Last week, our current homeschool teacher, Hunter, was going through Bible curriculum which discussed the end times with our children. In the curriculum were covered things like the final judgment, the Great White Throne judgment, the return of Christ, and the eternal state of believers and unbelievers alike. A few days later, one of my sons came up to me and said that he had been thinking a lot about what “Miss Hunter” had been teaching him about the end times. He said that he had been fighting God his whole life and he was tired of it. He continued…

Moving to Africa has plunged us into a radically different environment. I joke with Stacey that we would be prime candidates for the voyage to Mars, having already journeyed to a new world. I can stand next to a neighbor, see with fully functioning eyes the exact same event, and walk away with a drastically different impression. This reality was vividly demonstrated a couple weeks ago when we endured a ferocious storm here in the village. People’s roofs were ripped off and flung into the surrounding forest. Lightning was striking all around us and the thunder was terrifying. Both Stacey…

If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. Matthew 17:20  Most Christians believe that prayer is powerful. We believe the Bible when it tells us that Elijah prayed and it did not rain for three and a half years! We believe that when Moses prayed the Lord opened the sea. And yet, we tend to pray for the small, the immediate. We pray for health and safe travel, friends and family. What would it look like…

People have asked me if I ever feel like just giving up on missions. We try to be honest on our blog about our lives here and sometimes when people hear the difficulties they feel like it is just too much. Of course, they are usually thinking about the things that are not that hard, like cockroaches and snakes. Those things are just annoying. What is hard is watching babies die, seeing people fighting in the streets, knowing that most of our neighbors are living incredibly difficult lives without God to comfort them, and knowing there is little to nothing…

I wrote a few months ago A Case for Generosity in which I made the claim: “Being generous is so close to being loved that for the average Kwakum, they are indistinguishable.” My conclusion to this blog post was that, as Christians, when considering all of the variables for giving, we should make generosity a priority. I used in this argument a case study of a little boy named Patrick who was born with hydrocephalus. His family asked me to help get him a surgery and we decided to give. We found that our giving in this case conveyed great…

A week ago, chiefs from various Kwakum villages, fellow missionaries, the town mayor, and hundreds of “regular” Kwakum people gathered together singing the words of the song that is written above. It was a time to celebrate two things: 1) The opening of the new Kwakum literacy and translation center, and 2) the dedication of the new Kwakum alphabet. The Kwakum literacy and translation center is a five room plus once conference room building which serves as a hub for literacy work, Oral Bible Storying, children’s ministry, and translation work. Two out of the five rooms are bedrooms which the…

Yesterday morning Kwakum people from near and far gathered together for a joyous dedication of the Kwakum house, a newly-built center for literacy and translation. It was in this building that the new, approved Kwakum alphabet was presented. There was singing, there was dancing, there was a time of thanksgiving for those in America who helped fund the building project, and there were speeches given. A new alphabet song was sung. It started with: We are overjoyed that God has opened the door for a writing system in Kwakum! We are so happy with the letters that have come into…

It has been almost 15 years since Stacey and I started to pursue missions together. We have been through seminary, adoption, support raising, linguistic training, French, Kwakum learning, more linguistic training, and more Kwakum learning and analysis. The point of all of this work has been to be a part of bringing God’s Word to a people group that does not have it. Starting in November we began building a house, which we call Itɔɔ Kwakum ‘the Kwakum House’ where we will begin literacy and translation. That house is going to be opened and dedicated on March 30th. Another missionary…

I often tell my kids, “If you want to avoid a life of criticism, stay home and sit on your couch. It is when you venture out to help people that you find yourself in the cross-hairs of criticism. Your greatest acts of love will be those that are the most scrutinized.” This proves to be true in the life and ministry of Jesus. When he healed the blind, made the lame walk, and the dead rise, suddenly his critics appeared out of nowhere saying he must be demon possessed. As he walked through this world full of compassion and…

I think that many Christians have a false idea of missionaries: namely, that they want to go off on their own and do ministry by themselves. Often we think of David Livingstone who literally disappeared into Africa to do his work and was hardly ever heard from the last six years of his life. In fact, a newspaper had to send a large party led by Henry Morton Stanley to find him. As far as I can tell, Livingstone liked this way of life. He was the quintessential lone ranger missionary. But is this normative? Should we send out our…