My
Original Calling and Early Trips
I was called to the mission field when I was seven years old, through the viewing of
a missionary film of the Mao Mao uprising in Ethiopia during my grandparent's time. When I was in the youth group,
I read everything I could on missionaries. They all went to some form of primitive "bush"country.
I was 15 when I went with my Bible quiz team on
my first mission trip, to a church in a suburban area. I was nineteen years old when I went on my second mission trip to downtown
Berkley, Calif, on a sponsored street ministry trip. The year was 1972 when Berkley truely earned the name "Berzerkley".
I guess you could call it "urban bush".
How Giving Can Be a Ministry
Between that time and my next mission trip when I was
22, to the Indian missions in Arizona and New Mexico, I moved into a series of ministry houses which were run by "hippy churches"
and filled with "ex"hippies, and started on a lifetime training in the type of giving that God has called us to do and on
how to interact with others in lifestyles that are different than our own.
Most of us, in the church know how to give on one level
or another. But the type of giving that I'm talking about is when we are given or receive an item or take our own
resource and transport it and deliver it to the actual destination, ourselves.
The world calls these kind of givers philanthropists
or benefactors. Anyone can be a philanthropist or a benefactor. It really doesn't require any money, even though most philanthropists
who are noted, do have quite a bit of money or at least have control of quite a bit of money. What it requires is directed,
responsible and focused giving of what has been delivered to us, to pass on to another. Which may not be
money. We personally make sure that the resource is delivered to the specified need and do not depend
upon someone else to do it.
I married my husband in 1980. He was also called to
the ministry. We practiced what I had learned about giving, and learned hands-on applications while shipping packages
all over the country and the world.
I went back to school and graduated with a Fine Arts
degree, which actually gave me the worldwide historical training I needed for areas that aren't mentioned in public school
history classes.
Our Home Mission
We had our son in 1987 and moved from California to
Florida, right into one of our biggest mission fields. Our present neighborhood.
Around 2004, I was complaining to God about how we
had been doing all kinds of things to reach our neighbors, but nothing seemed to be happening. Within that week,
our son came in and told me how our moving into the neighborhood had changed everything. The neighbors on all sides of us
were shooting at each other and also throwing rocks. The original settler of the area called them all together and told them
that they couldn't do that anymore since we were in the middle and were innocent.
Because of his action we were never outsiders. All
the neighbors included us in things and made it quite clear how they felt about each other. They absolutely burned our
ears off. We didn't take sides. We listened and participated with all of our neighbors. Some have moved out of the
neighborhood or died and the ones who remain have become friends with each other and us.
Meanwhile, we continued to prepare for our calling
into the mission field by volunteering every chance we had and going to every conference and seminar that might be helpful. We
stepped through every open door that was presented to us no matter how unlikely it may appear.
The Unexpected Opportunities That Opened the Door
The trip that started what we've been doing since
1995, took us to Hawaii on what started out as a family emergency trip.
Even though parts of Hawaii can be termed as primitive
and as bush and the church we went to was designated as a missionfield church, the area we went to is definitely
not considered primitive bush. It's too built up and touristy for that.
The family emergency developed into a mission trip
of reconciliation within our own family, and between two other parties who later died within 2-4 years of our going, and a
literal lifesaving trip for a family member.
The finances for the trip tickets were loaned to us.
Our housing, half of our transportation, most of our food and spending money was donated to us. We had so much food left over
that we gave it to the two families who reconciled, to our own family and took some home with us.
In 1996 I joined a women's ministry. Out of that came
our small group fellowship, several contacts, my training in solo travel and the first trip to Alaska.
I facilitated one of their small ministry groups, travelled
and spoke at their conferences and conducted a conference in our home church.
I really didn't have any money for the first conference
or the hair appointment, both of which God told me that I had to do. I decided to obey Him.
He used the hair appointment to show me how to raise
the money for the ticket. It was a combination of my husband getting more hours than he should have had, my being able
to put some money aside that we really didn't have, the finances stretching to cover bills that they really could not have,
on paper, and an unexpected killer deal on the ticket(According to seasoned travellers of cross country flights into
Alaska, my ticket price was 'impossible'.)
But God didn't stop there. He told me to give away
the expense money that I had put aside for the trip. I also had no place to stay, nor the money for a place, no transportation
nor any food source.
When I got on the plane, I had my luggage, and my roundtrip
ticket. As far as I knew, I would be staying at the airport and walking to the conference.
I was given wonderful place to stay, was
well fed, driven everywhere I needed to go and given spending money 2x.
The Open Door to Belgium
In 2000, our son and I took our first trip
to Belgium, second trip to Europe. I had a certain amount in my head for the finances for this trip. But I'd only been able
to collect a little over half of the amount, so I thought I had misheard.
Then a couple we knew, from Alaska, called us. They
had gotten free tickets to fly from Alaska, to personally deliver to us the amount of money that had been in my head, specifically
for our trip to Belgium.
We had a contact in Belgium, but we didn't
know how to find them. I had complained to God about the price of the Soffitel Hotel that He put
us in until I found out that the $118 per night could have been almost $500 per night and especially when I found out that
our contact was meeting right behind the hotel.
The photo on this page is of the hotel.
