Our Story of How We Became Missionaries
Thank you for including us in your Liberty Family this weekend. Thank-you Pastor and to all those who have had a hand and heart in making Global Impact possible.
We want to tell you our story of being "scattered" (reference to Tower of Babel) ...our very own "sola fide" (by faith alone) story.
23 years ago we met Pastor Dick and his wife Bonnie. At the time I was working on a doctorate in E Texas, serving as an educational consultant and teaching and writing curriculum for a start-up business for what was planned to become a franchise of private schools across America. Kathy was working in a hospital as a med-tech. We Nhad two sons with a third on the way.
Kathy picked up a book written by Melody Green about Keith Green's life called, "No Compromise." She recommended I read it. Before she could finish, I got a hold of the book and was deeply moved by a particular section where Melody tells how Keith came to realize, through the Spirt of God's prompting, that as a Christian musician he had made his music an idol. That somehow he'd come to love his ministry and music more than he loved the Lord. He shared that he would lay his music ministry down and never pick it up again unless the Lord gave it back.
The Spirit of God used these words from the book in my own life. Like Keith, I was prompted by the Spirit that I had made getting a doctorate, being an educational consultant, and being a part of a business plan to start private schools across America all idols. It is not that any of these things in and of themselves are wrong. It is what I made of them that the Lord was speaking to me about. I had fallen into the trap of putting these things first - above the Lord, loving them more than I loved the Lord. They had become my rasberry patch, my lazy-boy, my big screen plasma TV, my comfort zone as Bishop Roller was talking about last night. The things that make it difficult if not impossible for us to consider being "scattered."
Deeply convicted, I went to Kathy, who was a couple months pregnant at the time with our third son and shared how the Holy Spirit was working in my life. I shared how I was going to resign from the doctoral program, as an educational consultant and as a participant in the business plan to start private school across America. Deep down I knew that I didn't love these things more than I loved the Lord but I wasn't behaving as if this were true. My actions were not consistent with my beliefs. I'll never forget Kathy's response, "Just let me have this baby."
I resigned from all three activities. As a result I had a great deal of time on my hands. That time was spent reading the Word and praying. The more I prayed and read the Word the more the Lord revealed. He was doing a deep work in my life. At times I found myself prostrate on the floor, overcome with conviction for the sin He was pointing out. The Word of God was opening up and speaking to me in ways I'd never experienced before. I began to see how my life up to this point had basically been spent on things with little to no eternal consequence. (I think you refer to this around here at Liberty as the BIG "I".)
It was as if my eyes were lifted above the horizon by the Lord and there was this deep sense of calling to live life with eternal purpose, eternal perspective and eternal consequence. The Word challenged me to think about and ask, "If I stood before the Lord in that very moment, would what's revealed in how I had invested my life, be revealed to be wood, hay or stubble OR would what's revealed be gold, silver and precious stones? Would all that my life produced up to that point be burned ashes or be purified and not destroyed. Again I found myself flat out before the Lord as I acknowledged that what would be revealed would result in a pile of ashes.
The Word again spoke to me that unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground it would remain alone. There must be death before there can be life. The hard outer coat of the seed (that BIG I) must fall off before new life can fully emerge. The Lord was breaking away every hindrance to His life and good work showing up, flowing in and through me.
The Word helped me to see there were some good things that had been accomplished in and through my life but that the one thing the Lord had against me was that somewhere along the way, as a Christian, I had lost my first love. Once again, deeply convicted, I cried out to the Lord as I longed to re-discover returning to that place of Him being my "first love" and to more fully and consistently live life from that place.
It became clearer to me as I spent concentrated and consistent time with the Lord in the Word and in prayer of what was on His heart. The Lord gave me insight into why John was referred to as "the Beloved" by Jesus. When the Word says that John would lay his head on the breast of Jesus he couldn't help but hear the heartbeat of Jesus. I believe that John not only heard the physical heartbeat but he also came to know what Jesus' heart beat for. It is possible for anyone who spends time leaning into the breast of Christ to discover what is on His heart. I began to hear what was on His heart and my heart began to beat in sync with the Lord's. What is it that the heart of God beats for? What is He passionate about? What is He willing to lay His life down for? I heard it beating for the Lost...it beats for those who don't know Him as Lord and Savior that they would come to know Him. His heart beats so that none should perish. The more time I spent with the Lord the more I was convinced that His heart beats for those that don't know his amazing forgiveness and love.
