As it is in Heaven

Why do I choose to write about an international family over the awesome victories of the missionary life, or the rugged realities of using an outdoor toilet? What is so valuable to me that I choose to spend more energy telling my family story?

It’s just that my family is my gift from Jesus to learn how to intimately love people who think differently than me, or acts in a way that I would have never imagined, and love in a manner that softens my soul.

I’m an awkward girl. Really I am. Sometimes I wish I could rewind time because I find myself being caught up in the moment and saying something silly that can’t be unsaid…. Oh well. My family gets me, and in gentleness they correct my thoughtlessness. It’s amazing to be loved in kindness.  My sweet sons, Today I’m gushing over mostly about my romantic, committed Brazilian husband.

My husband loves me more than any man in my life has ever attempted to imagine loving me. I had one really sweet offer from a young man with a crush. He knew that my calling in life was to be a missionary, but his calling was to be a successful business man in Colorado. He said that he would buy an entire African village and move them to Colorado if I married him. It was really not a missionary plan, more like forced refugees, but he didn’t know….

My husband knows about villages and refugee camps. He has walked in desperate places. Through refugee camps, distant bush villages, and remote areas of Mozambique that truly were hungry and thirsty for Jesus. He is a cool man, and a really resilient missionary. He went to the villages, and stepped out of the comfort of his own community in Brazil to spend what part of his life that Holy Spirit required of him.

My husband knows his ministry calling is to be a missionary. Yet when faced with the approval or acceptance of peers or leaders to pour himself out entirely for the ministry, or minister to his family and protect us –he chose to protect us. He has loved me and our sons at the cost of being absent for a mission’s project, or a church visit when we were sick or suddenly needed him. His love is sooo committed. He will lay everything down to be a loving father. Now that is something worth writing about!

You see, I write about my International family because it is my first ministry priority and priority in Life: as a loving mom and wife, I am compelled to be a better missionary, minister, and leader. We believe that Papa God loves family. We are committed to being a loving family that really does invite people to draw closer to Jesus. By people we mean us, observers, participants, people our lives may touch.

Our International Family’s desire is to always love God, and family and pour out our lives in obedience to increase Papa God’s kingdom here on earth so that we can really say, “on earth as it is in Heaven.” In heaven no body is sad. So I like to spread the love, and celebrate that I am loved! You are love too!!Better believe it.

Missionary Momma Mia