The pace of life on the mission field genuinely surprised me. Being used to the busyness of ministry in the States, I had braced myself for the inevitable boredom that was to come. I envisioned moving from New York City to Mayberry. This was going to take some adjusting.


I soon discovered ministry is busy wherever you are. There are church services, special activities, discipleships, counseling sessions, visitation, and staff meeting. Somewhere in there, I'm supposed to find time to prepare meals and clean house. With the arrival of a group from the U.S., life becomes a whirlwind.


Where does family time fit into all this? Will Claire suffer from Mama and Daddy being on call 24/7?


I'm the first to confess, I don't have it all figured out. I know the key is balance...now how do we strike it? But I would like to share some things the Lord has taught Robbie and me over the past few years about a harmony of family time and ministry.


1. My husband is the head of our home. The Lord placed my husband as the head of this family; no other man has this role. The Lord gives Robbie wisdom to decide exactly what our family can handle. Every family should serve in the church; but not every family can be involved to the same capacity. I must trust the leadership of my husband. He would tell you that I tend to frequently over commit. I recall one weekend in particular that we had a church event the weekend before we left for furlough in the United States. Already in the flurry of packing and organizing for our trip, I was also in charge of the meal for this event. Instead of asking someone for help, or ordering chop-suey from the Chinese restaurant (as my husband suggested), I decided to make the food myself. For one hundred people. Somewhere around 1AM, I was standing in the kitchen peeling eggs for the potato salad, rolling my eyes at myself. Dumb, dumb, dumb! Why didn't I listen to my husband? As hard as it is to admit at times, there's a reason I'm not in charge!


2. My relationship with the Lord is top priority. It becomes pretty obvious when I become too busy doing and not being with the Lord. My schedule is overflowing, I frantically rush from activity to activity, and I begin to resent my ministry. If everything I do doesn't revolve around Him, it will quickly fall apart. And my daughter needs to see that. Years ago, before I was married, my cousin Kimberly shared something the Lord was teaching her that really stuck with me. She had the habit of rising early to have her devotions before her two young boys were awake each morning. But one day it occurred to her that her little ones didn't see Mama reading her Bible and praying each day. Yes, she probably had fewer distractions with the boys asleep, but it was important to her that they know she had her quiet time with the Lord. She began waiting until they were awake, then sent them out to play on the patio just after breakfast. They could see each other through the glass, and they knew this was Mama's time to be with the Lord. I've incorporated the same habit now that I have Claire; some mornings she even sits beside me and looks through a Bible picture book because she wants to "have her devotions" as well. My quiet time is the most important part of the day, and all other activities must take a backseat to my spending time with the Lord.


3. My daughter will benefit from our family's involvement in the ministry. We all hear horror stories of pastors becoming so involved in the ministry that they lose their own children. Certainly there is a dangerous extreme of trying to "save the world" yet losing one's own family in the process. But somehow, I believe the devil has deceived us at times with the lie that the ministry is competing against our family and we must be on guard for fear of losing our children by "serving the Lord too much." The ministry is not the antagonist of my family time. If we are following Biblical principles and submitting to the leadership of the head our homes, I believe the Lord will give us a beautiful balance and enable us to serve the Him with our children. Some of my favorite times with Claire have been watching her sweep the church alongside me, her chubby hands grasping a small broom that we bought just so she could clean the Lord's house. She plays with children on visitation while we talk to their parents about their salvation. She passes out napkins at the men's meeting while I serve the plates of food. She loves being part of the ministry!


In a small seaside town about an hour north of our church, lives a national pastor whom our church supports. While we ate dinner with him and his wife one night, they shared their salvation testimonies, then began to tell how their children had trusted Christ. The story of their son's decision was one of the sweetest I've ever heard.

"One Sunday night, a visitor raised his hand during the invitation,
indicating that he wanted to trust Christ. I went to him and asked him to go
next door to my house to talk further. But I saw that my four year-old son would
be left alone in the pew, since my wife was praying with a lady, so I decided to
bring him along with me. In our living room, I gave Axel, Jr., a basket of toys
and he began to play quietly as I shared the gospel with the visitor. I didn't
think my little boy was even listening as I read the verses from the Roman's
Road; I knelt to lead the man in a prayer of repentance, and when I opened my eyes, I was surprised to see little Axel kneeling beside me, his lips moving in a
silent prayer. He never said a word to me; he simply finished praying then
returned to his toys. The next morning at breakfast, he announced to the family,
'I'm going to heaven, now, too!' My wife looked at me in surprise, and I asked
Axel why he believed he was going to heaven. 'Because I prayed and asked Jesus
into my heart last night!' Ever since that night, Axel has always given a
confident testimony of his decision to trust Christ as Savior."

