About

How did we get here?

The Christian walk is a long one. God is very precise and spends time working on each of us so that we get exactly where He wants us to go. In most cases it seems to take a while (think Moses, Jonah, Joseph). We do not often understand it, but we cling to the Lord and trust in His goodness and as is always the case we find ourselves exactly where we need to be, which is where He wants us.

We never planned to be missionaries. I am not sure anyone ever does, yet the Lord calls all of us to go and make disciples (Matt. 28:18-20). Many years ago, my cousin and his family were home from Africa. They had picture books to look at that really blew your mind. I spent time teasing my mom that I might move to Africa. I remember this distinctly and found it funny. I believe the Lord took that joke serious.

Years later, Emma had a friend who gave her a book called, Kisses from Katie. She read it and loved it. My wife read it and loved. She passed the book to me and it really did a number on me. This young girl went to Uganda at 18. She lived and served. She ended up adopting a good number of children. It was an impressive testimony. Yet, that is not really what got me. In her books she had inserts of these journal entries that she had done during that year. In those entries, she had poured out her love for our Lord. Yet as I was reading them, I found that as much as I loved the Lord I did not talk about Him like she did. That really bothered me. The only difference in her and myself was that she abandoned comfort and safety and followed Him. This lead Sara and I to commit to going to Uganda for a year with Africa Inland Mission.

As time wrapped up we had to come home. Some of us were very ready(me). Some of us were not (Sara). The Lord blessed us with a new job in a new town. So we came home and moved to Matlock. I was brought on as an associate/youth pastor. This is where we have been since 2018. During our time at Matlock we have grew from six to nine. This was a challenging time and our family grew spiritually and grew in closeness. April 4th, 2022 was adoption day.

When we came home, Sara wanted to go back, I did not, at least for a time. I think we both knew we would at some point in the future, but not really when. While we have been home we have worked with the youth at our church. We specifically have spent a lot of time learning about missions, the unreached, persecution, and refugees. As any preacher will tell you, as much as we preach and teach to others, we probably preach and teach to ourselves just as much if not more. During this time God was working on us as well.

Eventually I decided to check out ABWE. We have some friends who are missionaries with ABWE and I had seen several of the videos they made when I attended the G3 conference. I gave them a call and gave some information. A short time later I got an email from Ron Washer. Now they say you cant read emotion in an email or a text, but this one was busting with excitement. I found out there was a ministry (Reaching Africa’s Unreached) that was partnering with ABWE. This ministry worked with the last unreached people group in Uganda, they worked with refugees, they did agriculture training and they trained rural pastors and they were looking for families to come along side them to learn and take part in the amazing things they were doing. This was one of those times that we were blown away by what God was doing. So we applied and were brought on as missionaries with ABWE. As I write this (4/18/22) we are in the process of raising support. I have no doubt that God will do what he does and provide the way.