Cont'd. from 6/27...
So here we are trying to figure out the best thing to do so that we're fulfilling the ministry to which God has called us, yet meeting the needs of our 18-year-old daughter at a critical time in her life.
One day, Beth came to me and said, "I have an idea that came to me during my prayer time and I wanted to run it past you in case it might be from the Lord." She proceeded to tell me that she was impressed with the thought that perhaps we could have our ministry to Ireland be based from our home here in Florida and for the next couple of years or so take regular trips to Ireland and Europe to conduct various worship oriented events. Between our trips, then, we could spend our time planning future trips and events, making contact with those with whom we will be ministering, and developing curricula and materials for training. Eventually, when we felt that it was time and Molly was well grounded, we would then make our move to Ireland to be there fulltime.
The most intriguing aspect of her proposal was that I had just had the same thought. Coincidence? I don't think so. I am fascinated by the way the Lord works. Some people look for the Lord to always work in ways that are mystical and supernatural. What we have found in our years of experience is that God will use the very basics of life to accomplish His will. It is often through our humanity and things ordinary that God works. If His Holy Spirit dwells within, why wouldn't this be so? So we examined this idea from the "how does it make us feel" angle. In all honesty, although my heart's desire is to live in Ireland, I felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted. This just seemed right.
The next step was to approach GEM and see if this was at all possible. We didn't feel at all confident that this plan would be something that they would approve. So our first contact was with Phil Kingsley, our Field Director in Dublin. When we told him of our proposal, he immediately thought it was a great idea. He has, over the years, seen instances of missionaries who, at the same juncture in life as we are, get to the field only to have their college age child spin out or get into trouble, which causes them to have to leave the field and return home. In fact, we know of a Calvary Chapel pastor and his wife who were serving in Cork, Ireland, who experienced this exact thing and are now back in the US. We don't expect Molly to go off the deep end. However, she is an only child and doesn't have too many people, besides one set of grandparents to lean upon when we leave.
So Phil took our proposal on up the chain of command and everyone along the way thought it was a great plan. So what this means is that we are starting our ministry sooner, but we have more time with Molly as she begins exploring life on her own.
All of our closest friends and our family have been very supportive and somewhat relieved. They all knew our move away from Molly would be difficult for the three of us and had been praying for us about how we should handle it. Here was our solution.
The tricky thing is that we are still trying to raise our support for fulltime ministry, but some people think that if you are not "on the field" you aren't a fulltime missionary. We know several missionaries who do work overseas in various parts of the world, who are living in the US and yet are fulltime in their jobs. The work they do and the work we will be doing is a fulltime job, whether on the field or not. in fact, even now we are spending upward of 20 hours each week at this work and not even coming close to doing everything that we could be doing.
This approach to missions is possible today, more than any other time in history, due to the technology that exists in the area of communication combined with the abillity to travel anywhere in the world in a relatively short amount of time.
So now, we begin planning trips overseas. In fact, we have one coming up in just a couple of weeks -- and boy is it a doozie!
To be continued...
