I'm sitting in Ohio, USA with my baby girl sleeping next to me and listening to the summer crickets singing night lullabies through the windows. I don't often sit up after midnight... but sometimes inspiration gets the best of me. And inspired I am after making it through the whirlwind of a life we've had the last 12 months. Whirlwind. At this time one year ago I was packing up all the final details for our move to India... just found out there was a little baby growing in my belly. It was an exciting, wild, scary time.
Samuel and I moved to India in obedience to God's direction for our lives. We are simple people, missionaries and evangelists... we are passionate adventurists of Jesus who choose to give our lives to reach the unreached people groups for God. Some think our life sounds glamorous. Some think we're crazy (especially now that we have a little one in tow). One thing I never wanted though was to live in USA. I love America. I'm grateful and blessed to be born and raised in the land of the free... but God told me as a little girl that I was called to go to the people no one else wanted to be around. My thoughts and dreams were filled up with the untouchable ones. Going was my joy. Leaving my comfort, family, familiarity, home... was my joy. Looking at other continents through Western world glasses can be quite enchanting. Mother Theresa said it's popular to talk about the poor. But actually pioneering to those places takes a faith that can't be learned or understood until you're there in the moment, dirty, hungry, homeless, penniless, tired, cheated... I've been there. And it was still my joy. While living in India though, God began to whisper a new thing in our ear. He asked us to return to the states and plant our mission base there... so we could travel in and out more effectively. I had reached my moment of sacrifice. I didn't want to live in the states. Had we missed God? Were we wrong to plant our lives in India for such a short season? No. Had we not gone, we would not have found the peace that we needed to obey the Lord in this new season. A season of great stretching and learning. We are truly excited and honored to be in America. We see missions taking place in a new way. A stronger way. Our vision and calling is the same. We will preach Jesus to the lost in Asia and Africa until we die. But now we get to watch how God is going to connect the East and the West in a beautiful new way. He is so much bigger than the tiny boxes we place Him in. Who are we to think we know exactly how our calling should be? HE is the author.
