The Church we have been attending for the last three years and volunteering with regularly approached us and asked if we would be willing to lead a team from our church on a mission trip. Our church believes strongly in the support and participation of missions throughout the world. Though our congregation has been hard at work serving in our local communities, few in our church have been part of an international mission trip.
After much prayer and consideration. We felt it was not only our joy to lead this team, but also our duty as Jesus followers to participate in missions. We have been given experience in short term missions, and now we have an opportunity to help others contribute to the sharing of Jesus' story throughout the world using the experience with which we have been blessed.
Our first attempt to lead a mission trip was with a missionary couple in Santiago Chile, named Rick and Laurel Ellis, whom we had the pleasure to meet when he and his wife were on furlough. This was about a year ago. Our church supported them in their ministry there. He setup churches and trained leaders, which is inline with our church's missions criteria. He did amazing work in Chile with his wife and had developed several church bodies which were in turn impacting their communities. After a few fund raising events, we we received news that he had died while riding his motorcycle in Chile while his wife was on the back of the vehicle. He had a heart-attack which ended in a crash and his wife was placed in urgent care. Though he passed and left his wife behind, against all expectations, his wife recovered and chose to remain in Chile serving with those whom they had served during their lives together. Though the door closed this time, Laurel indicated that perhaps at some point in the future she would be ready to accommodate another team from a United States church on a mission trip to her community.
Time passed and we continued to involve ourselves at church. The Italy trip that we had both been part of before was approaching, and presented itself to us as another opportunity. Stella and I have a strong connection to this trip, and the community with whom we serve when in Italy. Since this is the case, we prayed about being a part of this trip again. We sent out advertisements in the church, held meetings, and even had Doug Valenzuela visit while he was in the States to speak to our congregation. We had an incredible response on our sign-up sheet after the service and began the work of preparing those wanting to go with anything we could.
We have much to do in raising support and preparing ourselves for what lies ahead.
