Our Call into Missions/Update

2 months and counting!!!!  We have 3 more weeks of traveling Wisconsin presenting Mission: Kona Coast and then a month to enjoy our friends, family and local church family.  August will come with a mix of emotions -excitement, anticipation as well as sadness and fear.  It will also be filled with emptying our house, giving away our belongings and shipping the few remaining things.

Even though this journey has just begun, God has been doing amazing things.  We have seen the excitement and revival of God’s mission increase and spread.  His Church is ready and willing to obediently follow His leading.  He has provided everything, even those things that we hadn’t realized we would need.  Financially, we have hit our halfway mark! Our car is sold to a dear friend who didn’t even want to test drive it.  God has been raising up leaders to continue the ministries we will no longer be doing.  AND we even have a home for our dog of 12 years.

We do, however, have one last obstacle to make our move to Hawaii in September possible: we need to SELL OUR HOUSE.  Please join us in prayer for our house to sell with a quick and smooth closing.

Now, with our update complete, we wanted to take a moment to talk about our “call” into missions as a Missionary Pastor in Hawaii.  Jesse stated it best in his letter to Kona Coast Nazarene (KCN):

There is no single moment of awakening that we could point to and say, “Our journey begins here!”  Our “calling” could better be described as an evolution of faith, a series of transformations over the years that have brought us ever closer to the heart of God, a shift from the self-saving focus of evangelical, consumerist Christianity to the compassion-driven, kingdom revealing life that Christ himself demonstrated in everything he said and did.  And, with that in mind, we began asking ourselves, “So what is our response?  How do we truly live like Christ and model that life for our children and everyone we meet?”  Through prayer, scripture, close friendships, scriptural messages, and some challenging books, God slowly revealed the answer to this question…

Transformation 1 – Transforming Love

What had been missing in our relationship with God?  The answer – Love.  Not love for Him.  Of course we loved God; He had saved us!  But did we love others as He loved them? As much as we loved ourselves?  Yes and no.  We definitely served those who were already in His family.  Over the years we served as Caravan Directors and teen mentors and continue to serve as worship leaders, Sunday school teachers and small group leaders.  But what about those outside the walls of our Church?  The answer was a crushing, No!  All of these years as “strong” Christians, and we were missing almost half of the puzzle.  Something had to change.

Transformation 2 – Transforming Kingdom (On Earth as it is in Heaven)

What had been missing in our obedience?  Accept Christ as your savior, live a “clean” life and you’re on your way to heaven, right?  But, is our hope only for heaven?  What about this day?  Throughout scripture we began to see more and more frequently how Christ brought salvation into people’s lives by breaking the stranglehold that this world had on them and replacing it with the life of His coming kingdom.  Healing!  Redemption!  Transformation!  Freedom!  These were not just things for the life to come.  They were meant for this day, for this life!

Transformation 3 – Transforming Focus (Not just in the doors, but in the Family)

Just get them in the doors and wait for the magic to happen.  But wait, why aren’t they staying?  Isn’t our music good enough?  Didn’t we offer the right programs?  Weren’t our pastor’s messages compelling enough?  Interestingly, we find Christ introducing himself to people primarily outside of the temple courts.  Where else would you expect to find those most in need of a “physician?”    He changed our focus from filling pews on Sunday mornings to reaching out and filling lives with His life, hope, peace and grace each and every day, not just Sundays.

These three transformations have served to shape our response to living like Christ; missional living.  Making disciples and revealing the Kingdom of God in every capacity of life.  Missional living doesn’t require moving to some far off place to share Christ with others.  Over the past few years God has given our family plenty of opportunities to reveal His kingdom through acts of love and compassion to people who would never dream of setting foot in a church – homeless families who need to make a fresh start; individuals suffering from disabilities that make it difficult for them to interact in a society that shuns them; children and adults suffering abuse and neglect; neighbors who just don’t know there is a greater hope than what can be found in their material trappings.  This has been our mission field.

But God has made one thing abundantly clear during our time in rural Richland Center.  He has created some people to be firmly planted in one place for most of their lives and he has designed others to be uprooted.  Couple that with a passion for cultural and linguistic diversity that has been born in us through travel at home and abroad, as well as foreign and domestic inner-city missions, and you have the makings of a missionary family.

With the completion of the Nazarene Mission Corps training and the approved status of Nazarene missionaries, where was God leading this mechanical engineer, his English teaching wife turned homeschool mom and their four Children?  Saipan? Okinawa? Thailand? Europe?  All of these would have been suitable destinations.  But, there was a place where our journey seemed sovereignly aligned with the vision of a congregation who was seeking missionary pastor families to partner with them in reaching beyond their walls to share Christ with a diverse community of unbelievers: Kona Coast Nazarene.

…so with that we began taking steps forward as God guided us and here we are…just a couple of months away from hopping a plane and eager to love God and love the people of Hawaii.

18Den Jesus go near dem an say, “God wen give me all da power, so now I in charge a everyting all ova da world an inside da sky. 19So you guys, go all ova da world an teach all da diffren peopos, so dey can learn bout me an come my guys. Baptize dem, an dey goin come tight wit my Fadda, an me his Boy, an God’s Good an Spesho Spirit. 20Teach um how fo do everyting dat I wen tell you guys fo do. An you know wat? I goin stick wit you guys all da way, till da world goin pau.”  (Great Commision – Hawaiian Pidgin)