"I wanna go to Afwica!!"

Well, it didn't take long for my married life, my mommy life and my ministry life to come together all in one post! My precious husband has a heart for missions, he's been to Bolivia and he's been to Africa and I, on the other hand, have not. Let's just leave that for another post at another time!!

Anyway, he loves missions and really would like to nurture and grow that in the hearts of our four children. So he resigned himself to the fact that he would take each one on a missions trip once they turned 12 years old so that he could expose them to the world outside of our plush lifestyle. For Tucker that is only just over one short year away and he's totally on board with his dad's plan. Well for sweet little Ellie, that trip is a long 81/2 years away even though she's heard about the plan and has heard Bruce's stories about going to Africa last summer. Are ya trackin' with me????

So, Cumberland Church (where we are on staff and attend each Sunday) has recently partnered with an organization called African Leadership in an effort to serve African families that are seeking refuge here in Nashville. We just held a backpack drive for the children of these families and collected over 100 backpacks!!!! So in order to get them to these kids they had to be delivered to the apartments where these families are living. So for Bruce this made a light bulb go off in his "missions head" and he decided this would be a perfect service opportunity to begin to expose our kids to serving and missions. So the plans were made and the kids were ready!!

So yesterday, I get everyone fed and in the car to meet Bruce at the church for them to go up to Nashville. Well somewhere along the way no one thought to tell Ellie that she wasn't quite old enough to go. So from the backseat of the car I hear this little voice say: "I wanna go to Afwica!"
To which I say, "what?" and she says " I wanna go to Afwica to do the backpacks!" So Tucker pipes in and says "We're not going to Africa, we're going to pass out backpacks to the African children that live here in Nashville now." To which Ellie replies, "But I love Afwica!" (with as much enthusiasm as her 3 year old body can muster!).

As I think back on Ellie's words, the question that comes to mind is "why don't I feel that way?" Not that I don't want to help those less fortunate because I do but where's her fear? What is it in me that is keeping me from going to the ends of the earth to be Jesus to those that don't know? (And I'm talking about something as short as a missions trip not necessarily packing up and moving.) The easy answer, for sure, is fear on a lot of different levels!!!!

So what about you? What are you afraid of, what would you do if you could do anything in the world but like me, fear is holding you back? Send me your comments and we'll discuss them together.... What do you have to fear?