Far distant from the slain Goliath of our history, now we battle with scars, old injuries that never healed quite right and achy joints brought on by the passing of time. But time, it doesn’t bring us to peaceful fields to rest does it? Where are the still waters, the green pasture? Indeed it can seem time instead brings us to yet again, another battle with another

“I don’t think I’m going to make it to the village I may need to go back to UB to get our tickets changed due to this emergency.”

To which he faithfully responded, “You have no other option but to go to the village. This is what you’ve been waiting for, praying for.”

The how we were called there, and how we were called home is not the story for today, although it is one I do love to tell.

Today’s story is about the going back.

I’ll never forget the feeling in the lodge when everyone went home, and our director looked over at me to say, “Something big happened here,” with a follow up question of, “What are we going to do now?”

There is no routine, no blueprint really, no specific “guidelines” for and in my missionary-life.

David’s face was etched with hints of the thirty one years on the mission field but he carried it with such grace I marveled at how much he still resembled the youthful photographs I had discovered back in our home office in Illinois tucked away in an old shoebox with a note that simply read—remember.

It’s Friday night, March 8th and I’m tucked away in my small boat cabin, shared with two other ministry partners who are hard at work in the sweltering heat of the Bolivia Amazon Tributaries.

There is one fan blowing down on me, and I am in deep gratitude for the air circulating around me

This fan will only last until 10pm when the boat generator shuts down and all goes silent and still. At that moment I’ll  let out a complaint in the form of a childish groan.

Nothing could have prepared me for

Two Americans one Panamanian, one Caribean and one Bolivian.  I sat at my computer looking at their donations and nicknamed them the Fab Five. 

”When one of your missionary newsletters pops up in my inbox I feel like I’ve been hijacked.” He said it offhandedly and it drove me a little nuts throughout the years…until I opened Stacy’s email and felt the metphoric gun to my chest.

I shouldn’t be this easily disturbed by missionary stories….after all, I once was one.

You’ll discover him in wild, overgrown places in the jungles and dangerous areas of the cities overgrown with refugee camps— He’s there, taking care of feet. The lovely feet of those who bring good news (Romans 10:15) are helping the hurting feet of the people on our globe who are forgotten in many aspects. The problem is David is most of the time, a

Scooby kind of bugs me. He’s shifty, and I don’t really trust him. He doesn’t make eye contact with me. He will grunt a word at me…if he has to. If I run into him on the streets hanging with with people we serve frequently, he stands off to the side and watches me out of the corner of his eye. If I’m honest, I don’t really LIKE Scooby.

He showed up to church again on Sunday.

My husband Troy and I were struck speechless on the drive home from Helmar that night. What we had experienced was so tender. That church had embraced us as if we were their own. They listened to our story. They laughed with us, encouraged, asked good questions and in the end one farmer in the congregation took off his hat and

Can you remember the first time you got on a plane? the sensation of being in the air? Knowing that you are safe, but the adrenaline and nerves of knowing that you are flying! I remember the first time I got on a plane, it was so exciting but at the same time I was very scared. I suppose that

And there is still much to do. Just yesterday, here in Tuna, while recording for the Birifor language, the pastors were struggling while we recorded the Old Testament Bible stories, but were breezing through the New Testament stories. They explained to us that they have New Testament in Birifor already, but the Old Testament had not yet been translated, so they had to

The following is written by a CCWM Ministry Leader whom we will call Jen. Her identity and country of service is hidden in order to protect her family. They are church planters in a closed to the Gospel nation.

Consequently, I must count on His guidance, His protection, provisions, and His very real comfort in loneliness and difficulties. It’s super-natural...And many times, I’m not even aware of that any more…
Until I share stories with you, supporters and donors; the faithful who stay behind with the “luggage” of the Lord’s ‘frontline soldiers’… and who share in the blessing!

Shanna took a gentle breath in, a small sigh. “Yes…it’s true. All of that is true, and I would have little argument against that one except…

How would I filter a candidate who was telling me, he had felt called to be a “preacher” just a few days after he became a Christian? Would I smile patiently, understanding his new found passion, wondering how long it would last? Would I advise him to take a few years to learn the Word of God before he applied again? 

Probably.

Here I was trained with a master’s degree in counseling yet in that moment felt quite helpless.

All I could do was be with her.

I held her and cried with her.

I empathized with her saying, “You’re right. It’s so difficult.”