The Word of God also spoke through the Macedonian call - "Come over and help us." It was a call the Spirit was applying to my life though I wasn't entirely sure where the "over" there was exactly.
Initially I thought the work the Lord was doing in my life was completed when I laid down consulting, the career in education, and graduate studies, those things I'd made idols. My promise to the Lord was to not pick them up again unless God gave them back. Little did I know the full implications of what had just begun and the adventure that lie ahead.
Convinced with what was on the heart of God and joining God in what I sensed He was already doing... I went to Kathy, once again as a brain dead male having a short memory about her last response, to let her know how the Lord was now impressing upon me a sense of calling for us to join His missional heart and become missionaries - seeing people come to a saving knowledge of Christ. I wasn't sure what it meant to be a missionary but I was convinced this is what we were being called to do. Kathy's response not surprisingly, went something like her first one..."just let me have this baby". There was a work that God not only wanted to do in my life, there was a work he wanted to do in our marriage.
I came to Kathy early on and asked for her forgiveness for the things the Lord would point out throughout this journey. In true typical male fashion...we confess, ask for forgiveness and then expect to move on. God wanted to do a deeper work in our marriage and it wasn't going to be as quick a fix as this male had thought. Over the years Kathy had followed me on this and that adventure. In her mind she's wondering, "Is this adventure going to be any different?" You see I'd lost her confidence and trust over the years and it would take time to regain both.
This is about the time we bumped into Pastor Dick and Bonnie. We joined them in a church plant in the east Dallas community where we were living. This new church family walked with us through this time of spiritual awakening, renewal and calling.
In time Kathy and I began to look into how we might fulfill the calling God had on our lives to be missionaries. We checked out Last Days Ministries (affiliated with Keith and Melody Green), YWAM and finally came across a short term mission experience in Paupa New Guinea with New Tribes Mission. By this time our third son, Josiah was born and he went with us to PNG while our two eldest stayed with Pastor Dick and Bonnie for six weeks. It was while we were in PNG that God brought Kathy and me together in our call to be missionaries. It was during this time while in PNG that Kathy was wrestling with God like Jacob. She was asking God to confirm her call so she wouldn't resent my call to ministry. He led her to Psalm 32:8 where it says, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you."
After our time in Papua New Guinea, we came back to the states, picked up our kids from pastor Dick an Bonnie, sold our home and most of our worldly possessions and made our way into missionary training to become Bible translators and church planters.
You see God not only knows how Kathy and I are wired, He knows how you are wired. He wants to take our gifts, our passions, how He has wired us and use our lives for His Kingdom, for His glory, honor and praise. He wants our lives to have an eternal impact, rewarded when we stand before the Lord where it is revealed how we have invested and spent our lives. Whether we will have gold, silver and precious gems that last forever or a life spent accumulating wood, hay and stubble that doesn't make it through the fire will be revealed at the end of our days.
Our Lord is a jealous God. If there are things in this world you love more than Him, we believe He will faithfully point those things out to you by His Spirit, just as He did for us. May we encourage you today to let Him speak to your hearts about what is on His heart and listen to the invitation the Spirit makes to have you join Him in seeing the lost come to know him. Your part in this work is simple... It could be a response to a call to pray for missions and missionaries, (prayer makes a difference - we have over 300 people who receive our weekly update. Many of those are praying. When we returned to the states over a month ago we had fallen behind in our 2011 budget and the first six months of 2012 looked very similar. Those of you who are wearing wrist bands reminding yourselves to pray for your missionaries - well you need to know God answered your prayers. A person walked into FM headquaters and gave an annoymous gift that cleared our 2011 deficit and brought us current for the first six months of our 2012 budget. Your prayers make a difference. Another response could be to respond to the call to support and give a faith promise to the missions efforts of the church. And finally there could be some in this church who will respond to a call to be scattered to your neighbors and your co-workers as Bishop challenged us last night or possibly be scattered and serve as a cross cultural missionary... short or long-term.
Our first four years as missionaries were spent living in the Philippines. I served as an educational consultant traveling all over SE Asia helping to ensure missionary kids had quality educational experiences while partnering with families who were homeschooling and working with schools serving missionary kids. God was using my gifts and talents as part of the team it takes in building His Kingdom.
Kathy and I want to show a couple short videos to share with you what we do now over in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We also have left some time for questions you might have.
(We showed the 10 minute version of our personal video and the "Why Grace" DVDs). Next week we will post our personal video. The, "Why Grace" video is linked below.
