Emanuel Lippuner
I was brought up in a Christian family. Actually, my parents already were involved as leaders in the mission I'm currently involved with. Then, I went through a deep crisis in my teenage years. While I spent some months in England, I deeply felt my sin, but then also deeply understood and experienced God's grace through Jesus Christ. I understood that God is looking at me through Jesus. This brought freedom from my deeply depressed mind, and I felt deep joy and was pressed to tell others about life and salvation in Jesus Christ.
Sometimes I feel lost in the overwhelming diversity and mass of needs and activities. Stepping back and thinking about general questions and goals can already help to sort my own mind. Further, to listen to an experienced Christian and businessman is helpful. Also, to be together with others who run a business as a Christian is helpful. What are their difficulties? What are the experiences and solutions they found? What were their failures and how did they react? What was working well? How did and do they connect their call as a follower of Christ with their business? Being with people with similar questions and experiences is helpful!
I'm part of Swiss Faith Mission. As a mission crew, we live in communities and earn our living and partly subsidise the mission work by business we created. We mostly work in the field of agriculture, processing products and direct selling to individuals. The second main sector are guesthouses and some kind of agro-tourism. This kind of work allows us to incorporate the mission work into our business activities. We have a lot of young people who join us for weeks, months, or sometimes longer. We also started some years ago a practical discipleship school. The young people get lessons for a practical life in faith in Jesus Christ, and are as well part of our daily business-activities.
I am a leader of the Mission SGM and a member of the board of Mission on the Nile. I make decisions, lead meetings, answer questions, solve problems, and look for ways to make positive changes.