The Invitation.

So, what’s the scoop?

 

We’re moving.

To Perth, Western Australia.

In June!!

We’ll be working with a missions training base there for the next year. This base emphasizes discipling young people, and really focuses on living out the love of Jesus in the settings of community and primary healthcare, care for vulnerable children, and creative arts. There are several other areas of focus, but these particular ones really fit our family!

We’ll be in Western Australia on base for a few months, and on outreach to other locations (likely east Africa and/or India) at different times throughout the year.

Bob will be assisting on base however needed, including media and communications, and whatever else practical things need done. Outreach will be same (I anticipate that he’ll do a lot of handy work, and spend a lot of time with kids).

Mary will be attending classes for Birth Attendant (midwife) School, building skills in perinatal care and labor & delivery in the developing world. Our outreach locations are organized by this school, so I will be mostly in clinic/hospital during these times.

The kids will homeschool on base and then on location for our service trips. The girls are really looking forward to working with kids (helping with the pre-school and elementary ages on base, and doing anything on outreach), as well as helping in the kitchen (yay for hospitality ministry!). The boys are continually researching the dangerous animals of Australia and are excited to get outdoors and explore a new area of the world. There are great parks in Perth, so we’re very expectant! On outreach they’ll be involved in a variety of ways, depending on our setting and the local needs. I imagine they’ll come back with incredible new cricket and/or football (soccer) skills.

Most of all we’ll be traveling and serving together. We are so looking forward to this. Every one of us has a part to play, whether it’s serving out a smile or building a friendship, extending compassionate care and hope, providing clean water, or being present in a moment of crisis. We are going, together, to follow God’s design for justice and abundant life: defending the vulnerable and recognizing the dignity of the overlooked; looking not only to our own interests, but also to the interest of others; finding our lives by losing them; considering challenges opportunity for joy, growth, and miracles; and most of all giving as love has been given to us. Nothing we have is ours to hoard, and we find true the Scriptures: It is more blessed to give than to receive. (Acts 20:35)

So, off we go. What adventures await! Life is abundant when it is marked by Jesus doing the impossible right in front of you…. Right inside of you! Follow along in our travels. We’ll share our story on the way – be prepared for the ups and the downs! Click on the “newsletter” button above to receive routine updates and get involved.

We are actively seeking partners in this endeavor. We have no illusions we can accomplish such things ourselves: we need you! We want 600 prayer partners as we embark on this journey. It’s a big deal. We need something much bigger than financial support or verbal encouragement. We need the hand of God to continue to move on and in our family; only prayer can do that.

If you also want to invest materially/financially with us, let us know. We are raising support for living and travel expenses this year through either one-time or regular gifts. We trust God to provide for us (Matthew 6:24-26), but we believe all of this is a great invitation to faith and to a deeper knowledge of God. We each find our bit to offer and find the reward of investing that part well. We have been SO blessed in each “yes, Lord” we have given over the years, and we want you to know it, too. He told us to “give and it will be given to us” (Luke 6:38). The prize is much more than the cost; money cannot buy joy, and it doesn’t last like sacrificial love does. We agree with Jim Elliott: He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep in order to gain that which he cannot lose.

So off we go! Let’s see what’s in store!