You wonder why people choose fields away from the States when young people at home are drifting because no one wants to take time to listen to their problems.

 

I'll tell you why I left. Because those Stateside young people have every opportunity to study, hear, and understand the Word of God in their own language, and these Indians have no opportunity whatsoever. I have had to make a cross of two logs, and lie down on it, to show the Indians what it means to crucify a man.

 

When there is that much ignorance over here and so much knowledge and opportunity over there, I have no question in my mind why God sent me here. Those whimpering Stateside young people will wake up on the Day of Judgment condemned to worse fates than these demon-fearing Indians, because, having a Bible, they were bored with it---while these never heard of such a thing as writing.  Jim Elliot
 

On March 11, Kate, Daniel, Stephen, Patrick and me (Mom!) will join friends, Scott and Kelcee Griffis, and Cris and Daniel Tarasiuk, on a mission trip to Shell, Ecuador.  Shell is famous as the place where missionaries Nate Saint and Roger Youdarian were serving when they and three fellow missionaries, Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming and Ed McCulley were martyred in 1956.  There are many books and videos about their story, including the book, Shadow of the Almighty by Elisabeth Elliot, the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor, and the feature film, The End of the Spear.  A search engine will yield many other links and resources about this area.

How Our Adventure Began...

Several of our teens have served in Honduras helping a missionary family there, and last year we assume they would return.  But, the opportunity to go to Honduras closes for 2006 (the missionaries they were working with return to the states).  Cris invites us to join her on an "exploratory" mission trip to Shell.  Her sister, Elizabeth (pictured below with her family and drawing blood), is an R.N. serving in the mission hospital there alongside her husband, Dr. Jerry Koleski.  

You can read more about them by clicking HERE, more about the Hospital Vozandes in Shell by clicking HERE, and more about HCJB Radio Ministry by clicking HERE. 

Each of us has a special reason for going.  Our daughter, Kate, who is in her first year of nursing school, hopes to get some first-hand experience in emergency/trauma care at the hospital.  Daniel and Stephen helped put a roof on a widow's home in Honduras last summer and said that because of that trip, this verse from James 1 became very real to them:

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. 

They want to work hard on whatever physical needs folks have while they are there.  Patrick and Kelcee are each looking forward to meeting the missionary pilots with the Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) that is based there, and seeing first-hand what they do. Kelcee's dad, Scott, is accompanying Kelcee, and how glad Cris and I are to this big-and-strong dad along for all of our foreign travel!  Cris, of course, is excited to be able to see and serve alongside her sister, whom she hasn't seen in a while.  And Cris' son, Danny, is looking forward to doing whatever is needed and seeing how the Lord will use him while he is there.

Here are a few more pictures of the area.  That is a piranha head left-over from someone's lunch.  I think Cris may have sent that one because, before I knew I would be joining our four teens on this trip, I had discouraged her from packing any emergency granola bars for them ("Let them have the full experience of foreign missions, "I had said).  I think that once she knew I would be able to come, she slipped this picture in to shore up her case for granola bars again.  Hmmm, she may be right...

To keep reading, click HERE...

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.  ~ Jim Elliot