Many people wonder why we would take our children half way around the world to live in another culture very different from our own. One that many deem unsafe, and scary because it is unknown. I would love to say it is because we are just kind and loving and wish to save the world, or that we have some guarantee that we will be safe and everything will come up roses. But the truth is not that simple, or that sweet. The truth is... we are following God. We feel it is His will and are trusting Him, understanding that our lives are not our own. We have died to ourselves and now are alive in Christ and in doing so we willingly go wherever He leads. Trusting that what ever may come we will be able to handle because He is in control. I cannot promise that we will be safe or that this road will be smooth... in fact it seems as though the opposite will be true if you look at what other missionaries have been through. But what is this life if it is given to the here and now... I would much rather give it to eternity...wouldn't you? "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it" - Matthew 16:24-25.
Oswald Chambers put it best in "The Utmost for His Highest" in an entry that is found ironically on my birthday.
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May 30th - Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender...
Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him...If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.
By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ's statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis - only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.
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So, no I do not have an answer that will satisfy the masses, and at times I can't even put my own mind at ease. But then I remember that He has all the answers and knows all the why's. We are doing this for Him and trusting in Him. Please pray with us and join us in this incredible journey to obey Christ.
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." - Matthew 28:19-20