What a beautiful example of a man's service to the Lord resulting in the salvation of his son! It's my prayer that our family's involvement in the ministry influences Claire's heart for eternity. Sometimes, it may mean saying no. Other times, it may mean an incredibly busy week. But the Lord will give us the wisdom to know how to serve the Lord together as a family.

I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. -Psalm 122:1

Up into the mango tree,
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad on foreign lands.

I like to picture a knowing smile on my Heavenly Father's face as He listened to a younger me dreaming of looking "abroad on foreign lands" that lay beyond my own yard. Little did I know what He had in store! As He shaped and molded this great adventure for me, He put more care into each detail than Stevenson did into perfecting each line of poetry. She's going to love this!

One of the devil's most widely-accepted lies is that following God's will is dull. Nothing could be further from the truth! I've found excitement, fulfillment, and complete satisfaction in serving Him.

I often wonder where Claire's path will take her. What mountains will she climb? Which rivers will she cross? Whom will she meet along the way? I can't see the future, but I do know that if she follows God's will for her life, she'll find surprises and twists she can't possibly imagine, meticulously crafted just for her.

God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We liked Mayra from the start. She was a troubled teen from a Honduran family who had immigrated to the United States. When her mother was diagnosed with cancer, Mayra’s behavior became a great burden to the family, and they sent her to live with her grandmother in Honduras, where she had been born. Although she definitely had her difficulties, she was friendly and a joy to be around. She began to come to church, some youth activities, and even over to visit us at the house now and then.

She showed up at our gate one evening in tears. She had gotten into a fight with her uncle’s family and had left in anger. We gave her supper, counseled her for over an hour, and insisted that she call her grandmother. We offered to let her stay overnight with us (with her grandmother’s permission) so that everyone could cool off before we took her back in the morning. We let her sleep in Claire’s room, and moved Claire into our room for the night.

Everything seemed to be fine the next week, but, sure enough, she appeared at the gate again on Saturday evening. It was not a good time; we had a group from the United States in for the week and were responsible for fixing meals and transporting them from place to place. But this was important; once again, we sat down with Mayra, listened to her side, and counseled her to apologize for her part in the family dissent. Again, we allowed her to stay the night, and I lent her clothes for Sunday morning service. After church, she went to visit some friends, and we returned home. She said she would return for her backpack later that afternoon.

After I put Claire down for her nap, I began to pick up the typical weekend clutter that had accumulated in the house. As I put towels away into the hall closet, I noticed the flatiron my parents had sent for my birthday was missing. Where in the world did I leave it? After searching for a few minutes, I began to get a sick feeling in my stomach. More things, as well as a small amount of cash I had in a drawer, were missing as well. Someone had taken them.

I went to Claire’s room, sat on the bed, and stared at Mayra’s book bag in the corner. She wouldn’t! We took her in, fed her, lent her clothes. She could have asked us for anything, and we would have given it to her! There’s got to be another explanation.


I went to Robbie’s office and filled him in. “What should I do? I don’t want to go through her things! That seems like a breach of trust…”

“Well, I can’t think of another place those things might be. Just go open the front pocket and see if you see anything suspicious.”

Sure enough, I opened the front pocket and thank-you notes from my drawer, pens and pencils, and pictures of Claire fell onto the bed. The other pockets contained larger items: an old baby bottle, small pictures frames, ponytail holders. The flatiron wasn’t there. In fact, everything in the backpack had very little value. If you were going to break our trust, why didn’t you at least take something worth stealing? This doesn’t make sense. There was nothing there (including the flatiron) that I wouldn’t have given her if she’d asked.

I was angry and hurt. We were trying to help Mayra! Why in the world would she steal from us?

We talked to her when she returned home and she apologized. She admitted to the items we found, but never did confess to taking the flatiron. It was long gone. We hugged and “made up” but it wasn’t over for me. Robbie was able to joke about it that same day when we showed up late at Matt and Dallita's because of dealing with the situation: "We had a family emergency! All our thank-you notes were stolen!" But I wasn't laughing along with him inside; I still felt hurt by Mayra’s actions. It took me weeks to truly forgive her.

How do we love, forgive, and minister to those who hurt and disappoint us? I’ve poured myself into someone and invested in her life, only to see her drop out of church, offend me, or lie to my face. How can I not take it personally? How is the failure of someone I have mentored not a slap in the face? How can I go to my next discipleship without thinking, “Maybe she too will let me down”?

