Flexibility

How flexible are we? I think we are about to find out!  

Something that we have heard from every missionary we have spoken to, or read a book from, is the importance of flexibility.  Not the physical kind of flexibility (which is good, because I have never been able to do the splits); but the emotional kind of flexibility.  Plans change, flights are delayed, crates don’t show up for months (I am amazed with your patience, Gary and Michaela!).   You can learn about our friends adventures in Haiti  here

So, that being said, here are our plans for the next couple months:

January – April:

*Potty Train Malachi (It was highly recommended that we head to Ecuador diaper free)

*Sell almost everything we own

*Rent out our house

*Wrap up everything in the states that goes along with moving out of the country

*Raise more money than we can wrap our minds around (I am actually excited about this, because if we raise the money, we KNOW IT IS GOD!)

*Get together with friends and loved ones

*Say many tearful “See you laters”

April 30:  Head to Quito Ecuador

May – June: Spend 2 months in language training on the campus of the South America Nazarene Theological Seminary.

July – August: Spend 2 months “shadowing” a family that has already been doing Cluster Coordinator job that Kurtis and I will be doing.  We are excited to have the opportunity to learn what worked and what didn’t work for them.  Plus, they have kids, so Malachi will have some playmates!

September: Attend 1 more month of language school and meet the 40/40’s (college age young adults that we will be spending the next 2 years with).  Spend lots of time getting to know the 40/40’s and travel to Manta, Ecuador to pick out a home for us to live in.

October: Attend “40 Days in the Desert” retreat in Ecuador.  This is a spiritual retreat that focuses on discipleship, prayer, fasting, and evangelism; considered a boot camp for the rest of our time in Ecuador.

November: Spend 3 weeks in Cali, Columbia being trained on discipleship and church planting at the largest Nazarene church in the world.  They are serious about discipleship and we believe this training will be invaluable!

November 2013 – November 2015: Move to Manta, Ecuador with 10 young adults to start ministry there.  Set up a household from scratch.  Enroll Malachi in preschool.  Start meeting people around us and trust the Lord to help us figure out how to reach that city for Jesus!  More details to come on what exactly we will be doing with our time in Manta.

So, there you have it!  I’m not even sure that I have everything in the right order, but I believe the timeline is pretty close.  We know that all of this is in the Lord’s hands, and plans may change at any minute, but I thought you might like a general overview of what we will be doing.

Are you interested in partnering with us?  Check out the link below to find out how you can be a part of our support team!  

Support Kurtis, Emily, & Malachi in Ecuador

Facing Outhouses

I was reading a book today given to me by Malachi's birth family as a birthday gift.  The Outhouse at the End of the Earth, by Sherry Day, is the story of a missionary family who served for many years in a little village in Papua New Guinea.  The story is written by a woman who was somewhat reluctant to go in to missions and found herself building mud ovens in the jungle.  The story has definitely resonated with my heart (and also made me thankful that we are moving to a pretty modern city in Ecuador!)

A chapter that I read today told the story of this outhouse that was located on a steep hill that Sherry and her family had to use as their restroom.  Sherry started to loath this bathroom as she would find new bugs, snakes, and lizards in it every time she visited.  As she was trying to become acclimated to this new village and culture she became so focused on how much she despised this outhouse that she wasn’t able to appreciate the beauty all around her in this village and the wonderful people.  

She remembered reading a story about Corrie Ten Boom's time in a concentration camp and how she and her sister stayed in barracks that were horribly infested with fleas.  Instead of letting the fleas overwhelm her, Corrie's sister started thanking God for the fleas. When Corrie asked her how she could be thankful for the fleas, her sister reminded her of 1st Thessalonians 5:16-17 

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

So, they chose to thank Him.  Corrie and her sister cautiously held Bible studies in their barracks and had so many people attend they had to start another Bible study!  The amazing part was that the guards never bothered them or tried to stop the meetings.  Corrie later found out that no guards were willing to go near their barracks because the fleas were so bad!  Something that seemed so miserable was actually grace from a very loving Father.

