It Just Seemed Natural

Whenever we go back to Arizona on home assignment, one of my favorite things to do is visit families in their homes. I think that’s because when I was very young, my parents loved to have missionaries over. They would show us wonderful pictures of where they worked in the world and tell us the greatest stories.

My mom has photos of my brother and I dressed up in European costumes that one family brought. Another family sent us African wild-animal postcards for our birthdays.

So for me, going to far away places where people needed to hear about Jesus just seemed like a normal thing for families to do. The missionaries made serving the Lord overseas sound real and natural.

My grandmother also made it seem like a normal part of life. Whenever we visited her, I would sneak into her room before anyone else was awake and find her at her dressing table. It wasn’t cluttered with lotions, powders and makeup. Instead, it was covered with Bible verses, photos of missionary families, and pictures of us. That’s where she met God faithfully every morning.

I would sit on her lap and hold her bead necklaces while she read to me from her worn Bible. It made a huge impression on me. She never went on a mission trip, but she traveled the world in prayer.

In the eighth grade, our Arizona youth group took a trip just over the border into Mexico. I had seen only the resort side of Mexico, so it was very eye-opening to meet real families, walk through their neighborhoods and see their tiny little church and houses. Our youth leaders were just regular people, but they showed us how to reach out to these very poor people in their dirty conditions.

I quickly observed two things. One, that genuine friendliness and heartfelt smiles created wonderful small bonds of friendship, and two, the leader who knew Spanish was able to do so much more than any of the rest of us. He could show real interest, listen to people’s stories, pray with them and share the Gospel. I saw that being able to communicate with people in their own language was how to get to their hearts.

In high school, our youth group ventured even farther into Mexico. We passed through hours of land and people steeped in fears and incomprehensible traditions. As the scenes imprinted themselves on my heart, I realized that there were hundreds and thousands of trivial pursuits that I could choose to waste my life on. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to let God use me to reach out to people who didn’t know Him.

My sophomore year held an exciting surprise -- Joey Tartaglia. We had the same ideals and God was visibly at work in his life. As our friendship grew, we went on mission trips, talked a lot about goals, and even thought about a future together. And we both became increasingly dissatisfied with what we saw as trivial. When people desperately needed the Gospel, everything else seemed like a waste of time. We were impatient to get on to something that would make a difference.

So at the end of our junior year, we decided to do something about it. We set off on foot for Mexico!

In our youthful zeal and idealism, finishing school just didn’t seem important compared to the needs we had seen on our mission trips. Our 17-year-old brains naively figured we could just plug ourselves into one of the church planting efforts down there.

So one day after school we threw some stuff in a backpack and headed south. We had nobly trudged seven or eight miles before realizing the serious flaw in our strategy -- walking to Mexico was going to take almost as long as finishing high school. So since it was already getting dark and we were only a half mile from my house, we decided to stop in there and figure out a better way to go.

Our parents, of course, were quite alarmed when we didn’t return from school and were thankful when we finally arrived. After we explained, they told us that they didn’t disagree with our enthusiasm or goals, but that finishing high school was a prerequisite. And while we were clearly over-zealous, but never rebellious, we agreed to their stipulation for beginning ministry.

I look back now and do not regret the desire to go, but see how much I needed to grow and mature before I could be used effectively. But who really sees their own immaturity at 17?

After we got engaged in our senior year, we started writing to mission organizations, asking how we could be used after graduation. We were frustrated to find out that most of them wanted us to contact them after we finished college. What? Four more years of literature, calculus and botany? This just didn’t make sense to us.

Then our response came from New Tribes Mission. Instead of "Call us later," they said, "Come now!" We were ecstatic reading their letter and looking through their training literature. They would teach us how to be missionaries right after high school. It was still a four year program -- but one that got us to our goal. We would learn how to study the Bible, how to teach it, how to learn an unwritten language, and most of all, how to plant a church in another culture. We were so excited and hopeful and applied immediately.

We graduated in May and were married two weeks later. We didn’t know if we were accepted at the New Tribes Bible Institute yet, but set off on our honeymoon with all our earthly possessions coming along behind us, and with nowhere else to go if we weren’t accepted. We were so anxious to know that we actually called the admission’s office from our honeymoon. They laughed and told us that we were.

Finally, our adventure was beginning.

In August 2001, exactly six years and three kids later, we arrived in Papua New Guinea. A survey was done to decide where we would begin our ministry. When Joey and the guys landed the NTM helicopter in a remote mountain village, it didn’t take too long to figure out we were home. We have been working here with the Mibu people ever since. God took us in all our impatience, flaws, and struggles, and gave us the desire of our hearts -- to take the Gospel to those who haven’t heard. We feel so blessed.