This is a great question and let me tell you--we have been asked it many a time. To answer it, let me break it down into three smaller bite-size questions...Why Missions?, Why Us?, and Why Now?
Pondering these three questions are what God really used to help Nancy, myself, and our family come to the decision to leave the pastorate to pursue overseas missions in Cameroon for the purpose of reaching an unreached people group with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The first question--Why Missions? is pretty cut and dry. Missions is near and dear to the heart of God and because we love God whatever is near and dear to His heart is near and dear to ours as well. As John Piper puts so well, "Missions exists because worship doesn't." So, if we want to see God worshipped in all the people groups of the earth we will be interested in missions because that is what the great task of missions is all about--engaging unreached people groups with the Gospel of Jesus Christ so God gets the glory and they get eternal joy.
But what about the second question--Why Us? I mean, why leave a successful pastorate, a church that we love and loves us, people who are growing under our ministry, and the place we call home within 15 years of when most people in the U.S. retire to go to a place that many have never heard of? What in the world would possess a middle-aged couple with four kids still at home to leave all that they know, are comfortable with, and enjoy, not to mention their three older kids who are out on their own to go to an unreached and really unengaged people group to tell them about Jesus, see people come to Christ, disciple them, and start a church multiplication movement among them?
Well, I think the answer is in the question. We wouldn't be asked the question if we didn't want to go and that's the answer--we want to go! Listen, if you want to do something that not very many people want to do and in fact would not give a second thought to--maybe you should. Maybe the fact that you want to do it is indicative that God has given you a desire that is not, for lack of a better word, "natural" or "normal". Our desire to go to Cameroon and give ourselves to this challenge of reaching an unreached people group with the Gospel for the glory of The NAME is the driving force behind our going.
Secondly, we have the ability to go. Many people at our age are saddled with any number of encumbrances that prevent them from considering missions. We aren't. We are not in debt. We are not caring for aging parents. We are in excellent health and we have no binding commitments that would tie us here. All-in-all, we are free to go.
So, we have the desire to go, the ability to go, and finally--the tools to go.
We have ministry training, education, skills, experience, and the battle scars to prove it. Whereas, we have a great deal to learn about Cameroon, missions, and the unreached people group we want to live among--we are not novices when it comes to ministry. Therefore, who better to go than a couple who have taken a few laps around the block?
The last question--Why Now?--is not hard to answer when you consider that I just turned 50 last January. What that practically means is that the time we have to invest in missions is realistically between 15 to 20 years. Given the fact that it can take anywhere from one to three years to raise support and at least a year to pursue language school and hopefully pass I am looking at being almost 55 years old by the time we would get to Cameroon. While Nancy and I are hopefully getting "better", we sure aren't getting younger and thus the reason why now.
So with all this in mind, the real question we were left with was not Why Missions, Why Us, and Why Now? but rather "Why Not Missions, Why Not Us, and Why Not Now?"
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