“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” Matthew 28:19 (NKJ)
This last two months there have been opportunities for mission trips to Romania, Mexico, and French Guiana. When these came up I was excited and eager to participate in encouraging women in the Lord. It is a great adventure to take a team of women to the mission field to teach and share.
Before I arrived in Lexington, Kentucky in 1997, I had never been on a mission trip. Furthermore, I was “not called to missions”! Oh, pride is a terrible thing. The Matthew passage doesn’t say I will call you when I need you, it simply says “Go”. It became apparent that God was pushing me to take short term mission trips to speak to the women in different countries and He was relentless. My first mission trip was to Northwest Haiti Mission where there were five days of women’s retreats in different churches, five nights of Bible study at the mission church and many service opportunities with women of all ages. Three months later I was off to Jamaica for the same type of activity with women there. The next year, it was Nigeria. These experiences were life-changing and I have had repeat visits.The first and foremost fear for me was the culture; would it be dangerous, would I be sick, would they like me, would we be kidnapped? As you will notice, it was the typical “all about me” questions. So I said, “Ok God, I will do this” and began planning and packing. Curious what the women would be like and what the differences between us would be, I studied every book and web site I could find to gain knowledge. Lo and behold! We arrived and they were all just like me! That was the case in every area that I went. Developing countries have more hardships, hunger, and poverty, but their personal needs are the same. We are all striving to find the answers to our life situations and build a relationship with the Lord. It was a delight to study the Word together with these women and to exchange our personal life experiences and how God walked through them with us. I would like to challenge you to seek God about your involvement in mission trips with your Women's Ministries.Jesus taught the disciples while He was on earth how to be the church and how to reach how to share the gospel with others. The focus was not just on making disciples out of the church attendees, but disciples of the unchurched on a global plane. “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news” Romans 10:15b (NIV)
