A Little Background Information

If you had asked me five years ago if I thought I would ever be a leader of short term mission trips to far-away places like Ethiopia, I would have laughed out loud. Now today I stand amazed and humbled that God would allow me this amazing privilege. 

In the summer of 2003, I travelled with our youth pastor and 12 teens to help on their Mexico Mission trip. Those two weeks were a life-changing experience as I saw third-world poverty for the first time in my life. I was impressed with how incredibly blessed we are in Canada, and how easily we can bring encouragement, hope and help to those who live with much less. 

As I pondered how this trip had impacted and changed my perspective on life, thoughts kept running through my mind about how I might be able to offer this experience to other adults in our church. Six months later I sat in a church service and listened as that same youth pastor preached on the story about Peter walking on water (Matthew 14:30-32). The main challenge in his sermon was to have courage to "step out of the boat" - we won't sink as long as we keep our eyes on Jesus, but as soon as we look at the waves and have fear, we are in danger of going down. That day I was convinced that God wanted me to step out of my safe boat, and trust Him to hold my hand as I organized a mission trip to Mexico. 

One year and three months later, our first team of five adults were ministering in Nogales, Mexico, and the fruit of this trip in the lives of those who participated continues to astound me.

In 2006, another team, this time eleven of us, returned to Nogales for another week of construction and children's ministry. I was content to continue on this course, leading adult teams to Mexico. Organizing for the "familiar" was comfortable.

But God had other plans for me. Have you ever noticed that He seems to be in the business of stretching and testing our faith?!