At OSCAR, Your Mission is Our Mission. OSCARÂ exists to support you and the mission that God has called you to.
With a wide range of resources to keep Christian individuals and charities from having to do it all themselves, OSCAR comes alongside each one in a variety of ways.
Peggy Franks, International Nepal Fellowship
At a time when Peggy was serving as a Nurse Advisor to 10 or more Nepalese staff, she was finding herself isolated and in need of a link to the outside world. In the remote area of Nepalgunj, she only had access to old books previous missionaries had left behind. Despite the limited access she had through dial-up internet and inconsistent electricity, in 2007, she found OSCAR to be a lifeline to what was happening in the rest of the world and provided much needed resources and context for what she was doing daily.
In her 50’s, Peggy moved to Nepal from Australia in 2004 and worked there full-time for 10 years. She had only planned to go for 2.5 years. In a highly congested border city, TB & leprosy were prevalent. She worked long hours in a local clinic. The staff were highly vulnerable as they worked to increase infection controls and provide a higher standard of patient care. Surrounded by a population that was primarily Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist, she found great comfort in the resources others provided through OSCAR.Â
One book she discovered was called Single Mission. Someone brought it to her from the UK because it wasn’t available in Australia. One of the authors, Debbie Hawker, and her husband had stayed with her during a particularly difficult invasion that happened in her region. The book addressed many of the issues she faced as a single female missionary and helped her minister to others on related topics.
She didn’t have access to other blogs or books and wasn’t aware how much she was missing intellectual stimulation until she returned home. That was the role that OSCAR had played while she was on the field. She had received the web address from a friend and in turn passed it on to may others. It’s how she discovered what other missionaries were doing in the world and the contexts they were working in. Each story provided encouragement for her own work and gave her insight into her own experiences.
Through OSCAR she found a course called Sharpening Your Interpersonal Skills in 2012. This course led to the most fulfilling years of her ministry as she was able to learn about meeting her own needs, address her stress more effectively, and biblically manage ongoing challenges that had led her down the road of burnout. After the training, she followed up with a mentor by Skype as part of the programme, which led to an ongoing exchange of coaching her last two years in Nepal. This experience is what motivated her to want to give back in a missionary care capacity. In early 2018, she started a MA in member care programme at Redcliffe College, so that she could help people thrive as she learned to on the field.
