“I want you to move your little family to a town called
Manta, Ecuador”
This is not as much a straight quote from God as a desire/passion
He has laid on our hearts. I find
it amusing (and amazing) how he got us to this place. Let us give you a little background:
I have highlighted below some of the main desires that have
been growing in our hearts over the past couple years. We believe God placed them there and
they are what led us to a decision to move to South America.
*Living in community: A few years back our hearts were opened
up and broken for the needs of those hurting around us. I (Emily) took on a job at a
place that cares for the material needs of children in foster care, and the foster
care world was opened up to us; thousands of children with no place to call
home. We have a friend who moved to the Ukraine to start an orphanage for kids
living on the street, and our hearts broke for the children there.
Over the years, as we have watched teens grow through our church’s
youth group, we have become frustrated with the minimal spiritual growth we
have seen from teens whose parents aren’t Christians. We have noticed that teens that have Christian parents pouring
into their lives, tend to fair much better after high school and seem to seek
the Lord more in their adult lives, than students who came into and graduated
from the youth ministry without Christian parents. The 2 hours we have with them a week never feels like
enough.
Both of these things have given us a passion for living in
community with people. We believe
that if we could find ways to really journey through life with people, like
Jesus did with his disciples, it could have a much bigger impact for God’s
kingdom; and it would change us as much as anyone else. We have thought about doing foster care
or moving to Ukraine to be house parents for kids, but neither of these ideas have
come to fruition. We have found
living life in community in a society of closed garage doors, to be very
difficult.
*Authentic Discipleship:
Discipleship is a big word these days. Most churches are talking about
it. The problem that we have
experienced in our attempts at discipleship is that it tends to become a
program where we who are in attendance get the idea we are disciples of Christ just
because we attend. Consequently,
we easily compartmentalize our faith into the church building “box”. We find in the Word that being a
disciple of Christ means we pick up our cross and follow Christ, wherever He
leads; no matter the sacrifice. In
our “Its all about ME” culture, we are finding it hard to break out of that
mold. We desire discipleship that
is radical because it is not about us and what we want; It is all about Christ
and His kingdom. We desire to see
hearts transformed by Christ!
*Living simply:
God has also opened our eyes to the excess in our lives and
in our culture. We have so much
stuff and we expect it to fulfill us, but it never does because God created us
to be filled by Him and nothing else. We read an article a few years ago about parents in
the Horn of Africa having to leave children to die on the side of the road so
that they could save the rest of their children as they searched for food and
water in the midst of a drought.
Since reading that, we have had a strong desire to simplify our lives so
we could be freed up to be a blessing to others. (To be honest, the idea of parting with our material things
has definitely been easier to dream about, than to put into practice. I tend to find a reason I need most of
my stuff; even if it is quite a stretch).
*Learning from other cultures:
We are pretty sure Kurtis was meant for another culture. While we live in a very time-driven,
productivity-valuing society, Kurtis' inner clock and desire for
relationship seems to match most other cultures outside of the United States. We have gained an appreciation for
other world-cultures and have had a strong desire to learn from them.
*Sharing our hope in Christ to a broken world:
We have found it pretty easy to share our faith with the
teens at our church. Of course, it is what they expect. Taking our faith outside of the church
walls and verbally sharing what Christ has done in our lives with others has been more of a struggle,
especially for me (Emily). I tend
to avoid conflict and definitely don’t want to offend people, so I have gotten
in the bad habit of staying pretty quiet about what I believe. Not that I won’t share when asked, but
I have struggled with being the one to bring Jesus up in conversations. God has placed urgency on both Kurtis
and my heart to share his truth with people, both in the states and wherever he
takes us.
It is out of all of this that we decided to take a trip to
Africa this past summer. That story is next…
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