A Motivation Factor

Recently we were driving home from AWANA with the kids and Susanna asked me if I went to AWANA when I was her age. I told her no, I didn't even go to church when I was her age. She found this hard to believe and asked why. I responded that no one took me to church. Again, this was unfathomable to Susanna. I told her that it wasn't important to everyone to attend church. I heard a small catch in her voice when she said, "but you still believed, right?" No, I said, I didn't believe in Jesus Christ because I didn't really know about Him.

This was apparently hard for my daughter to hear. She kept asking, "but you were still a believer, right?"

And so I recounted for her about God's faithfulness in caring for me all those years I didn't know about Jesus. I told her that many people were kind to me and my heart was softened to believe that God himself cared for me. But until I heard about Jesus' death on the cross to pay for my sins, I didn't know Him. And she was right, that was sad.

All children should hear about our friend Jesus.

But I told her that when I was a teenager, someone told me the whole story from the Bible: how Jesus was born to a woman but He was God's son, how he lived a perfect life that I couldn't accomplish, how he died on the cross, paying the punishment for sin, and How he rose from the dead and is alive today, preparing my place in Heaven. And at that time in my life - which was God's perfect timing for me - I believed, and she could be happy that God brought people to me to tell me about Jesus.

Since that conversation, Susanna does not hesitate to tell people that we are missionaries to Spain. She is excited, willing and eager to go because she knows that we want to tell others about Jesus.

God used this story to remind me that He is still using me. The past four months have been so challenging. The stress of the unknowns, the transitions, the changes, the reorientation after language school, planning for the future, applying for Visas, homeschooling Susanna's advanced kindergarten year, being low on vitamin D, stuck inside due to rain, visiting churches... did I mention the unknowns? I have not been the best "missionary" here. We do not have scheduled ministry opportunities. I have often felt like we were wasting time. Our colleague in Spain said the stress is "unquantifiable" and reminded us we need more rest and recovery than we would if we had regular work. God has provided that, and I was fighting it.

But Susanna reminded us that night what God called us to do, and I had peace once again about this process. Everything that is slow in this process is teaching us about Spain, where everything is slow. Making friends is slow, gaining trust is slow, learning the language is slow, church growth is slow, government cooperation is slow. But God is faithful. He knows the hearts that we will reach, and how long it will take. We must plod along and be faithful and pray for eyes to see those whom God wants to reach. The result will be, God willing, many stories like mine and like Susanna's - all because someone told us about Jesus.

Things are moving along. We have one-way tickets to Spain for mid-June. I am trying to work on my story-telling skills. I want to use this blog to tell our stories in a beautiful way, and I know the only way to do that is practice. There won't be many photos, though I post frequently on Instagram and Facebook. There will just be simple stories telling of God's work through my family.