The Making of a Missionary Family

I was asked the question again, "To what do you attribute your children being around the world sharing the gospel?"   I often don't have an answer.   It's not exactly what I planned.   I probably don't need to tell you that there's no one set formula, and I probably also don't need to tell you that God doesn't call every family to this kind of mission work.  Missionaries we all must be, but 'where' is the  question.
But, as I was sitting at our dining room table with this friend, I started to recount some events that contributed to the making of this particular missionary family, the Litchfield tribe.

Not necessarily in the order of importance!  But all crucial in our situation!

1) Grandparents with a vision......Grandma Schultze was going to be a missionary nurse and Grandpa Schultze a medical doctor.  God didn't grant that specific desire, but the desire was sensed and passed along (on fire godly aunt and uncle didn't hurt anything either!)
2) German grandfather/pastor - No nonsense.  Black and white.  No excuses.  God speaks....you obey!!!  It doesn't matter what people think, how much it will cost you or even what YOU think....get over whatever it is and obey!!!
3) Marrying in God's will (again not essential for everyone but it sure helps!)  My parents and Don and I endeavored to marry who God wanted us to marry
4) Knowing the purpose of family.  Before I even married, the  question was on my mind.  Why have children?  To be honest a lot of them didn't look very enjoyable!  And to my teen mind they were an inconvenience.  Do we have children just so they can have children and so on?  I didn't have all the answers at the time, but as God unfolded our lives, we learned that children were to be born and raised with the purpose to serve God.... not us. 
5) Separateness from the world and much godly instruction.  In our family, home schooling and much training were involved.
6) Denny Kenaston's Godly Home Series.  When I would listen to these audio tapes, I would become so stirred by Denny's vision to send our children out to the far corners of the world to share the gospel.  My children heard me exhorting them after I would hear some of these messages!
7) Missionary biographies.   Most of our children's reading was educational in some way and that which was spiritual.  Missionary biographies were required reading as well as reading biographies of other great men and women of the faith.
8) Mission trips.  We took them on mission trips.  They went on some on their own.  They saw me weep when leaving countries because we couldn't do more.  They saw their father invest in lives of people he didn't know.  They ministered in song and deed to spiritually hungry people.  They sang with their grandpa in the open plazas in Europe and people would gather.
9) Honest hearts.  Okay.  This one could be essential.  We tried to have honest hearts and to respond to the Spirit even when others around us saw things differently.  We wanted Gods will personally and we were willing to make changes where necessary.
10) Heart ties.  We endeavored to love, understand and enable our children.

Probably not a comprehensive list.  But it's a start.  These 10 factors contributed greatly to what our children doing today.


 

Home and Family

Our homes and our family have played crucial parts in our lives.  Of  course, our children have entangled their way in our hearts, but also the homes that have been the framework for great memories.  First of all, the children.  We have invested much in raising our family.  It takes time, energy, patience, finance to home school.  And we felt the call of God to make that sacrifice.  Along with the investment came heart ties.  As the Word says: where your treasure is, that is where your heart will be.  We also felt the call to include them in ministry.  We took them with us to prayer meetings, local outreaches, and to mission trips overseas.  Again....more heart ties.  We invested in their physical bodies in the way of being involved in select sports activities and tried to develop gifts by taking them to special classes and to music lessons.  So much of our lives were spent....and with joy we did so.
Then God began to take our investments....away to other places.....ouch.  Too soon it happened.  The children were beginning to sound really good in their string ensembles.  Our maturing voices were blending well in song.  Their bodies were strong enough and capable enough to be helpful around the house and homestead.  Yet, there they went.  What we had built began to change form and to be reconstructed in other environments.  My footing was being shaken.  My grasp loosened on what I loved and gave myself to.
Then there were the homes.  The main home is the one we visited a weekend ago.  We spent most of our child raising years there.  The hands of our children had helped Don build an addition on the home.  Their hands had pulled nails out of the hardwood flooring we had installed.  They had nurtured baby goats, chicks, lambs and donkeys on the acres there.  The boys had helped string the fencing and stack the hay.  We had sung in the music room we had added on and they played instruments together.  In the living room, the Word had been opened for family devotions.  Youth groups had gathered.  We had family meetings planning how we could better serve the Lord and others.  A treehouse was built and a natural fort existed under the large, overgrown junipers.
The basement was used for friends to frolic in adverse weather.  We snuggled on the couch in front of the VHS movies we used for math.  We had wonderful believers to worship with.  The children's grandparents were nearby.