Don and Kathy's Video
Why Grace
We want to tell you our story of being "scattered" (reference to Tower of Babel) ...our very own "sola fide" (by faith alone) story.
23 years ago we met Pastor Dick and his wife Bonnie. At the time I was working on a doctorate in E Texas, serving as an educational consultant and teaching and writing curriculum for a start-up business for what was planned to become a franchise of private schools across America. Kathy was working in a hospital as a med-tech. We Nhad two sons with a third on the way.
Kathy picked up a book written by Melody Green about Keith Green's life called, "No Compromise." She recommended I read it. Before she could finish, I got a hold of the book and was deeply moved by a particular section where Melody tells how Keith came to realize, through the Spirt of God's prompting, that as a Christian musician he had made his music an idol. That somehow he'd come to love his ministry and music more than he loved the Lord. He shared that he would lay his music ministry down and never pick it up again unless the Lord gave it back.
The Spirit of God used these words from the book in my own life. Like Keith, I was prompted by the Spirit that I had made getting a doctorate, being an educational consultant, and being a part of a business plan to start private schools across America all idols. It is not that any of these things in and of themselves are wrong. It is what I made of them that the Lord was speaking to me about. I had fallen into the trap of putting these things first - above the Lord, loving them more than I loved the Lord. They had become my rasberry patch, my lazy-boy, my big screen plasma TV, my comfort zone as Bishop Roller was talking about last night. The things that make it difficult if not impossible for us to consider being "scattered."
Deeply convicted, I went to Kathy, who was a couple months pregnant at the time with our third son and shared how the Holy Spirit was working in my life. I shared how I was going to resign from the doctoral program, as an educational consultant and as a participant in the business plan to start private school across America. Deep down I knew that I didn't love these things more than I loved the Lord but I wasn't behaving as if this were true. My actions were not consistent with my beliefs. I'll never forget Kathy's response, "Just let me have this baby."
I resigned from all three activities. As a result I had a great deal of time on my hands. That time was spent reading the Word and praying. The more I prayed and read the Word the more the Lord revealed. He was doing a deep work in my life. At times I found myself prostrate on the floor, overcome with conviction for the sin He was pointing out. The Word of God was opening up and speaking to me in ways I'd never experienced before. I began to see how my life up to this point had basically been spent on things with little to no eternal consequence. (I think you refer to this around here at Liberty as the BIG "I".)
It was as if my eyes were lifted above the horizon by the Lord and there was this deep sense of calling to live life with eternal purpose, eternal perspective and eternal consequence. The Word challenged me to think about and ask, "If I stood before the Lord in that very moment, would what's revealed in how I had invested my life, be revealed to be wood, hay or stubble OR would what's revealed be gold, silver and precious stones? Would all that my life produced up to that point be burned ashes or be purified and not destroyed. Again I found myself flat out before the Lord as I acknowledged that what would be revealed would result in a pile of ashes.
The Word again spoke to me that unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground it would remain alone. There must be death before there can be life. The hard outer coat of the seed (that BIG I) must fall off before new life can fully emerge. The Lord was breaking away every hindrance to His life and good work showing up, flowing in and through me.
The Word helped me to see there were some good things that had been accomplished in and through my life but that the one thing the Lord had against me was that somewhere along the way, as a Christian, I had lost my first love. Once again, deeply convicted, I cried out to the Lord as I longed to re-discover returning to that place of Him being my "first love" and to more fully and consistently live life from that place.
It became clearer to me as I spent concentrated and consistent time with the Lord in the Word and in prayer of what was on His heart. The Lord gave me insight into why John was referred to as "the Beloved" by Jesus. When the Word says that John would lay his head on the breast of Jesus he couldn't help but hear the heartbeat of Jesus. I believe that John not only heard the physical heartbeat but he also came to know what Jesus' heart beat for. It is possible for anyone who spends time leaning into the breast of Christ to discover what is on His heart. I began to hear what was on His heart and my heart began to beat in sync with the Lord's. What is it that the heart of God beats for? What is He passionate about? What is He willing to lay His life down for? I heard it beating for the Lost...it beats for those who don't know Him as Lord and Savior that they would come to know Him. His heart beats so that none should perish. The more time I spent with the Lord the more I was convinced that His heart beats for those that don't know his amazing forgiveness and love.
The Word of God also spoke through the Macedonian call - "Come over and help us." It was a call the Spirit was applying to my life though I wasn't entirely sure where the "over" there was exactly.
