Confirmation of Calling

After many months of uncertainty regarding God’s leading, we have accepted an invitation to join the team at Good Shepherd’s Fold in Uganda. This seems like such a pivotal point in our lives that I can’t help but recount some of the events and emotions that have led up to this point.  So please bear with me.  This has been a winding path that has included excitement, fear, joy, frustration and, at times, a strong sense of God’s peace.  In some ways this process began about six months ago with a conversation that Lisa and I had while driving.  God had been causing me to reexamine where He was calling us to serve long-term.  The next question in my mind was, “If not this, then what?”  Over the next few weeks God created a desire within me to minister to missionaries by helping them educate their children.  This seemed like a great fit for Lisa and me because God has given us a breadth of experience that could be quite useful to Him in the mission field.  So, I mentioned this idea to Lisa during that car-ride conversation.  It caught her off-guard, to say the least. However, within the span of a week she moved from shock, to curiosity, to excitement.  It was during this week that Lisa reminded me of a comment that I had made nearly a year prior.  Faith Presbyterian was having its annual missions conference and after hearing one of the speakers I said to Lisa, “I could see myself doing something like that.”  The missionary that was speaking was involved in helping the missionaries do their work.  It was the first time that I had realized the need for missionary support staff. 

            As I look back on the process that God has brought us through, I realize that in many ways the path does not go back six months, or even six years.  It seems to me now that God has been preparing us for this ministry opportunity for all of our nearly fifteen years of marriage and even prior to that.  This preparation has included our education at Covenant College as well as our professional development in teaching.  Because we have been teaching at small Christian schools, we have been asked to teach a wide range of subjects over the years.  This was usually a source of frustration for me because of the increased demands on my time, but I can now see how this was helpful in preparing me to teach in a one-room school house scenario.  Lisa’s breadth of experience in teaching math to kids of nearly all ages in addition to other subjects is another example of God’s preparatory work in our lives. 

            The will of God for our lives unfolds day by day and this is requiring more trust and patience than I am used to having.  I am finding that much of my sense of confidence and security were not founded on the goodness and sovereignty of God, but on my own plans and sense of self-sufficiency.  God has been stretching us in the area of security and confidence and this has been somewhat painful.  It has been very encouraging, however, to see Him give us the grace to stretch as far as He has asked. 

            As we began the process of determining where God might be calling us to serve it became clear that there is a great need for teachers of missionary kids. We were told by many missionaries that this is a major issue for families. As we explored various opportunities, none seemed to be the right fit for our family.  It was at this point that we were put into contact with a friend of a friend who was preparing to go to Good Shepherd’s Fold in Uganda.  Following a very encouraging phone conversation, Lisa and I each visited the GSF website and independently felt very interested in the work being done there.  We began praying for Uganda and for the nearly three million orphans that live there.  The need for workers to meet the physical and spiritual needs of these orphans is so obvious and we both began to feel a desire to be a part of that ministry.  This couple that was preparing to join the team at GSF mentioned that having teachers for their children was essential for them to be able to serve long-term at GSF.

After corresponding some with the team in Uganda, we decided to go on a “vision trip” in order to meet the team and see the work and the place. It is hard to describe the experience. The physical needs are immense in a country with so much poverty and so many orphans. In many ways it was heart-breaking, but it was also so exciting and beautiful to see the work that God is doing through GSF. We had the privilege of meeting a young man who grew up at GSF and was back at GSF to teach and help lead worship. He was just one example of how God is using GSF to not only meet the physical needs of the orphans, but also to make disciples who are in turn discipling others (II Tim 2:2).

While we were in Uganda, God gave us both a sense of calling through the sermon which was preached about Matthew 19:16-30. Since we have been home, it seems like every sermon we hear is about God calling us to serve in Uganda. Every Sunday, we have both had a strong sense of confirmation of this calling either through the sermon, the worship songs, or the prayer time. Our individual times of prayer and worship have also led us to believe that this is where God is calling us. We believe that God primarily speaks to his people through his Word. It has been the preaching and reading of the Word that has been so clear in confirming this calling. In addition, in Scripture God frequently commands His people to care for the orphans or fatherless, and to make disciples. “True religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:17) This is only one of many passages in which God reminds us of the grace He has shown to us and tells us to extend that grace to those in need.   Jesus’ last words during His earthly ministry were a command to His disciples to “Go and make disciples of all nations…”  The ministry of Good Shepherd’s Fold is accomplishing both by discipling the fatherless.  So we are planning to go. While our primary role will not be directly serving the children at GSF, our ministry of educating the missionaries’ children will free them to do the work of GSF. We will also have some opportunities to directly love and disciple the orphans there.

We plan to go through a week of training in early June, with the hopes of raising full support by the following summer (2013). Soon we will begin the process of sharing this calling with others and asking for prayer and financial support. We do not currently know the total cost of this endeavor, but our week of training should be very informative in that way. They do not currently have a house on campus for our family, so we will also be raising support to build a home. We will probably be living in a temporary housing situation until a home is built on campus. This entire process has taught us that we need to trust God with everything. We do not know what tomorrow holds. Matthew 6:32-33 reminds us not to worry even about our basic needs, of what we should eat or drink or wear, because our Heavenly Father knows that we need these things. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you as well.” Please pray for us as we follow God and seek to be a part of the kingdom work He is doing at Good Shepherd’s Fold in Uganda.