As Sherry thought on this, she started to thank God for the outhouse and asked Him to show her some blessing in it.  As soon as she was able to pray that, her perspective changed.  She was able to take the focus off of herself and put it back where it belonged; on her gracious Savior and on the beautiful people He had placed around her.  

He even brought blessing through it.  One day she made a trip to the outhouse and found a hen had just laid a fresh egg.  She was so excited about this little gift from God, as she was really missing familiar food.  The people in the village noticed her change of attitude and excitement and the children started to bring her about 4 fresh eggs every week.  Suddenly, she had a whole new menu of things she could prepare and enjoy because of this little egg found in the dreaded outhouse.

This really convicted me today.  Am I praising God for my outhouses?  Not nearly enough!   I know that our family will face many difficult times in the future.  The transition to a new culture and a new way of life will not be easy. 

No matter where we live, we are all facing some pretty rough outhouses that are blurring our vision of a faithful God who uses all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. (Romans 8:28)

My prayer is that I will be a person who can praise God for the difficulties in life, realizing that He has allowed them for a reason.  He’s got a lot of work to do on me!

Our Journey in to Cross Cultural Missions: Part 4 (of 4)

Kurtis has brought up doing Missions work a few times in our almost ten years of marriage.  Each time he mentioned it, my heart jumped (from fear, not excitement).  Me, in a different country?  No way!  Missionaries get killed all the time, you know!?  Am I really willing to lay down my life for my faith? Is God REALLY calling me to do that?  I think he might just be okay with my comfortable life.

Plus – I tried learning a different language in high school.  It didn’t go so well.

By the way, I can only handle normal foods.  They eat bugs in other countries!!!

So when Kurtis told me that he learned about an opportunity that might be interesting, part of me was scared to death and the other part of me was anxious to go.  I know I just said that the other times Kurtis had brought up missions, I turned him down right away, but God really has been working on me;  opening my heart up to what His plans are instead of mine. Giving me a desire to live a life of complete abandon.  I have had this desire for most of my life; just wasn’t always willing to fully let go.

The last day in Africa we stopped by a mall to do some last minute shopping and use up a few hours before we headed to the airport.  I approached my new friend, Rachel there and asked her to fill me in on this opportunity that Kurtis brought up the night before.

Rachel works for an organization called Extreme Nazarene.  They are a church planting organization that has been focusing its efforts on South America.  This organization takes very seriously the call to “Go into all the world and make disciples”.  They are starting in South America and hope to take what they have created with the Lord’s leading and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as possible all around the world.

The way they go about doing this is what really resonated with our hearts:

They take 40 young adults (18-30 years old) from the United States, and 40 from South America and put them into groups of 10.   Each group of 10 is assigned to a town/city in South America and their mission is to go out in to the community, share the hope of Christ with those they meet, build relationships with them, study God’s word with them, and in doing this; make disciples of Christ.  Through this effort, a church building will be built for these people to attend, grow, learn, and disciple others.  It is a beautiful plan that has had a lot of success. People are hungry for the Lord; they just need someone to tell them about Him. “Beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Romans 10:15

With each group of ten, there is what is called a Cluster Coordinator Couple.  This is a couple or a family that will live with the 40/40’s (group of 10) and be there to support them, disciple them; encourage them, pray for them, and live life with them.

As I listened to Rachel talk about the position in South America (Cluster Coordinator Family), my heart raced.  Every new aspect of what she said seemed to match what was so strongly on Kurtis’ heart and mine.  We could live in community (living in a house with 10 young adults may be an understatement of community J) and truly live life with people as we would have the beautiful opportunity to seek after Christ with a group of people who truly desire to know Him.  We would have the chance to do all of this in a different culture, where I believe Kurtis’ relational skill will thrive!

So, although God did not speak audibly to tell us to go to Manta, Ecuador; He definitely spoke and our hearts desire is to follow, with everything we are.

So after many prayers, quite moments, and tears; we applied for the Cluster Coordinator Position in Manta, Ecuador and we were accepted!  Lord willing, our family will be selling most of what we have, and will be moving to a new home for 2 ½ years, beginning April 30^th 2013!

