"God, Check the old guy"

I got an e-mail today from someone who I think I have given far too little thanks in getting me here. However short our time in missionary ministry may be, none of us function without the support of our people 'back home'.

Whatever field we enter into, there must first be someone, some group, to help prepare our hearts for the ministry that we are seeking. For me that was my bible study in Colorado Springs - though none of us knew it at that time. Mrs. Anna and Dr. Warrick taught the scriptures plainly and without apology - and planted the seed in my heart to travel and to explore it more deeply and the people in the bible study, the other cadets, taught me through their works what the love, grace, and family of God looks like among us.

Dave, my Shepherd from First Presbyterian Church of Wichita, was among the first to understand my earnest search for where this call would lead me. My original thought was Guatemala. There were a few positions available for translators and such working with Habitat for Humanity and for other organizations that we found, but there was one problem . . .

There was this other old man, more conservative and more sedentary who didn't think that going so far was really necessary - especially not as a first mission. (He is a very wise old man :D) . . . so I started to look closer.

My pastor from First Pres suggested the Young Adult Volunteers program, and ironically, I found the DOOR side of the alliance by chance online. Paired together I began to look into going to Denver, but that was . . . just too close to home.

I did not understand it at the time, and quite honestly I was a little resentful that I wasn't going to be spending my time somewhere in the jungles of Guatemala among the Quiché indians - but I would have been so lost!!! How great is the wisdom of God (and a couple of old guys) to keep me here, to plant me in the city of angels (an ironic name) for a year of exploration and growth.

I owe tremendous thanks to those people who have helped me to prepare to be here and to those who helped to make it happen. There is no mission where there is no preparation. I am so blessed to have come to such a city of contrast as this and such a city of extremes. There are those here who are intensely faithful and those who no nothing more about the word than the names - and our presence here is as a bridge. Sometimes I wish that all the churches in the world could have ministries just like this one, to reach into all the neighborhoods in their own countries with just as much intentionality as we put into reaching into other countries. There is poverty and need and anger and pain as real here as in the slums of Eastern Europe, the plains of Africa, and the jungles of South America.

Our eyes just have to be open to seeing it.