The Year Was 1999

In 1998 we went on a short-term trip to Belgium with Operation Mobilisation. We did a three week street evangelism type trip in a country that speaks Flemish and learnt a lot about ourselves. The reason we did that was to explore the possibility of missions and our involvement in it. We were waiting for a lightening bolt, an answer to what we were to do with our newly married selves.

Since there was no lightening bolt but we still felt the strong pull towards overseas missions we decided in 1999 to explore some more. I was a secretary in a primary school and Michael was involved in the IT industry specialising in the area of internet service providers. However, I didn't want to be a secretary in a missions area but to use my love of art with my limited training in that area in some capacity.

We wrote to 10 missions asking whether they could use a person to teach art and a person to teach computers in their MK (missionary kid) schools. We made sure they knew that we were unqualified but were willing to teach these non central subjects which would get overlooked when theres no one to teach them. We thought 'hey, some of these missions will reply and say yes but hopefully enough say no so as to narrow the field down a bit'. Silly idea. They all said yes and come at once.

One mission however did more than reply via email or snail mail. Jill James was the SIM representative at the time and her husband Ross was the FEBC rep. They invited us over for a meal and wanted to help us sort our way through the piles of questions we had. I'll share the outcome of that meal in my next post or two.

Pic: Me learning how to do street evangelism, check out my hair and sunnies! Very 1998