Our Global Year story, with a side of honey mustard

About three and a half years ago, Lauren and I went to lunch after church. Most of our conversations after church start with, “So what did you think about the sermon?” The sermon this Sunday, was about having a vision for your family. This was language and a thought process that was completely foreign to me. I was at a complete loss, so of course, I attempted to beat Lauren to the weekly question of “What did you think?” in order to buy myself some time to come up with a really spiritual answer. After she shared some thoughts with where we were as a family, in terms of vision, I had to come clean; I had no vision for us. Don’t get me wrong, we had a good marriage, both had great jobs, lived in a nice house, and oh, there was a baby on the way! Isn’t that what the whole “American Dream” is supposed to be??  We were at a loss as to where to go, but knew there was more to raising our family and just pursuing what our culture says would bring fulfillment and happiness. It boiled down to us asking ourselves this question over Zaxby’s Chicken Fingers - “If you had never gotten married, and little Nelson wasn’t on the way, what would you be doing today?”  Both of our answers were centered around foreign missions.  That question resulted in another – if Missions was something that was important to both of us, why aren’t we more involved with it now?  Well, those chicken fingers started us on a journey over the next 4 years that has totally changed our lives. For one of the first times in our marriage, we had the beginning of a vision for our family.

We started praying and talking to people around us that had experience with raising a family on the mission field. We dreamt together, started praying for and giving to mission organizations that we cared about, and researched a TON of mission boards. We had the privilege of talking with a missions coach who we knew from college, who showed such care and compassion for our pursuit of this "calling." We came to realize that everyone is called to some sort of "mission," at their school, work, or in another category. It took a few years, but it finally became clear to us through many conversations with trusted mentors and friends, and much prayer, that we might be in the "other" category. The Spirit continued to confirm this as we made the commitment this past December of 2014 to walk towards full-time missions as long as doors kept opening, and it was like God turned on the firehose. 

Not only did doors open, but it was almost comical how clear God made this to us (I think he knows we are a little slow sometimes). At first, we were a little stuck on which mission board to pursue. One day, I emailed an old youth pastor (who by the way, started a mission board) about our journey and he called me the next day because he happened to be driving through Greenville and wanted to meet up. Johnny and I met the next day and he clearly laid out a vision for the mission board he had started and Lauren and I were all ears. We felt that the vision and mission of this board, Global Year, aligned with our gifts and passion, it was all we could think about until we finally decided to apply. We were accepted by the board the next week.

After that, we decided to put our house on the market and we had a contract, over asking price, two days later. Oh and the buyer asked to buy all of our furniture, interesting huh? 

We needed to learn how to do this thing missionaries call "support raising," and we found out about a class that offered everything we had big questions about - is it Biblical?, do we have to live as beggars now?, and how exactly do you do this practically? The only problem was, the class was in San Francisco for two days and that's not an easy trip to make when you have jobs, a family, and a budget that's about to drastically change. Lauren looked at her Delta miles and hilton points and saw she was able to book the tickets and hotel nights for the exact amount of time and get the exact flights that we needed - over $1500 in travel expense. Hmm, could it be a coincidence? No, we believe God has His hand in all of these things.

We have so much to praise our Father for and we know this journey will not be easy, but we're thankful it's been in His plan and we're excited to share how He leads us.