Testing Our Intentions

We didn't come with the team January 2013 because our daughter Anna was due to deliver her second child and she wanted Mary in the delivery room with her as her midwife. That winter Mary and I also contracted pneumonia.  We had no way of knowing that this illness would have trumped our plans for international travel anyway.

Mary and I spent that year discussing with our pastor, family and friends about changing up the concept of “Short Term Missions” and asked what it would look like to do “Mid Term Missions”. David Platt’s classic book “Radical”, talks about Matthew 28 with a fresh perspective. We are all “Missionaries” based on Jesus’ desire to spread the good news. So it isn't a question of going or staying like I had thought for years, it’s just a simple question of being, being his disciple. Whether that looks like crossing an ocean or just crossing the street in your neighborhood we are to be salt and light in a world void of flavor and full of darkness.

We had been counseled and decided to “take it slow”, to not do anything rash. We agreed that we would go again with our church's mission team in January 2014 but this time with a little twist. Mary and I would go a week early on our own to “scout the land”, to test our own intentions and see how we would cope going it alone.

What wonderful surprises were in store for us.