Our Missionary Journey

August 23rd
We started our journey in February. Our church, McGregor Baptist Church in Ft. Myers, FL hosted the Global Impact Conference for the 3rd year in a row. This year our Sunday School class hosted Ron and Lisa Jones,missionaries in Reunion Island. They told us about when they had left the states with their children and then later in the discussion that all missionaries were not seminary graduates or ministers but that they could also be a treasurer, a teacher or in music. David and I looked at each other across the room wondering if we had heard the same thing. From there we talked to the Jones' more and after much prayer realized that God was calling us to the mission field. That Sunday night we had a guest pastor and he asked if anyone was feeling called by God into full time missions we should come to the front of the church. I was in choir and and David was in the pew with the girls and we all went to the front of the church together. It was a very emotional night. I have to say I had no idea where God was taking us and to be honest I was a bit apprehensive. The next day David sent in an information card to the IMB (International Mission Board). On President's Day David and I were at home watching Facing The Giants. I don't know if you have seen this movie but I highly recommend it. Anyway there is a part in the movie where the coach says "Is anything impossible with God?" He says this to 3 of his players. Right after the coach says it for the third time the phone rang. It was the IMB calling us for the first time. God is so good.

April 3rd, David and I drove up to Orlando to meet with our candidate consultant. It was a great meeting and we were told that we could move on to the next step, lots of paperwork. David and I filled out medical forms (25 pgs. long) for us and the kids. We did personality profiles, wrote our autobiographies and our Christian Beliefs. This all took several months. In June, we had an interview with our candidate consultant in Tampa. The interview lasted about 2 hours and we were told to tweak our statement of beliefs and our life sketches. We were then sent several job requests from around the world. David and I separately chose Johannesburg, South Africa as where God wanted us to go. David will be the Treasurer for the region. We were then invited to the Candidate Conference at the IMB in Richmond, VA.

The conference was a couple of weeks ago. We had medical tests on Tuesday morning, met more people going through the process, had group and private meetings with candidate consultants. We met with our regional director, our region is the CESA (Central, Eastern and Southern Africa) region. On Friday we were told that we would be moving forward in the process.

Right now we are in the process of handing out references, getting the children's medical screenings done and getting passports for the children. We need to put the house on the market and start selling our things. We first need to find out what we need to bring and about other things such as where the children will go to school. October 11th the Board of Trustees will vote and then we will be appointed in November in Springfield, IL. Our family will move to Richmond, VA February 4th for 7 weeks. We will go through orientation there then fly to Johannesburg in April. A week after we get there we will fly to Zambia for a month of training.

We are so excited about what God has called us to do. Please pray for our family as we are going through this process.