Initially I thought the work the Lord was doing in my life was completed when I laid down consulting, the career in education, and graduate studies, those things I'd made idols. My promise to the Lord was to not pick them up again unless God gave them back. Little did I know the full implications of what had just begun and the adventure that lie ahead.
Convinced with what was on the heart of God and joining God in what I sensed He was already doing... I went to Kathy, once again as a brain dead male having a short memory about her last response, to let her know how the Lord was now impressing upon me a sense of calling for us to join His missional heart and become missionaries - seeing people come to a saving knowledge of Christ. I wasn't sure what it meant to be a missionary but I was convinced this is what we were being called to do. Kathy's response not surprisingly, went something like her first one..."just let me have this baby". There was a work that God not only wanted to do in my life, there was a work he wanted to do in our marriage.
I came to Kathy early on and asked for her forgiveness for the things the Lord would point out throughout this journey. In true typical male fashion...we confess, ask for forgiveness and then expect to move on. God wanted to do a deeper work in our marriage and it wasn't going to be as quick a fix as this male had thought. Over the years Kathy had followed me on this and that adventure. In her mind she's wondering, "Is this adventure going to be any different?" You see I'd lost her confidence and trust over the years and it would take time to regain both.
This is about the time we bumped into Pastor Dick and Bonnie. We joined them in a church plant in the east Dallas community where we were living. This new church family walked with us through this time of spiritual awakening, renewal and calling.
In time Kathy and I began to look into how we might fulfill the calling God had on our lives to be missionaries. We checked out Last Days Ministries (affiliated with Keith and Melody Green), YWAM and finally came across a short term mission experience in Paupa New Guinea with New Tribes Mission. By this time our third son, Josiah was born and he went with us to PNG while our two eldest stayed with Pastor Dick and Bonnie for six weeks. It was while we were in PNG that God brought Kathy and me together in our call to be missionaries. It was during this time while in PNG that Kathy was wrestling with God like Jacob. She was asking God to confirm her call so she wouldn't resent my call to ministry. He led her to Psalm 32:8 where it says, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you."
After our time in Papua New Guinea, we came back to the states, picked up our kids from pastor Dick an Bonnie, sold our home and most of our worldly possessions and made our way into missionary training to become Bible translators and church planters.
You see God not only knows how Kathy and I are wired, He knows how you are wired. He wants to take our gifts, our passions, how He has wired us and use our lives for His Kingdom, for His glory, honor and praise. He wants our lives to have an eternal impact, rewarded when we stand before the Lord where it is revealed how we have invested and spent our lives. Whether we will have gold, silver and precious gems that last forever or a life spent accumulating wood, hay and stubble that doesn't make it through the fire will be revealed at the end of our days.
Our Lord is a jealous God. If there are things in this world you love more than Him, we believe He will faithfully point those things out to you by His Spirit, just as He did for us. May we encourage you today to let Him speak to your hearts about what is on His heart and listen to the invitation the Spirit makes to have you join Him in seeing the lost come to know him. Your part in this work is simple... It could be a response to a call to pray for missions and missionaries, (prayer makes a difference - we have over 300 people who receive our weekly update. Many of those are praying. When we returned to the states over a month ago we had fallen behind in our 2011 budget and the first six months of 2012 looked very similar. Those of you who are wearing wrist bands reminding yourselves to pray for your missionaries - well you need to know God answered your prayers. A person walked into FM headquaters and gave an annoymous gift that cleared our 2011 deficit and brought us current for the first six months of our 2012 budget. Your prayers make a difference. Another response could be to respond to the call to support and give a faith promise to the missions efforts of the church. And finally there could be some in this church who will respond to a call to be scattered to your neighbors and your co-workers as Bishop challenged us last night or possibly be scattered and serve as a cross cultural missionary... short or long-term.
Our first four years as missionaries were spent living in the Philippines. I served as an educational consultant traveling all over SE Asia helping to ensure missionary kids had quality educational experiences while partnering with families who were homeschooling and working with schools serving missionary kids. God was using my gifts and talents as part of the team it takes in building His Kingdom.
Kathy and I want to show a couple short videos to share with you what we do now over in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We also have left some time for questions you might have.
(We showed the 10 minute version of our personal video and the "Why Grace" DVDs). Next week we will post our personal video. The, "Why Grace" video is linked below.
Don and Kathy's Video
Why Grace
posted by Don and Kathy Williams at 8:27 AM
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