The First One

David Livingstone, Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, George Muller; these were some of the names I heard used in the church growing up. Each of these men were held up as examples of those who really got it, who were totally sold out for God and who accepted the most honorable vocation among Christians. I don’t know if I ever heard it said outright, but culturally it was understood that if you were a pastor, missionary, or worked for a para-church organization, then you were a better Christian than those who worked in “secular” vocations. If I can be frank with you, I no longer think that if you’re a missionary, you are any more spiritual or any better of a Christian because of your vocation than an iron worker, a live-in nanny, or an accountant. I really wanted to start our first newsletter at the beginning of our journey by saying this for two reasons: first, I think the church needs to be very intentional in encouraging and empowering believers in every vocation that they are just as much ministers of Jesus Christ as anyone working in a church. Secondly, I want our newsletters to be a place where Anna and I can share our struggles with you, so that you can both learn from our mistakes and and pray for us in our journey. Not only does the church need to be more intentional about raising up the layperson, but we also need to be intentional about taking clergy off of the pedestals that we put them on. In the sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus tells the crowd that they are the “light of the world” and a “city on a hill.” My mind has been blown reading that. Jesus, the son of God, is telling the people who are hearing him teach that they are meant to be his primary redeeming force that will guide the rest of the world into truth and into the kingdom of heaven. We can read that passage and think, “Wow, Jesus was such a good speaker. I could never be as good at being a Christian as he was.” We can say the same thing about our pastors and missionaries and miss the fact that Jesus is calling every believer to the same thing, to be the light of the world. Jesus does not require the same qualifications to be ministers as we do. Did you know that he wants to use you? And he may not even want you to change your job.

Now that I have said all of that, let me tell you how we came to where we are now and where we hope to be going. Back in my senior year of high school, I heard about missions aviation as a real vocation, and it sounded amazing to me. I was very interested in working with my hands and ever since my Dad took me on some missions trips with him, I wanted to do missionary work. I also saw missionary work as being the most holy thing I could do with my life. So, being the slightly nerdy kid I was, I made a spreadsheet on my wall where I input every missionary aviation program I could find, along with all information about it. I had the prices for everything, the length of the program, the debts that I would incur, how nice the location was, and even the ratio of men to women at the school. After my careful consideration, I chose Moody Bible Institute, which happened to be the most expensive one. I started doing online classes at home so I could keep working and save up some money. One year later, I had saved very little compared to the $100,000+ the program would cost. My dad offered to take a few days and visit missions aviation organizations in Florida with me and see how their pilots made it all happen. One of those stops was at The Indigenous Peoples Technology and Education Center (ITEC). While we were there, they told us they had a missions aviation program, and it peaked our interest. They had devised a system where in 3 years you got your mechanics license through an apprenticeship which paid for your commercial pilots license training. All I had to do was come up with the money for living expenses. Six months and a miracle of provision later, I had my bags packed and was headed to Dunnellon, Florida, where I would become a mechanic, a pilot and meet my wife. At ITEC, I met some of the most amazing and Jesus-like people, but it also had its challenges. In a future post, I hope to go deeper into how God confirmed that he wanted me there, and how he miraculously provided through his amazing children. I would also like to share at some point about some of the challenges that I faced while at ITEC . However, all you need to know for now is that the founder of ITEC has some admittedly legitimate gripes with one of the largest missions aviation organizations. I heard a lot of negative opinions about missions as a whole. By the time I was out of the program, I felt very unmotivated to continue my pursuit in missions. It had been communicated to me, probably unintentionally, that Americans shouldn’t go on the mission field because it actually harms the global church and that other missions organizations do more harm than good. My time there left me wondering what I had been trained for if not to go and do missions. It took me a few years of processing it all to see that there was both truth and lie in this mindset. American missions can often be more about the experience of the individual going than about loving and caring for the people they are going to. It is also true that American missionaries have empowered people with knowledge and skills to improve life for their communities through both the Gospel of Jesus Christ and through training programs. Who you are and where you come from doesn’t matter so much. Your goal and how you go about it does. The Lord worked on my heart and helped me see his perspective a little clearer. I have felt my excitement to go help increase, and I am also excited to learn from my fellow brothers and sisters in other cultural contexts. I realized that I have a skill and knowledge base that is difficult for those in remote areas to obtain which I can use to encourage and empower them to continue the work of the ministry. JAARS pilots often fly local and indigenous pastors and missionaries so they can minister to even more remote villages. Last year, my wife and I began to pray and ask the Lord if he was calling us to missions work. We both felt a peace to keep moving forward, and when the SUN & FUN airshow came around, we went to see the missions aviation tent. We both felt drawn to the Jungle Aviation and Radio Service (JAARS). JAARS is unique in that their primary purpose is to further Bible translation in those communities which do not have a Bible in their language. Anna and I are both big fans of the Bible. We are very invested in the process of how God used believers to bring it about in the past and how the current translation process happens. This is a cause that we both feel the Lord drawing us to and we ask that you will keep us in your prayers as we go into something very new for us. We are in the in the application stage of joining JAARS. I am coordinating the use of an airplane for an initial consultation. From there, I will need more training in tail-wheel aircraft in preparation for the two-week technical evaluation. Once this is finished, we will complete an application to Wycliffe Bible Translators and either be approved for the field or told that we are not a great fit for JAARS. All of this should be finished by January if the Lord approves of our plans and allow them. We will be doing our best to keep you up to date on what is happening along the way. We are working with our home church (Overflow Church in Brandon, Florida) who will be an accountability for us and a partner who can process any support we receive. If you are feeling led to help us financially, we will be able to accept it come fall 2022. We really do appreciate all of you who are praying for us and we pray that the Kingdom of God will increase all the more through us and you everyday in every place that we go.