Something to celebrate

After last weeks blog, I was planning one for this week talking a little bit about my recent frustrations but God was good this week and finally removed another road-block for us.

Let me start at the beginning for those that don't know us well or only know pieces of my life. I am a Christian. With all of the baggage that often times goes along with the word Christian, I am still one and proud to be so. I gave my life to Christ on my thirteen birthday and things have never been the same since (that's an understatement). 

I've spent a lot of time in my life doing ministry of one sort or another but usually it involves youth, missions, or both. Missions, in particular, has been an interesting journey for me and Kim. We met while she was a senior in college and I was a new graduate working full time in youth ministry. She had been considering going overseas for a year to do missions work after she graduated. When I asked her to marry me, she asked me to promise her that I would someday go overseas with her to do missions work. On the outside I said yes but in my head I was thinking "No way!". You see, I had been overseas before and even went with AFS as an exchange student to Australia right after high school. I had signed up for a year program somewhere in Europe but after evaluating my language skills (I took latin in High school) they decided to send me to Australia for a summer instead. I didn't last 3 weeks. I was so "homesick" that they eventually sent me home. So, you see, I knew that there was no way God would ever want me to go overseas and besides, I had a ministry right here in the safe and comfortable US of A.

I've learned some important lessons since then. First of all, when you really place your life in God's hands, hold on for the ride because safe and comfortable are not really on God's priority list. At least not the way we use those words. Second, don't EVER try to say no to God about something He really wants you to do.

God made me live up to that promise about five years later and Kim and I headed to Budapest Hungary with ESI. It was a tough 2 years in Budapest for lots of reasons but during that time we learned to depend on God, to love each other deeper than we ever imagined and to fall in love with overseas missions work. More specifically, He really put a burden on our hearts for Europe.

After we returned to the states we settled in, had 3 beautiful daughters and got comfortable. Safe and comfortable. It's been a wonderful 10 years back home but about 5 years ago we began to hear God's call once again. It's been a long process to come back to the conclusion that He wanted us to move overseas again and even longer to figure out where but in the summer of '07 we had a conversation with a missionary named Vince Purpero who had a vision for youth ministry in Western Europe. Considering my background, skills and passions in life it sounded like a real possibility. Kim and I discussed it at length and since we had been planning a 15th anniversary trip to Europe anyway we decided to stop and visit with them as well. Soon we realized that this was the door that God wanted us to step through.

Last January we began the process of joining the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ. We were accepted and went to a brief training this past September. We were then supposed to start raising support and developing our ministry partners so we could head overseas. But there was still one problem. We had been accepted on staff but we hadn't yet received our placement from the team in Europe. What to us seemed like a simple decision was in fact something that had to be carefully thought because it was all new. It was a new position with a new team trying to fit into a brand new ministry structure in Europe. So we have been on hold for the past 3 months as we awaited our official placement.

Last Friday, December 5, 2008, we finally received our placement and we have a green light to once again start moving forward on our support raising and ministry partner development. Praise God! This part of the process began over a year ago but we finally feel at peace with where we are going to be and what we are going to be doing. Now the hard part begins. Time to really lean on God again. Which is the way He intended it to be all along.