When God Calls

Sometimes God calls us to do quite simple things – like “Go and pray for a friend” or “Help your sister change her flat tire.” These things can be quite ordinary, but nonetheless they eventually reveal to us more and more, in some capacity, who the person of Christ is. Our lives so far as a family have been filled with these “simple things.” Take the kids to school; pray before dinner; teach your son to ride a bike; etc, etc. And we have certainly seen the face of Christ in all of them. But over the last few years, we have sensed that God was moving us in a deeper way – we just were not so sure exactly what that was…

We are a family of (at least for now) seven: P., L., W. (8), A. (7), M. (5), N. (4), and L. (1). About a year ago some dear friends of ours invited us to attend a short-term mission trip in General Cepeda, Mexico. This was something that we have longed to do as a family but basically had always written it off because we assumed our kids were too young or simply because we were always expecting a child… But, the power of an invitation by our friends proved to be just what we needed – just the proper amount of encouragement and invitation from God to eventually change our lives.

So we loaded up our van and made the two-day drive into Mexico with a bunch of other families. While we ought to devote an entire blog to that trip, we will simply state that the following occurred in our lives:

1. God showed us the beauty and truth in His words: “blessed are the poor in spirit,” those whose entire dependence is based upon God.
2. Blessed were we to even be able to dwell among the poor and serve them for even just such a short time.
3. We started soul-searching. Could we be called to live as a family serving and befriending the poor – sharing the Gospel with those in great need and learning from their simple and beautiful faith?

After our incredible week we headed back home with a question burning in our hearts: “God, could You actually be calling us to move to a foreign land to follow You as missionaries?” The question was both invigorating and terrifying. We sought out some spiritual direction and continued to ask God to move in our hearts and minds and to speak to us in this area of our lives.

Neither one of us is extremely trigger happy when it comes to these types of things, so we simply kept bringing it to God in prayer. Over time we found that God continued to place this desire on our hearts and that indeed the calling was real. There was so much stirring in our hearts! “Come and follow me closer.” “Come and serve those in great need.” “Do not worry for I am with you.” “You can trust me in the little things and now I am asking you to trust me in a larger thing.”

Then one morning we were blown away by a video we saw on Facebook shared by a friend of ours. Quite simply, the video summed up everything that was going on in our hearts and minds. Take a moment to view that video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2StRNNnBh4k

So, put simply, we found that Jesus was calling us to go deeper into our faith and to sell all we had to follow Him in preaching the Gospel and serving the poor. This is the calling He gave to us – and we are thrilled. We searched far and wide looking at various Catholic and Christian mission organizations and have found an unbelievable home with Family Missions Company. They are a group of lay Catholic missionaries who dedicate their lives to preaching the gospel and serving the poor. We have joined into their formation program and will be sent out to a foreign land to preach the Gospel and serve the poor in early 2017.

For those of you interested in following our simple little journey, please follow us on our blog (link below). We will also post prayer requests and various needs of those we serve. We have been so blessed with tremendous families and friends and we would love for you to come with us on this new journey of ours.

“I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly” – John 10:10
“Life is short; I wanna live it well.” – Switchfoot