(This is the rear of the house now overgrown and vacant)

We had bought hand shovels to dig our pond in the side yard.  The front yard was used for soccer, volleyball and football with friends.
The dining room with it's cathedral ceiling was a gathering place nearly every week for fellow believers to fellowship as well as the setting for birthday dinners.
We dreamed of our grandchildren experiencing the same joys on that land.
Then God said, "Go."
Again what had become entangled in our hearts....through investment in the Kingdom things....had to be torn away.  We were leaving it for....we knew not what.

What is God doing?  Why doesn't it feel right?  In times like these, we learn what it really feels like to forsake all and follow God.  We learn what it means to not love the world or the things of the world.  We start to feel what God is saying when he says not to love your children and your family more than Him.  It hurts.  It's an adventure.

In retrospect, I can see how God is leading  and working.  Leaving this home brought us in contact with people that we needed to meet.  Our children found their companions through venturing away from us and home.  They found their callings.  I thought they should find all this right there in that home we had loved and worked in!!  Couldn't God do that?  But, no, it wasn't the way I imagined it or how I had planned it.
If we leave houses, lands and people, God will provide more in His time and His way.  But...I liked the ones I had.  Why did I want to leave them?  I didn't want to, but God called us out and He has given good fruit out of the obedience.

When I visited this former home a few weekends ago, our son, Jake, told us that the homestead where he has been living with his mother-in-law and family will most likely be sold when they move to Thailand.  Double grieving that weekend in my heart!  Look at this place!  
I'm not trying to be overly negative....I just want you to feel the cost.  A shaker shingle barn.

 A cabin on over 100 acres of woods.  Moose and bear coming through the pasture.  An old greenhouse to start plants in the cold springs of Maine.  Cousins for our grandkids walking distance down the lane.  Warm wood heat in winter and a wood stove for cooking and heating water. 

Going is leaving what is comfortable...but also it is a forsaking in the heart.  Yet, Jake and Naomi are gearing up to leave what is precious of this earth for eternal rewards....which they do not know yet what those will look like.   Are the rewards worth it??  Oh, yes!!  The people, experiences and spouses for our children are soooo worth it.  Yes, I would have preferred these things be provided WITHOUT me leaving what I loved.  But, that's not how God wanted to do it.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Discipling Those Arrows

I've been reading "Radical" by David Platt.  Yes, put it on your 'must-read' list!  If you've already read it, then you understand what I'm saying!

I'm one of those who has struggled with 'evangelism'.  I'm not good at cold turkey witnessing.  I want people to move in with me and then I can best reach them!  Thus we did foster care and other reaching out.  But, I felt like a failure because I wasn't winning more people.  Platt's book is helping me be more encouraged....and challenged.  The type of discipleship I prefer is the kind He encourages.  The challenge to me is to do more of it and make more of a conscious effort to pursue the deeper relationships that I feel more comfortable sharing the gospel inside of.

Platt reminds us that at the end of Jesus life, He didn't tell the Father how many people He had healed or how many huge crowds He had spoken to.  He told the Father how He had been faithful to the 12 men that God had given them and only one had been lost (Judas).

Maybe this is a good sign that we need to quit putting ourselves on a guilt trip that we haven't performed miracles or preached to thousands, and start trying to disciple those God has put across our path.

Read this quote:

"The more I read the Gospels, the more I marvel at the simple genius of what Jesus was doing with His disciples.  My mind tends to wander toward grandiose dreams and intricate strategies, and I'm struck when I see Jesus simply, intentionally, systematically, patiently walking alongside twelve men.  Jesus reminds me that disciples are not mass produced.  Disciples of Jesus - genuine, committed, self-sacrificing followers of Christ - are not made overnight.
Making disciples is not an easy process.  It is trying. It is messy.  It is slow, tedious, even painful at times.  It is all these things because it is relational."

Now reread the quote above, and think about it in relation to raising children for the Lord.  Are our own children not multiplying the Gospel?  Isn't it messy and trying at times?  Should we be dreaming about reaching the world and neglecting those young branches He has put right in our home?

Here's more:

"He spent three years with twelve guys.  If the Son of God thought it necessary to focus his life on a small group of men, we are fooling ourselves to think we can mass-produce disciples today.  God's design for taking the gospel to the world is a slow, intentional, simple process that involves every one of his people sacrificing every facet of their lives to multiply the life of Christ in others."

Praise the Lord!   It's more 'doable' than we thought!  And it's more 'tedious and systematic' than some of us thought too.  What a great example Jesus was! 

What if we don't have arrows to whittle and refine?  Get to know your neighbor....WELL.  Co-workers, cousins, acquaintances at church, etc.  Platt's book will give you more ideas and challenge you to use your gifts globally to 'make disciples'.

Praise the Lord for Jesus training those 12 disciples!  Then the Holy Spirit took them and Christianity has spread like wildfire!  Let the Holy Spirit take the discipling we've done and bring the increase!