Keith had a connection there. In college Keith had a roommate that had grown up in Brazil. He grew up at a New Tribes Mission school for missionary kids. His dad grew up at the school too. So one summer Keith went down with his roommate to the school and spent a month there tromping through the jungle, waterskiing in the Amazon and adopting a parasite we dealt with just 3 years ago (that's another story).
The school still exists and serves American and Brazilian missionaries to Brazil. Tribal missionaries who want to protect their children from the rampant immorality in the tribes and city missionaries who need a way to provide a good education in a safe place a place for their children to make friends send their children to Puraquequara, or PQQ.
Since Keith already knew about the school and had been there and because we wanted to take our children with us we thought PQQ would be the perfect place to go.
And it was.
It was a life-changing three and a half weeks. Want to stir your heart toward missions? Go live with and serve missionaries for a few weeks. You'll be impressed, amazed and humbled.
One phrase I keep going back to over and over again in my mind.
Our extraordinary (Our family giving up comfort, time, money, etc for 3 weeks in Brazil)
is their ordinary (these folks have given up comfort and closeness to family and familiarity and about a million other things to serve God in a foreign land and that life is their ordinary)
A little more about the book Radical. In it the author suggests tithing on your time. In other words, using a tenth of your time each year to serve God physically somewhere foreign. Why not try it? You tithe on the money you bring home. He gave that to you. And all of your days were given to you by Him too.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them. Ps. 139:16
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them. Ps. 139:16
Why not tithe some time back to Him?
And serve someone like this.
and no matter where we live and what we do, God is calling his people to live the extraordinary, in His power and His grace.
ReplyDeleteI am so thankful for your family!