My new job! (Andy)

Since so many friends and family members have been praying for us and encouraging us over the past few months during this transition time in our lives, I am very excited to share with you that I accepted a job today in Charlottesville with an organization called Christian Aid Mission.

This is an answer to prayer that rivals God's working to spare us from the separation for deployment that so recently loomed ahead of us.

If you want some background information before reading on, I refer you to Amy's May 26th blog, "This is the short version!" under the "Jobs" post topic.

As some of you may know, I have felt the Lord leading us to and preparing us for some type of work in the realm of "world missions" for at least the past 15 months, though probably, in a very subtle way, for several years. I can trace this specific calling, albeit very lightly, all the way back through my initial interest in Foreign Affairs and my decision to major in that subject as a student at UVA. Though I was not yet a Christian at the time, God knew that I would become one, and he had already sparked in me an interest in the world that was substantial enough to influence my choosing of a major.

In the years following my graduation from college, my academic interest in the world or, "foreign affairs", took a back seat to other things, and I ceased to consider that it would ever again be a part of my life.

But apparently God had not forgotten that it was he who gave me the interest, for a reason. Soon after I left the Marine Corps, he fanned the small remaining flame of interest into a passion that I became convinced he was going to use in ministry.

As Amy and I began talking about the possibility of becoming "missionaries", we felt that the Lord was encouraging us, but never toward any particular country or place. I began to consider that perhaps our calling to "missions" was more general, whatever that might mean. Not knowing exactly what to make of all that at the time, a trip to the National Missionary Convention in Cincinnati last fall provided a clue. Amy and I got acquainted with Gospel for Asia, a missions organization that supports, trains, equips, and sends natives to reach their own people for Christ in the harvest ripe nations of Asia. I read a book that the people at the Gospel for Asia booth gave me called Revolution in World Missions, by Gospel for Asia's founder and president, K.P. Yohannan. This book did exactly what Yohannan wrote it to do - it revolutionized my understanding of world missions (not that I had much understanding to speak of before that time anyway).

In any case, I became convinced of the great effectiveness of native/indigenous missionaries in taking the Gospel to their own people. After all, most restricted countries, where western missionaries are not allowed, already have native believers within their borders. These Christians have been called of the Lord to proclaim the Gospel to their countrymen and plant churches to disciple those who believe. Not only so, but they can do it for a tiny fraction of the cost of American missionaries, who often require western salaries and must spend years learning the local language and culture before they are effective. Since I learned of these realities, it has been so easy to get behind indigenous missionaries with my prayers and financial support.

For the remainder of 2007, and the first half of 2008, I persisted in praying that the Lord would invite us in some way to join him in this work of supporting indigenous missions. I soon began feeling that this was the work he had been preparing me for, and that this would be, at least in large part, our contribution to "world missions" as a family.

On June 15th, the evening I arrived in Charlottesville from Indiana, I was alone, having made the 10 hour drive a week before we were to move as a family. I was going to work the next morning at my new Marine Corps job in Lynchburg, but I couldn't resist spending the night in the town we had been excited to move to for so long. Of course I made several wrong turns as I came into town, not having even visited for at least three years. In the course of making these wrong turns, I drove right by the sign on 5th street extension for Christian Aid. I had never heard of Christian Aid and I didn't know what it was, but I asked the lady at my hotel that night about it and she found the website for me.

After devouring a good portion of the website, I was convinced that God had been preparing me for some time, at least vocationally, to come alongside the work he is doing through this organization.

I contacted Christian Aid and informed them of my tremendous interest, as well as my need for employment. They responded, but did not have any job openings. Over the course of the next two months I kept in touch with a particular staff member, who encouraged me to pursue my interest in the organization, despite the fact that no jobs were being offered. Finally, on Thursday August 8th, I got an email offering an opportunity to volunteer. Since I felt like I had already applied to every reasonable job in Charlottesville, and I could do little more than wait on some return phone calls, I jumped at the opportunity to volunteer and learn about Christian Aid from the inside.

And nine days of volunteering later, I have a job!!!

I will start on Monday, and we are so excited!

Amy and I want to thank everyone who has prayed for us during our transition here, and also those who have encouraged us with phone calls, emails and other forms of support. We know that God answers prayers, because we have seen him answer so many in the last several years. This was a particularly exciting one to have answered, because it is very certainly the realization of a dream I have had since college for my vocation to be an expression of who the Lord has made me to be. God is God, and in the future we will go wherever he calls us. But we rejoice now in a peace and contentment that comes only from knowing we are right where he wants us to be.

I encourage you to check out Christian Aid's website (see link above). They are certainly not the only organization in America dedicated to supporting the indigenous missions movement, but they are typically considered the first, the pioneers in the western world of this "reformed" or "revolutionary" outlook on world missions.

By the way, my job will be in the Donor Relations department, and I'll be doing a lot of different things. I'll obviously learn more in the weeks to come about exactly what my job will entail.

That's all for now. Good night!