Our Journey into Cross Cultural Missions: Part 3 - Africa

This past year we learned of an opportunity to take some of our students to Africa on a Missions Training trip.  I can’t really describe it, but we knew we were supposed to go.  The day Kurtis called to see if we could go as sponsors, the leader of the trip said that he had just sent out an email looking for sponsors. What wonderful timing! :)

We decided to apply and we were accepted as sponsors.  There were many times we questioned whether or not it was the right thing for us to both go and leave our son at home, but each time we faced that question, we felt an overwhelming sense that we were doing the right thing, so we continued down that road with a mix of excitement and fear.  What if something happened to Malachi while we were away, or what if something happened to us?  Could this really be the best thing for him?

The conclusion we came to: Following God’s will for our family is the very BEST we can give Malachi, no matter what happens.   We want Malachi, and any of our other children down the road, to know that we have given everything to Christ and trust Him with each moment.   (We are so in need of God’s grace on this parenting business!)

Funds were not matching up with the cost of the trip and it was iffy whether I (Emily) was going to be able to go.  We decided that I would only go if all of our students and Kurtis were fully paid for, as I did not want any of our 3 teens to miss out on the trip.  At the last minute, we got a call from a friend of ours in a different country and he told us that God had told him to give a pretty large sum of money for the trip.  God is good!  (I have to admit I was a little concerned about why God wanted us in Africa so bad that he would talk to someone on the other side of the world to get us there…)

We had a great time in Africa.  We spent a lot of time in missionary training (which was interesting because I don’t think either of us were really considering full time cross-cultural mission work at this point).  I did have some fears that God might be calling us to Africa (as I made reference to in my first point) and in my journey I spent a lot of time committing myself to the Lord’s will and asking Him to keep us at home.  Guess I wasn’t really ready to follow His will at that point.

We loved the people of Kenya, but when the trip started to come to a close we didn’t feel any specific call to go back.  One desire we did have was to help other people in the states connect with the larger world.  We found that getting out of our own culture gave us a chance to really rely on Christ and understand more what it means to find our joy in him.  There were many we met who had very little but had such joy.  It was very convicting.

On our last night in Africa, as Kurtis and I crawled under our mosquito net, he mentioned to me that he had learned about an opportunity in South America that I thought might be interesting…

Our Journey in to Cross Cultural Missions: Part 2 (of 4)

“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…

Our Journey into Cross Cultural Missions: Part 1 (of 4)

We remember growing up in church and often hearing people say “God might call you to Africa” and it was said with a lot of fear.  It seemed to be the dreaded thing; that God would call us out of our own culture to go into the "scary" world.

I find it interesting that one of our greatest fears as Christians goes directly against God‘s call to his disciples to “...go and make disciples of all nations...” (Matthew 27:19).

Kurtis and I have been sensing a strong call to move outside of our culture and comfort for quite some time now.  We have been at our current church, which we love, for almost 10 years.  It has been an amazing place of peace and grace for us as we have been growing in our role as ministers.  It is Kurtis’ first place of full-time ministry and is also the church where Kurtis grew up.  (In fact, his office is the same one his Dad worked out of when he was Music Pastor at Mesa First).

Our families both live within 45 minutes of our home and we are surrounded by wonderful friends.

Talk about comfort zone!

Yet, our hearts have been longing to live a life that we read about in ACTS, and we believe we need to step out of our "normal" to live this out.  We believe that following Christ is a way of life where people step out, take  risks, and love sacrificially and wholly.  Where people live life together and carry each other’s burdens.  We believe that this kind of life is possible;  we have read about it and have seen it in people around us; which has only made our hearts desire it more. 

The call from the Lord that I referenced earlier has been around for a while, but I think that we have been in a bit of denial.  "Couldn’t you use us in our comfort zone, Jesus?  We believe you put us here."

The answer we received is one we never would have guessed:

“I want you to move your little family to a town called Manta, Ecuador”