In the fall of 2009 Mark began taking a “Spiritual Gifts” class on Sunday mornings with our church. He went through the study that outlined all the spiritual gifts and how each one works with the others. At the end of the study the participants are asked to fill out a questionnaire to determine where God may have gifted them. They are also asked to employ other close friends and family to fill out the same form to determine what gifts they exhibit in everyday life. Mark pined over the evaluation, and even took it more than once, just to see if anything had changed. He contacted his mentor, who was the teacher of the class, to discuss the outcomes of the evaluation as well as look over the surveys that friends and family completed. He began to fervently pray about what was to come next for him. All in all, he basically got weird on me!
A couple of weeks later I was at work, reading McManus’ book ‘The Barbarian Way’ and something struck my heart. I don’t know if it was residual from the chapter that we were on in the small group study of Chan’s ‘Crazy Love,’ or what I was reading that second, but I just couldn’t shake the word missions.
I immediately put the book down and went on search for Mark. (We were working at the same call center) I just stood there dumbfounded until he finished the call. Then I asked “Really, MISSIONS???” He chuckled and tried to hold back tears. And that’s where it all started.
We started to pray that if it was really missions, Where? When? How? Mark said that Panama (where he had spent a good deal of his youth) was heavy on his heart. But he wasn’t sure if it was because that’s ‘home’ or because it’s God. So we asked God to be clearer.
December 14 Mark opened our daily devotional bible to do his quiet time. He was greeted with the title “Take Courage From Him.” As you read on the devotion tells the story of St. Patrick. You see, contrary to popular belief, St. Patrick isn’t Irish. He’s English. He was kidnapped by pirates when he was sixteen and taken to Ireland. After six years of being a slave he escaped back to England. But God had already begun a work in his heart. Because in about 400 A.D God called him back to Ireland to preach the gospel.
For us, this was a confirmation that God was calling us to Panama. First....St. Patrick's Day isn’t in December!!! WHY in the world would our devo for that day tell THAT story? A story about a boy who spent 6 years of his life in a foreign country....just to be called back to minister there again? Yeah....but I needed more. After having bad experiences with jumping too quickly before, I prayed that God would show us again that Panama was where He desired us to be.
Christmas time came, and every year our kids get the same thing: An ornament, a movie, and stocking stuffers. This year we became the proud owners of VeggieTales Story of St. Nicholas. I thought it would be great to show the kids that even Santa gives because he wants to show the world Jesus. (Considering we don’t actually ‘do’ Santa.) We popped it in one night and before the movie started there was a commercial for Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child (which you can read more about here.) In the commercial the French peas were packing a shoebox full of stuff to send off to another country for a child for Christmas. (Samaritan's Purse Ministry is a way for us to tangibly show God’s love as well as send the message of the gospel.) Guess where they were sending this shoe box???? Any guesses….YUP! Panama! Out of the 100 countries that they are involved in….PANAMA!!!!!
The next Sunday we were reading a passage and only 1 word stood out to me. Go! It was that GO exclamation point that just “flew all over me.” We knew that God was not only calling us to Go! but that He was indeed calling us to Panama. But with who? How does one get involved in foreign missions anyway? Again we prayed. While Mark was living in Panama he was involved in “King’s Kids.” A drama ministry of YWAM (Youth With A Mission). So we looked into what it would take for us to join up with YWAM. We learned that to join as YWAM staff we would first need to complete a Discipleship Training School (DTS). We looked at YWAM’s webpage and immediately I was struck with this:
“The Discipleship Training School (DTS) is designed to help you understand God more deeply, live more like Jesus and identify your unique gifts and purpose to use in missions. DTS is an intensive, residential training course which begins with an 11 or 12 week classroom phase, followed by an 8-12 week outreach. DTS emphasizes cross-cultural exposure and global awareness, preparing students to answer the call to "Go!”
There it was again. That GO exclamation point. God was clear. We were to Go! We were to go to Panama. And we were to go with YWAM.
We knew then that we were to Go! We were to go to Panama. And we were to go with YWAM.
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