A Call to Mission

Five years ago, I couldn’t hold back my tears, as I sat across from the beautiful couple who are the directors of Family Missions Company.

When my family had arrived at the mission base for spring break four days earlier, we had no understanding of gospel poverty or missionary life, and could not have imagined embracing either. And we were completely unprepared for the range of emotions and experiences we would encounter during our time in Abbeville, Louisiana.

Now, at the end of our trip, our foundations rocked by this radical approach to the Christian life, we were being told, albeit gently, that we would need to wait a year if we wanted to join FMC due to issues within our family. And that hit deep.

Still, amidst the brokenness in our family that I felt helpless to heal, the kids and I went on a Thanksgiving mission trip to Mexico a few months later with FMC. On that trip we were forever changed by the missionaries and the poor we worked along-side, and soon after we realized our call to foreign missions. 

But it would be a five-year journey, mixed with loss and pain, to get us to where we are now. During most of that time, I felt like I was in a desert, where my prayers were not being answered. Yet, all the time we remained stateside (while yearning to be sent out), the Lord, in His mercy, was answering our prayers by leading us to deeper encounters with missionaries and the poor. 

When we first decided to become a monthly mission partner to a few FMC missionaries, we had no idea that it was going to change our lives in so many ways. Learning about the dire circumstances of the people the missionaries encountered always put things in perspective. When we felt helpless to change the conditions of our own life, we were empowered to make a difference in the lives of others with our prayers and financial support. And it brought us hope to see the miracles God was working through these missionaries.

I became very aware that—while I was still able to homeschool my kids, meet their needs, get us counseling, and lean on our faith and support system—mothers and kids in impoverished countries who were facing abandonment and abuse didn’t have the resources to get the healing and support they needed.

These children are at risk of dying from starvation or preventable disease, they have a poor quality of life, they have to work as kids, instead of being kids, they are likely to grow up to be in abusive relationships or be abusive themselves, they are stuck in the cycle of poverty, and they have no identity in Christ or hope of salvation. 

This is why we have a heart for foreign missions. We want to provide love, care, and support to the least of these. We want to empower others to live lives of dignity and integrity, to develop a personal relationship with Jesus, to know and embrace the truth, beauty, and richness of His Church, to build community, and to become joyful missionaries, starting in their own families.

And it’s hard to believe that, in less than two months, we are going to be sent out to fulfill our hearts’ desires – six years after our first spring break trip to FMC’s mission base in Abbeville, Louisiana!

We are so grateful for the prayers and financial support of our mission partners, and, especially, for the gift that we know they will be receiving by joining us in this Great Commission work.

As mission partners ourselves, we know firsthand that the updates and appeals we receive from the missionaries we support redirect us when we find ourselves, once again, wrapped up in first-world concerns and amusements. As we’re surrounded by comfortable Christianity in the States, they serve to remind us of our neighbors, the poor and unreached, who are often “out of sight and out of mind,” and challenge us to ask ourselves, “Am I truly loving my neighbor as myself? Am I radically giving of the time and money that God has entrusted to me?”