It’s been one of the hardest battles of the ministry for me—loving people. I’ve got to love them as Christ did, with all their scars, their secrets, their skeletons in the closet. Why? Because I’ve got mine. So the minute I start to feel insulted, to feel personally offended by a wrong, I’ve become too proud. I’m mistakenly thinking, “I’d never do anything like that! I deserve better than this.”

No matter how many hours I invest in a person, she doesn’t “owe me.” She is not obligated to take my advice. She must make her own decisions. And when she doesn’t do what I want her to, that doesn’t sever our relationship. I’ve got to keep loving her. Because that’s what Christ did for me.

Love God. Love people. Unconditionally. It’s the hardest thing I’ll ever do, but I can’t have an effective ministry without unconditional, long-suffering, limitless love.

I glanced at the clock on the dashboard and pressed the gas in our Nissan Frontier just a little harder. I was returning from a trip to the grocery store just before lunch time. Robbie and Claire were waiting, surely hungry by now.

To my dismay, I saw a long line of cars up ahead proceeding at a snail's pace up the steep hill to the cemetery on the side of the mountain. I was going to be seriously late.

On second thought...I had frequently been with Robbie when he whipped through some back roads in the colonias at the bottom of the hill. If I could do what he did and get ahead of the procession, I'd be home in no time! I hung a sharp left and bumped down the road, weaving my way home.

Roads in Honduras don't have names, so I had to rely on my view of the mountain to keep my bearings. At the same time, I was trying to pay close attention to the road itself, which was soggy from heavy rains. After a few minutes, I realized I had gone too far to the north and would have to correct my direction by cutting through a rough neighborhood. Not good.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I headed down the last street of the colonia and saw the steep road up the mountain up ahead. There was no sign of the procession; I had done it!

Just about that time, I felt my wheels slip. The rainy season had nearly destroyed this road, and the mud was affecting my steering. I corrected and recorrected, praying I wouldn't bump into any of the walls or fences lining the road.

I neared the final turn and saw that the road ended in a small U. Both ends connected to the next road. Why were there two? The one on the left was very muddy; the one on the right was grassy. Afraid to brake in the mud, I had to make a quick decision. Wanting out of the mire as quickly as possible, I opted for the grassy path. Bad move.

The entire front of the truck dropped into a huge ditch lying beneath the grass. My head hit the roof, and I knew...I was stuck.

I got out to inspect the damage. The grill guard was caught on the ridge of the drop off, and the entire front right tire was suspended in air. There was no way I could drive out of this one. I was going to have to call Robbie.

Back in the truck, I locked the door and grabbed the cell phone: "Robbie, can you come get me? I'm stuck at the bottom of the hill..." He was on his way before I could finish the sentence. He knew exactly what kind of neighborhood this was.

I double-checked the locks, got the cell phone out of sight, and began to pray. It wasn't too long before I was spotted.

El Chele staggered down the road and squinted at the truck leaning precariously into the ditch. “Just great,” I muttered. El Chele was a resistolero, a drug addict who got his highs from sniffing glue (a common addiction in many third-world countries). We’d been hassled by this guy before, and he was persistent. But Robbie had always been with me; this was much scarier. I sank a little lower in the seat, hoping the tint on the windows was dark enough.

It wasn’t. El Chele peered in and rapped on the glass.

“I’m fine! My husband’s coming down the road! He should be here any minute.” I tried to look confident, but my heart was beating out of my chest. El Chele continued to knock on my window. He wasn’t going anywhere.

“Lord, I need your help here!”

Just then, help came flying down the hill in a gold pick-up. Robbie and Nathan (our partner) had arrived! By now, a small crowd had gathered around the truck. Most of them didn’t look any better than El Chele, but that didn’t matter now. My knight in shining armor was here!

My scary experience brought to mind a Bible verse I'd often read:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. -Psalm 46:1

I've taken quite a few "wrong turns" on my Christian walk. But when I cry out to my Heavenly Father, He's faithful to rescue me from the mess I've made. Today, I'm praising Him for being my Knight in Shining Armor. Is He yours?

Any missionary can tell you one of the questions we are asked most when we return to the United States is, "What's the strangest thing you've ever eaten?" I've eaten some pretty odd things (i.e. cow stomach soup), but iguana has to be at the top of my list! So here's a story in pictures! Enjoy!

The hunt begins!



Something's crawling around in that tree!



Can you spot our dinner?



Got one!


The mighty hunter returns!



They caught this one alive!


Cleaning the meat


You'll need vegetable oil, chicken bouillon, water, milk, onion, garlic, and lots and lots of fresh cilantro!


