As missionaries, we have looked at the past twenty years through a four-years-at-a-time lens. That is generally how long a term of missionary service abroad has lasted for our family. Then it’s been followed by a year of “furlough”, which many think is synonymous with “vacation”, but actually means “travel through umpteen states and speak at a gazillion churches and do homeschool in the car and meet lots of people and eat at lots of church potluck dinners and share your vision for missions and invite people to join in mission with you”. Definitely great, but not “vacation”.
Anyway, four-year terms. First term – Costa Rica, Argentina, Honduras. Second term – Honduras. Third term – Honduras, Bolivia. Fourth term – Bolivia. Fifth term – USA and the world.
We serve under a dual appointment with TMS-Global and World Gospel Mission. For four years in the USA, we served on Special Assignment with a group made up of people – like us -who wanted to share their knowledge and experience by serving their fellow missionaries around the globe. Our hope was to connect mission educators with one another, to encourage and challenge one another through sharing resources and ideas, and to offer assistance through consulting and teaching as needed.
But in the summer of 2017, we sensed God opening a new door for ministry. In August that same year, we moved to Tirana, Albania to begin serving at GDQ International Christian School. Rather than the four-year term/one-year furlough schedule, we plan to spend ten months of each year in Albania, returning to the US each summer to visit family, experience rest and renewal, and to touch base with our ministry partners.
So what do we do? Missions. Education. Transformation. We serve as cross-cultural missionaries in education in the hopes of seeing lives and communities transformed by the love of Jesus Christ.
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