We Speak to Nations

Our current unit in grade three is studying and celebrating our family histories and looking towards the future.  As I've encouraged my students to reflect on their ancestors, I've also reflected upon mine.  Not just in the genealogy, but in character and mission. 


At the beginning of the unit, I shared a devotion with the kids about my family.  I showed pictures and introduced them to my mom, dad, Lyndsay, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins (both human and dog).  They know many of my extended family members by name after of the stories I've told through the year.  But this devotion focused on one specific aspect of my family. 


Both my parents come from strong Christian families and had parents that raised them to seek after God.  Both my parents felt the pull towards missions, and they lived in Bangkok, Thailand for four years of my early childhood serving in an international church, the International Church of Bangkok.  During that time, my dad's two sisters were also living abroad, one in Gabon, Africa and one in Penang, Malaysia.  He called his mother one Mother's Day while we were in Bangkok and expressed how sorry he was that none of her children were able to spend Mother's Day with her. 

Her response: I'd rather all my children were spread around the world and in the center of God's will than down the street from me and out of God's will.

And because of that attitude, only God knows the number of people that were impacted by the ministry of my grandmother's children. 


We moved back to America when I was five, to Fairlawn, Ohio, where I have called home ever since.  Even though I spent the rest of my childhood in America, we never lost the passion for missions.  My church is part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, which is a denomination that places a lot of emphasis on spreading the Gospel through missions. 

Every October we would have a mission conference and would hear stories of missionaries around the world, in the jungles of Africa, the coffee shops of Europe, and the skyscrapers of Asia.  And through the years, I too, just like my parents, felt the call to take God's Word to the nations.

And just as my grandparents sent their kids around the world to spread God's Word, so my parents have sent me to the other side of the world.  And now I am able to do exactly what God has for me.  I asked the kids what they think I'll pass on to my children.  And they guessed right... I want to send my children off wherever God wants, even if it hurts to say goodbye. 

Sometimes I have to stop and marvel at the fact that here I am in Indonesia, teaching children about Jesus.  I am a missionary.  I have been called.  I have followed.  And my class can see my life as an example of someone who is going to the ends of the world to teach about Him. 

This is the life I have dreamt of since I was eight years old.

This is the life I have waited for. 

And it is everything I have imagined and more.

One of the songs we sang a lot during the mission conferences as a kid was the song We Speak to Nations.  As I listen to it now, I get a little choked up at how God gave me a passion as a kid and has carried it out... not to completion yet, but I can already start to see how He is fulfilling His plan in my life.  And I am eternally grateful.