New Friends

One result of Kevin's Skype with Miguel was the introduction of myself and Miguel's wife Claudia via Facebook.  Now that we are Facebook friends, I have a window into her life.  I can see the work they are doing and the people they serve.  My heart simultaneously aches for the people and sings with the joy of the moments that Claudia and Miguel share with them.  Her pictures are powerful.  One shows the story of a smiling laughing boy, in shredded pants because his family is in desperate need of clothes.    The image tugged on me for hours, and I began to wonder, could we help?  Could we pack an extra suitcase when we go full of the clothes our children have outgrown?  Could we only pack clothes for ourselves that we could leave behind to be donated?  What else could we bring?  Thread?  It's small enough to fit in a suitcase.  I have sent Claudia a message to find out if any of these are things that their ministry could use.  We want to help on this trip.  Even in the way we pack.

The Plan

We have started to develop our plan.  We want to start with a prayer trip to seek God and His plans for us in Ecuador.  We have selected dates.  We have arranged for our parents to come and stay with the kids.  (While we do want to include them on this mission, we feel we need to go first and make sure it is safe and find out about living conditions so we can plan appropriately for them.)  We have checked the dates on our passports- they are still good!  We see a plan coming to life.  

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

It is amazing when God clearly gives you direction in your life.  We have felt that way in the past about a few "big" things, seasons where God was leading the way and we just knew we were following his will.  Once we started thinking about summer travel, we immediately started praying.  We asked God to lead us, that we would follow his will and not our own.  Then we listened.  Now, believe me we are not the type of people who see signs everywhere.  But once we asked, we just felt like they were coming our way.  It almost became comical... mis-delivered mail address to a man named Miguel came to our house, the Rosetta Stone Latin America edition went on super sale, favorite websites were suddenly all about Ecuador,  Twitter feed links showed up to Ecuador travel recommendations, National Geographic Kids featured an article about the first new species of mammal to be discovered in 35 years... where... you guessed it, Ecuador.  But, like I said, we aren't ones to think everything is a sign... and I know that once you open yourself up to an idea you begin to notice it more.  But still... it was fun to watch it all unfold.  There was just one hitch... we were having a lot of trouble communicating with Miguel.  He and Kevin tried to plan a time to Skype, but it wasn't working out.  Kevin sent messages via e-mail and Twitter that went unreturned.  We didn't know if there were connectivity issues (it is Ecuador, right?) or what.  We began to feel unsure.  Was this not a partnership that God wanted at this time?  So finally one day in late November I woke up resolved to seek God and follow his plan for our lives, so I prayed.   I prayed that God would make his will obvious (I might have used the term stupid obvious since we were feeling so conflicted), so we knew if we were following his will.  I didn't expect a direct answer, maybe something more like a open road.  But that was not what we got.  That afternoon as I talked with Kevin after a long day at work and our daughter's Daisy investiture ceremony, Kevin told me that he had finally connected with Miguel on Skype.  They had not planned to talk that day and in surprise my jaw literally dropped.  He asked,"What?" and I told him about my prayer that morning.  Now I knew our prayers had been answered.  We were heading down a path led by God.  Now we just had to find out, where would the journey lead?

The air conditioner just runs up our bills all summer anyway...

Once we became interested in Ecuador, we began to talk about going there.  Someday.  Maybe we could retire there.  In the future.  Years from now.  That way we could still live our "happy" American lives without much disruption.  We could continue to climb the oppressive ladder to become the biggest oppressor of all... as it was so well put in one of the break-out sessions we attended at the conference in September.  Then again....

One day we were standing in the kitchen talking about someday, when I said to Kevin, "How hard would it be for you to get a month off in the summer?  I mean, I already have summers off.  Why couldn't we go down each summer for a month to help establish a place and ministry for when we retire.  We just run up the air conditioner bill all summer anyway."

And the idea was born.  Could we go down for a month each summer?  Could we take the kids and raise them knowing what it was to be the hands and feet of Jesus?

The day we started dreaming about clouds

In September we headed out to Kansas City for Kevin's little brother's wedding.  The trip happened to coincide with a church conference in the area put on by the group Forge.  The conference focused on missional model churches, which our church happens to be.  Our pastor and his wife had planned to attend and when we realized that we would be in town as well, we wanted to go too.  I was not able to take the whole week off, but Kevin and the kids flew out a week before the wedding to spend time with family and so that he could attend the full conference.

Once of the speakers at the conference was a man name Miguel who does mission work in Ecuador.  I wasn't there to see if, but heard it described that after his speech, Miguel walked across a busy room right up to Kevin and asked if they knew each other.  They had never meet, but this question gave Kevin an opportunity to share our secret desire to do exactly what Miguel and his wife had done... pack up everything and go.

Over the course of the next few days, Kevin and Miguel had several conversation about missional work.  By the time I few in town on Thursday, Kevin was really excited about this potential missional opportunity and for me to meet Miguel.  We went together to the conference on Friday and Kevin introduced me to Miguel.  Right away they were talking about us visiting them in Ecuador and them staying with us if they came by Phoenix.  I'll admit, I was a little taken aback because I was still thinking, who is this guy?

We left the conference dreaming of the cloud forest in Ecuador.

Someday

My husband, Kevin, and I have often talked about what it would be like to pack up and move to Africa to do mission work.  There have been many nights as lay in bed talking that we have discussed what we would keep versus what we would store and which items would be worth taking on such a journey.  But, it has always been something we would do someday, not today.  We feel the call to serve internationally on our hearts and then we feel the comforts and security of our life all around us and we can't possibly see how an international move could really work right now.  But someday.  We often talk about waiting until we are retired.  Someday.

But, what if someday is sooner than we think?