Like the average US Christian citizen, I grew up in the church learning about God, Jesus and the life He calls Christains to live. The churches I attended were main stream, small town churches with normal programs. Somehow though, I don’t remember ever hearing a missionary speak at any of those churches. In high school, I connected with other organizations who were taking kids to Mexico every summer. That was fun, but as a teenager I guess I was more focused on the people I went with than what God was doing…. It was at a Christian University several years later that I was challanged by a friend to go with COI on an individual sports mission trip. By this time God had brought me to the point where I was ready to listen…. I was graduating from University with a degree that I was sure I wouldn’t use and still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life or more importantly what He wanted to do with me. When I got on that plane headed to the Ukraine all I knew was that I loved playing volleyball, I liked to tavel and that I was very interested in sharing my faith with others.

That trip changed my life. We traveled from city to city, playing volleyball, sharing our faith with our opponents and experiencing a culture which was physically and econmically torn apart. I took in everything around me. I was so shocked by the differences between home and where God had brought me. I had so much. I spent more money on clothes than these people had to feed their families for a month. Communism had left these people with such a hunger for the truth that I felt like God was saying "you can tell them the truth, this is where you belong…" For four weeks I listened to the Americans with me complain about all the inconvieniences, no hot water or no water at all, having to wait everywhere we went, about the food being different, etc… None of it mattered to me, I had found my place in the harvest….

Being a missionary is not easy. It’s hard to leave your family behind, but God has been faithful to take care of them. It is hard to adapt to a culture that is so different from your own, but He has given me favor. It is hard to rely on God for your finances, but He has alway provided more than our needs. It is hard to rely on Him when the kids are sick, but we know He is faithful to heal us….. He has proven to me over and over again that He is faithful and that He will provide for all our needs. And thirteen years later, I still know that this is where I belong…….

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I had the privilege of joining one of COI’s Group trips on one of their outreaches last week, they were Jr. High students from Edinburg Church in Minnesota. What a great group of kids! They were energetic, loud and loving! And their leaders were just as great – you could clearly see how much they cared – not only about the kids, but about the people that they ministered God’s love to.

The outreach was at The Source, a local ministry that serves the hungry and homeless in the Vero Beach, Florida area. While talking with some of the people over lunch, I found that some of them had just come into hard times through loss of a job, and found themselves needing help that they had never needed before. Some of them just want to work and take care of their families. One man I talked with was taking a few of his friends with him up to New Jersey for a few months of work on a job opportunity. They had to leave their families behind.

Back to the Outreach; the kids bought the food and cooked it, then served a tasty meal to about 60 participants that day. They also sang some songs and some spoke a few words about why they wanted to help in this way. One said that they wanted to make peoples’ lives better – even if it was only for a few minutes. They were nervous, but sincere and I could tell that all the people there were really blessed by their loving service.

So the hungry were fed, encouraged and blessed – the kids served God and people, and were blessed - the youth leaders were blessed by seeing lives changed on both sides of the outreach - the staff at The Source was blessed with a day off from cooking and serving – the COI Staff was blessed with a successful Group Outreach – and I was so blessed to be able to be a part of God’s Kingdom in action!

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