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”