Admit it...this looks pretty good!


Who needs turkey??? Iguana--it's the other white meat.

The yelps and barks from the side yard startled me, and the dish I'd been washing dropped into the sink. I peered out the window in time to see a Honduran woman on the other side of our chain link side fence stoop down, grab a rock, and hurl it at Roxy, our two year-old Rottweiler. Drying my hands on my apron, I flew out the side door and called out, "Stop throwing rocks! She can't hurt you!" The fact that our guard dog couldn't possibly leap over the seven-foot fence seemed to have escaped the woman, who continued to hurl rocks as fast as she could grab them. Roxy dodged the rocks and continued to bark furiously.

I grabbed Roxy by the collar and tried to no avail to drag her away from the fence. "Lady! Stop throwing rocks! She's not doing anything to you!" Now the rocks started coming in my direction!

Robbie had been collecting fruit from the cashew tree in the back yard. Hearing the commotion, he started walking toward the fence. He was surprised to see his apron-clad wife yelling at a small woman, chasing the dog in circles, and dodging rocks right and left. My attacker had not slowed in the least. As she continued to hurl rocks, the grimy dress she was wearing began to creep down to her waist. Robbie was almost doubled over laughing at the sight of me being pummeled by a half-naked, angry woman. He heard me yell, "Stop throwing rocks! And, good grief, pull your DRESS up!"

He helped me drag Roxy to the other side of the yard, and admonished me, "Chris, she's not all there, babe."

"What do you mean?" I looked a little more closely at my attacker. I felt my face grow hot as reality sank in. I had been yelling at a mentally challenged person. The poor woman had probably been frightened to death by our dog's barks and hadn't realized Roxy couldn't get to her. She obviously didn't understand what was going on at all. I had seen her as the aggressor and instantly made the situation worse by yelling. I ran to her to calm her down and apologize for my behavior.


Unfortunately, this isn't the only time I've been guilty of misjudging a person. Many times I focus on the rocks being hurled at me, failing to look beyond them at the hurt, the fear, the misunderstanding on the other side of the fence. I take things personally, I jump to conclusions, I preach my opinion. How many times have I stopped to ask questions? To try to see the situation from another's point of view? To show compassion?

I've got learn to shut my mouth and look past the rocks.

Much learning does not teach understanding. -Heraclitus

"Daddy, what is THAT?" Robbie turned around to see a big-eyed little girl staring at the metal box that magically produced a stream of water.

"That's a water fountain," he replied, chuckling to himself.

"I'm thirsty!" she exclaimed, skipping over to the large box. She positioned herself in front of it, closed her eyes, and opened her mouth as wide as she could.

"Umm, Claire, you have to lean in like this, and push the button," Robbie instructed. She's a little behind the times...

Water fountains aren't the only magical treat Claire has encountered over the past couple of weeks. Our first trip to a mall on a Friday night proved just as fascinating. Robbie and I walked around feeling a little self-conscious. We were back! But did we look the part? I was in my own country, in a familiar place, but I didn't belong anymore. I felt like people were staring at us. "Do we look normal?" I whispered to Robbie.

He looked a little uncomfortable himself. "I think so...this is weird." We tried our best to nonchalantly browse the stores. I was careful not to gawk at price tags or stare at the weird sandal/boot shoes all the girls seemed to be wearing. Blend, blend! I told myself.

But four-year old Claire's eyes grew huge at the large bungee-rigged, bouncing contraption in the middle of the atrium. Then she almost yanked my arm off when we passed a large assortment of giant gumball machines. She found the smell of Cinnabon intoxicating. By the time we got to the food court, she couldn't contain herself any longer...

"I LOVE this place!" she shouted, twirling around with her hands thrown into the air.

Our faces flushed as the people at nearby tables stared our way. Robbie grabbed Claire's hand, muttering, "Way to blend."

We have been here a couple of weeks now, and I'm still not sure we are blending back into American society very well. Claire addresses anyone of another nationality (like our Chinese waitress or a Bahamian hotel steward) in Spanish. Elevators are thrilling rides. Toilet paper can now go into the potty. And Walmart, well, as she says, "I think this store has everything in the whole wide world!"

Life is anything but normal right now. We are traveling constantly and eating out
quite a bit. Robbie and I looked at each other in horror when Claire exclaimed, "In Honduras, you have to cook your food. But in the United States...they just bring it to you!"

So if you are out and about this week, and you see three weirdos oohing and aahing over a slushie machine or an all-you-can-eat buffet, just ignore us. Culture shock works both ways.