So a lot of this blog is my talking, but I've asked my wife to chime in on the question "how do you know God is calling you to missions, and particularly to Wycliffe?"
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Ever since my first experience with missions in high school, I’ve felt God leading me in the direction of missions. I feel passionate about doing my part to bring others to Christ and to help them learn more about him. He has given me a great interest and passion for experiencing other cultures. Learning about other cultures has given me such an appreciation for God’s creativity, His complexity, and His vastness. During college, I wondered if God was calling me to be a teacher in the mission field, however, that was not his calling, at least not at that point in my life. I fell in love and married a wonderful man. Went on to finish earning my teaching credential and began teaching in San Jose, CA. At that time, I believe God was calling me to minister to children in the public schools. Many of the children I taught came from very difficult situation at home and I believe that God placed me in that school to make a difference with those children. I hope and pray that I was able to accomplish that. After three years of teaching I became a mother and my life started down a new path.
Almost as soon as I started down this new path, I was looking for a way to minister to others. I soon became involved with a MOPS group and God allowed me to minister through that ministry. It’s interesting that my youngest child will enter Kindergarten in another year and I now feel God calling me to start down this new path in missions. Looking back over my life, I see a constant desire to serve God and make a difference in the lives of people. I had sort-of given up hope of ever being in missions full-time since that was not a calling my husband shared with me. About 2 years ago, a family from our church who serves with Wycliff in PNG came home on furlough. While they were home, we had the chance to hear them share on a Sunday morning. It was exciting to hear them tell how God was using them. Not only did I leave that day excited about the ministry, my husband did too! Several months later, we heard that our church was sending a go-team to PNG. My husband expressed his interest in going to the informational meeting to find out more. I said, “great, let’s go.” So, we went. I was so excited about the opportunity to be part of another go team (I had done a couple of go-teams during my college years). As the trip approached, my husband felt really strongly that God was calling just him to go on this trip. I struggled a lot with this decision.
I so badly wanted to be a part of this team, but in the end I knew I had to submit to God and to my husband. He ended up going alone on this trip. From that first email he sent while on the trip I knew it was right that he went without me. You see, I had been a part of short term missions teams before. This was his first experience and practically his first time out of the country. He was so excited about his experiences and God was teaching him so much. I was convinced that he needed to experience this on his own. I remember as he shared things with me while on his trip, my first thought was, “well, of course, that’s what happens on trips like that.” I realized this was all new and exciting for him and my being there could have interfered with that. My husband came home from that trip with a new outlook on missions. We both began to pray about what the next step should be. Was this just a great experience for my husband and now we were supposed to go on with life as before or did God have something else in mind for our family? My husband and I have always felt like, there’s got to be something more for our lives. What does God have planned for us? But we didn’t know what it was. I resolved to sit back, pray, and wait to see where God was leading my husband and me. About six months after that PNG trip, one of my husband teammates told him he was returning to PNG for another go-team. Little by little PNG was creeping into our everyday lives. Little things kept reminding my husband about PNG and he bean to talk more and more about it. I still waited and prayed for what would happen next. My husband and I began to talk about what direction God was taking our family. We decided to look into going on another trip to PNG. Again was struggled with who should go. Should our whole family go, should it be just my husband and I, or should I go alone?
Our reason for this second trip was to get confirmation from God, get to know the Wycliffe process a little better, and give me a chance to experience PNG and see how I adapted to that environment, since we feel like PNG is where God is calling us at this point As we began filling out paperwork and talking about this second go team, however, all the reasons for a second go-team seemed to go away. Three weeks in PNG wouldn’t really give me a good idea of how I would adapt, the Wycliff process for a go-team is completely different from applying for full-time ministry, and most importantly we already feel like we have confirmation from God. We also considered the cost of the second go-team and realized that did not seem like the best use of finances, if full-time was our ultimate goal. So many small seemingly insignificant things have been happening over the past few months that keep pointing us to missions. For me, it feels like God has always had missions in mind for me and now all the pieces are falling into place.
As I look back over this explanation it seems like the bulk of this process has happened in the heart of my husband, yet I believe God knew from the beginning my heart for missions. I believe he put my husband I together knowing that we would eventually have like minds and would desire to serve together.
Why do we particularly desire to serve with Wycliffe? It’s interesting that my very first experience with missions was with Wycliffe. As a child, I attended a small baptist chuch in Southern California. Our church had one couple we had sent to the mission field. They were translators with Wycliffe. I’ve always had a great deal of respect of the Wycliff organization. I also, believe that the organization is vital to our success on the field. I have confidence that Wycliffe will give us the support we need.
