Fourteen years after I received my call to ministry, with 10 years of full-time ministry experience under my belt, I sensed the Lord telling me to get ready to go to the mission field. At that time, I asked Him to send me where no one else would go. If He could find others, send them. If He couldn’t, send me. It’s always been important to me for the Lord to be able to do what He wants to on the earth. If a toilet needs cleaning or a person needs to be reached anywhere, I’ll go. Send me. I was thinking of just one country or city, but He seemed to have something else in mind.
As I’ve prayed about this over the past 10 years, I’ve sensed that some places won’t be ready for the Lord’s return—when He desires to return—if we don’t begin to prepare them. Many places already have the necessary ministry, or preparations are being made for that ministry. Therefore, they’ll be spiritually ready when Jesus comes back. We’re called to places where people won’t be ready for His return unless we obey Him and prepare them.
God’s mission for my wife and me boils down to this: reach the least reached. Contend for the places no one seems to want. Work where it appears the least has been done. The Lord has led us to places where very few people value the Bible as God’s Word and choose to believe it and obey it. There may be only a handful who know the Holy Spirit as a living Being who guides us into a deeper walk with God.
Preparing people for Jesus’ second coming takes time. We must begin where they are and build from there. We won’t be able to start this work just a year before the Lord’s return.
We’re preparing to be able to go wherever the Lord leads and plant a church without contacts on the ground. Whatever disadvantages this approach may have, we believe it has at least one very important advantage: we can go where there is no Christian work. It’s great to cooperate with established ministers on the foreign field. But what happens where no such person exists?