Our Journey

Jean’s Story

For years I wondered why I was different.  We all know the quote, “God, please don’t send me to Africa”, when all along my cry has been, “God, Pleeeeease send me to Africa, or somewhere…”  I have always sensed my life’s purpose and destiny lied beyond the borders of my home country.  But I had no idea what the heck I would do “out there”.  Yes, I love Jesus. Yes, I want others to know Him and His great love. But the typical image of “missionary evangelism” just didn’t fit.  Meanwhile, I had a few babies.  And in the process, discovered a passion for midwifery—home birth midwifery, to be specific.  Okay, this was something within reach—a reasonable goal—a profession I could attain, enjoy, and do with a heart of ministry.  I was remarried during this time, and with full awareness of my goal, Mark voluntarily “signed up” to be married to an aspiring midwife.  He did not sign up to be married to one with a strong desire to leave the country, and our comfortable, safe, familiar American lifestyle, or our five adult daughters and eight grandchildren.  (But that is Mark’s testimony, posted here also.) 

After a month spent in Manila in 2005, volunteering in a charity birthing center, I was hooked.  And I was utterly convinced of my life’s calling. But Mark wasn’t—yet.  So in 2007 he took a little trip with me.  Not a major trip halfway around the world as I would have liked, but a short jaunt down to the Copper Canyon of central Mexico, to finish a building needed by our friends, the Riveras.  The building happened to be a small “birthing house” for Shelley Rivera, also a midwife, to use to train indigenous midwives among the Tarahumara.  We might as well have been going to Kansas to help with a family “barn-raising” project—this was no real “mission trip”.  But God, as wise and resourceful as He is, began to get Mark’s attention.  

For the next two years business-as-usual continued at home, but under the surface a seed was growing.  Mark worked his regular job, and I continued to care for wonderful families having homebirths in Colorado.  In the fall of 2009, I found myself with a rare opportunity to take a short trip, and decided to visit Shelley in Mexico.  What I didn’t expect was the very clear directive I began to receive from the Lord as soon as my feet hit the soil.  I emailed Mark, asking him to pray because I was hearing from the Lord.  Once at home we sat down to talk, and Mark reminded me that he had asked, two and a half years after the first trip to Mexico, if I thought that God might be calling us there.  I had quickly dismissed the idea, thinking we were to go somewhere more exotic, like back to the Philippines or to Africa. (Remember, I wanted to go to Africa?!)  

So here we are—selling our home, getting rid of our ‘stuff’, seeking partners to join us in prayer and financial support (because we are leaving all our incomes behind), and heading out as soon as we can to answer the call of God on our lives.  I am thrilled. It is exciting and sometimes seems crazy.  Someone else I know “on the field” was respectfully described with the words, “Your passion exceeds your common sense”.  I like that. It sums it up for me too.  I once heard, “The only regrets a person has at the end of life are the risks they didn’t take”.  Jesus took a risk and gave up His life in hope of gaining us.  He asks us to do the same for Him.  I don’t think He’s asking too much.

God Bless you!

Mark’s Story

Missions did not begin to have a positive impact on my life until about four years ago.  I was born and raised in a very strict denominational church.  My first real experience with God was around the age of seven, when I went forward during an alter call and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. 

Our church frequently hosted guest speakers, and many times they were missionaries.  I remember, as a young child, feeling scared to death of these people and must confess that I thought they were crazy.  The missionaries would talk about their crazy lives, the hardships they endured daily and the sacrifices that they made, often times for ungrateful people.  I told God at one of those times that I wanted nothing to do with missions, missionaries, or any foreign country.

As I grew older I held to the thinking I had as a child—still no desire for missions.   I chose to pursue the American dream, which meant getting the best job that I could, making the most money I could, and retiring as early as possible.  That was my idea of success.  Sometimes that course worked out pretty well, and other times it failed miserably.  Where was God in any of this?  I attended church every weekend and prayed when I felt it necessary, but was I really doing anything to further His Kingdom?  The simple answer is NO!

Several years ago I came to a place in life where I sat down and really did some soul searching.  I had come to the point where I could really identify with Solomon when he said that all things were vanity (meaningless).  That is just the way I felt—that my life was meaningless and was having no impact.  I repented to God for living the first half of my life for me and my selfish ambitions. I made a commitment to Him—for however much time I had left on this earth I would live it for Him, doing whatever He directed me to do, wherever He wanted me to do it.  Shock of all shocks, I didn’t receive any specific guidance from Him at the time.  As a matter of fact, it was years later before I began to feel His change of direction in my life.

We moved from suburbia to the country, which had been a dream of mine and Jean’s for years.  We began to get involved in our new church, The Rock, and we both embarked on a new stage of growth in our spiritual lives.  I had been a Christian for nearly all my life, but for the first time in a long time I truly began to grow and to get involved—“getting off the pew” I guess you could say.  My hunger for Him and His presence was growing and growing.  Through the ministries we were involved in I began to feel that my life was finally having an impact.  However, I sensed that there was still something missing.

Jean and I went to the Copper Canyon region of Mexico in the spring of 2007 to visit missionary friends and complete a much needed birth center that had been started but never finished.  It was a construction project—and I viewed it as nothing more than just helping out.  During the week that we were down there I began feeling like God was speaking to me about missions in this location.  Jean’s story concerning missions is much different than mine, as she felt a call to missions since the time she became saved.  While we were there I casually asked her a question, “What do you think about here?”  She knew what I meant but I didn’t get a very positive reaction.  She had always felt that we would go to somewhere like Africa or Asia.

Jean went back to Mexico in the fall of 2009, again not thinking about missions, but to encourage our friend who is a midwife there.  From the moment her feet touched the ground, God began showing her that this is where He wanted us.  The Lord has a sense of humor you most certainly know if you have known Him for even a short time.  Jean had been praying that the Lord would send help for this midwife, and it is as if He began tapping her on the shoulder and saying, ”I have heard your prayers and you are the answer to those prayers”.  Isn’t it amazing how God so often answers our prayers in ways that we would never have imagined?

Jean sent me an email asking me to pray because she felt that the Lord was speaking to her about some things.  By the time she came home and told me what she felt the Lord was saying, I was completely prepared—I knew we were to go to Mexico for full time missions to the Tarahumaras.

We went back to Mexico in January of this year (2010) to gather information and find out what it would look like to make the move into full time missions in Mexico.  God’s hand was at work again as He orchestrated five hours of uninterrupted time with the head of the Mission organization and his wife.  We had the opportunity to get to know them better and for them to get to know us better.  We came back with the majority of our questions answered and the facts that we needed to begin the process of moving into full time missions.  It’s amazing what God can do when we allow ourselves to truly be vessels for Him to use!

I want to share a couple of additional insights about the people group that we will be working with.  They are the Tarahumara, an unreached, indigenous people group. This means they are native to Mexico and that they have not heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that is meaningful or understandable to them.  They have no word for “love” in their native tongue.  Stop and think about that for a moment and consider the impact that would have on your own family—not being able to tell your child or spouse that you love them, and never hearing those words spoken to you.  We will be approximately twenty hours driving time away; that’s something else to consider.  Twenty hours driving time away is a people group that has not effectively heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  For me, more than anything, those two items really hit home and helped bring proper perspective to my life.

Now, rather than being scared by missionaries and believing them to be crazy, I fully embrace the call on my life to full time world missions.  I thank God everyday for the opportunity that He has given me to make a difference in the lives of a people that I only recently even knew existed!

Our God is an awesome God!!!