Well, what makes a person want to pack up a tiny part of their life and move to another country leaving family and friends behind while living on the financial support of others and God’s grace. It’s the desire to share abundant life in Christ with the world, but how did we get here to this specific passion in our lives? For me (Dre) my faith began when I was only six years old. I was raised in the church and was confused one Sunday night when I was not allowed to eat the crackers for communion. My mom and dad explained that communion was for people who had confessed their sin to God and trusted Him for His forgiveness and eternal life in Christ. THAT WAS ME!, so I accepted him that night. When I was eleven I went to a Children Bible Camp called Camp Icthus. The Bible verse summer was “here I am, send me” from Isaiah. While praying during my quiet time, it dawned on me that if God really loved me, that it would be in His will for my life, that I would find the most Joy! This was a startling and freeing realization, and at that moment I know God was calling me to overseas ministry! Throughout my teen years I dabbled in other interest, but when it was time to choose a college, Toccoa Falls was the One, and I decided to major in Cross-Cultural Studies. Toccoa’s School of World mission was amazing in educating me in anthropology and preparing me for life as a missionary. Junior year you spend 5 months creating an ethnography of a culture, and then do an internship there over the summer. I chose (well God chose) Bosnia, and went with Operation Mobilization. I spent 5 weeks Bihac, 3 weeks in the mountains at a camp ministry, and 1 week in Sarajevo. I met beautiful people and explored wonderful places, most importantly I learned a ton! Jesse was born and raised in Minnesota an grew up in the Lutheran church. He became a youth pastor after graduating high school. It was during this time that he began to read the Bible more and realized that the ‘everyone eventually goes to heaven” philosophy he had been thought was not in scripture. He spent an agonizing night praying and asking God to reveal him the truth, it was that night that he truly accepted Christ as his savior and the only way to heaven. When he was 21, it was time to go to school and he choose this tiny bible college in north Georgia (He said he liked the website). During his freshman year, he was attending church service at a CMA church and answered the call to missions. This set a course for his life in ministry. (It also made him eligible to date me. Which began 8 months later, but that’s another story) We Graduated, Got married … and here we are, it feels like such a long journey and it hasn’t even begun, and God has yet to reveal his wonders… "Look at the nations and watch--and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.” Habakkuk 1:5 There nothing like a ‘nations’ verse to give you the goose bumps.
