The Vision, Passion and Action

     To start the blog off, let's start from the beginning. At about age 14 was the first time I made mention of becoming a missionary. Like most Christians, I stayed in church, yet fell prey to the enemy and followed the world. I never lost the conviction of my sins and have always enjoyed traveling. (Could be why we have moved so much) Over the years, I have looked into the various angles of the ministry, but it seemed it was always when times were tough, or we were in a valley.
     Well, after our move to Texas, I started working in the oil industry and our future looked bright. As we found a wonderful church home in Ridgewood, we continued to grow in our faith and our foundation was solidified. Over the years, we still had our struggles like anyone else but confided in the Lord and our brothers and sisters in Christ. One Sunday, Pastor Brent held a missions conference and had placed a map of the world on the wall. As I pondered in amazement at the amount of unreached people groups around the world, I noticed Belize. While it was not labeled as "unreached," it did not share the same color dot as America. I started looking into Belize and found it was an English speaking nation, low cost of living and overall, not a high crime nation. PERFECT, I thought! I could figure out how to stretch our VA checks to live on and bring the entire family.
     Only a few weeks later, I found out about a mission trip to Southern Belize, and kids were going to be welcome to go along. What an opportunity, and to be able to bring kids was a plus. As the planing phase was coming along, Jana and I decided it would be safe and great to bring Xavier along with me. We managed to muster up the funds and Xavier and I were booked for Belize.
     While we were down there, I saw first hand that indeed, these villages had been reached, yet were suffering discipleship badly. As I prayed that God use me wherever He needed me, He placed a conviction on me that discipleship started at HOME!!!! Wow, what a conviction and burden that was to carry. I continued to pray that the Lord release me of my anger, selfishness and sinful desires, to put Him first and to finally lead my family in the way I should have been doing all these years. After weeks of sleepless nights in prayer and in the Word, He had lightened the conviction to a level I could live with. He allowed me to become so broken, I pleaded to Him, I did not deserve the breath He gave me each day, and I had only done harm to His kingdom, not Glory. It was then that His grace and glory shined down and I had, and still have, the burning passion to seek Him daily and be in His Word to become a spiritual sponge and absorb as much as I possibly could. Thank you Father for the burden for the Glory far outweighs it.
     As I continued to read daily, God revealed to me Mathew 4:18-22. Simon and Andrew left their nets, everything they knew, their livelihood and everything, to follow Him. He told them He would make them "Fishers of Men." This resonated in me for weeks, because now I had a good job, a nice place to live and my career is looking to have a bright future!! I have been unemployed and homeless with a family before, why not then? Why, because I had nothing to give up, nothing to lose, nothing to leave behind to follow Him and show my true love and dedication to the Lord, that's why!
     We are now getting to the detail end of this process to make the move. As with anything, there are alot of details to work out. As a family, we are reading about George Mueller's faith in God, what a powerful testimony. It dawned on me that while I was claiming the name of Christ, I was still relying on ME to make things happen. As we move forward with this we are now relying on God to work out the many details from passports, work permits, finances and the move itself. It is in His hands, and we know that when the time is right, He will provide the place to sell ALL our stuff, He will provide the vehicle we need, He will provide the finances needed, He will provide the safety needed and the wisdom to pass along to those down there.
Our objective is to stay submissive to God and disciple the people there so they can become fishers of men in their own country!! However long that takes, we will be there, and then, well only God knows where to next!!