In the Beginning.....

If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be authoring a blog such as this, I would have said you were crazy!

Our adventure starts in Sept. 2008.  It actually just started with Greg.  He had trouble going to sleep one night and had this horrible feeling he was about to "hear" something he didn't want to hear.  He tried to fall asleep, but the dog had to go outside so he had to go down and let her out.  On his way back to bed he heard a message from God telling him He wants our family to enter the mission field.  Greg (not really wanting to know) asked "Where?"  And God answered... China.  Greg was overwhelmed and really not all that happy about that plan.  It took him several weeks to even tell me.

Once Greg told me I was very excited and ready to board a plane.  Greg, on the other hand, wanted to be as far away from any plane heading anywhere that he could be.  We went through a rocky time in our family and marriage as we both struggled through the next 3 years of knowing this is on the horizon, but not really knowing what to do.  We can look back now and see God has done so much work that was needed to be done on Greg and I individually as well as our marriage and family.  The work is by no means done, but we've had some major refining along the way.



The red areas are people groups unreached with the gospel.  Notice Japan is RED!
Less than 2% of the population in Japan are believers in Jesus!

In December 2011, Greg came to me and said he felt it was time to pursue moving forward.  I had finally given up trying to convince Greg of anything and said I wouldn't mention China ever again unless he brought it up.  The only time I did bring it up was about 2 weeks or so before he came to me in Dec. I had sent him an email.  God had given me the thought that maybe Greg was not supposed to be the "up front" missionary.  Maybe that's my role and he plays a more supporting role.  Greg later told me this was the first thing that actually made sense to him.  Isn't it amazing that when God is really working in our lives things don't always make sense?  Why would someone "want" to give up part of their income to help the poor?  Why would anyone invite a stranger into their home?  Why would we uproot our family and comfortable lives to enter an unseen future?  Often times I find the way God works is very non-sensical to me.

So, I proceeded to call a couple mission organizations.  We are still in contact with both the organizations we contacted.  We haven't decided yet which is the better fit.  We had some phone conversations and filled out some preliminary applications.  Somewhere along the line I decided to email our good friends who had been missionaries in Turkey, now stationed in Japan.  They are prayer warriors and deeply devoted to Jesus, so I just knew their prayer support would be invaluable.  I sent one email with our prayer request for direction and such. 

I heard back from them right away the next morning.  They, of course, said they would pray for us.  But, they also wanted us to know of an opportunity to serve in Japan.  They did not want to misguide us at all, but as I later found out my friend had a burning desire to mention this position to us.  We know it was the Holy Spirit leading her to tell us.  I got very excited after reading that email.  What you don't know is that Greg has had an interest in Japan ever since he was a child.  In fact, many of his discussions with God early on in our "China" adventure had to do with "Why couldn't you have said JAPAN?"  My immediate thought was that because of Greg's faithfulness in following God to China (even though he didn't want to go there), maybe God was giving him the desire of his heart... to go to Japan.

So, we prayed about it to make sure we weren't disobeying and have come to the conclusion that God is leading us to Japan.  I have to admit, that was a little adjustment for me.  I had set my heart on China and was thinking up things in my head that I wanted to be invovled in.  All of them noble ventures, but my guess is God wanted more control over what I would do than what I was wanting to give Him.  I have NO idea really what we would do in Japan.  The position we were made aware of is an option, but God has not set my heart on that.  I believe it was just God's way of redirecting us to Japan instead of China.

So that is the beginning, but certainly there is no end to this story!  This blog is intended to document God's amazing work in us as He prepares us for a new chapter in our lives!  I'm hoping you'll join us in our journey to Japan!