risks they face.

In 2015, GEM’s French missionaries came close to injury in a terrorist attack in France, and the group canceled planned activities for the 2024 Summer Olympics in France. More recently, an anti-immigration protest in Ireland endangered GEM workers there.

Such disturbances have also contributed to a decline in Americans volunteering to serve as short-term missionaries. “They’re afraid,” Gilbert said. GEM has shifted resources to Spain, Latvia and other welcoming areas.

In the past, Navigators staff have survived labor strikes and coup attempts. The ministry gives its global staff “real-time updates” with its daily international security reports, which are based on State Department information and other sources.

Eddie Broussard, who oversees Latin America for Navigators, said staff in Mexico minister to people whose relatives have been disappeared by drug gangs. Drug cartels in the Amazon region “wreak havoc” on work there. And Argentinians have endured wave after wave of economic instability.

“We reach out every day to people who, day-in and day-out, ride those waves, helping them anchor their lives in realities that do not change with economic changes, realities that give them stability while all the other things are changing,” he said.

Ripple effects

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is causing financial ripple effects that are making life harder for people served by Compassion International, the city’s largest religious nonprofit, which works in 29 countries.

The price of fuel and fertilizer have skyrocketed in parts of Africa in Asia. Delayed deliveries of fuel-based fertilizer may limit future harvests and increase the risk of hunger and famine, a Compassion spokesman told Christianity Today. Fuel costs also hurt those seeking work.

“Fuel rations mean expensive fuel at the pump, but it actually means that day laborers will have less opportunity to work, and they will have to spend more money for their basic needs for their families, and so they’re the ones that will experience the hardship first,” said Matt Ellingson.