Hi, my name is Caroline!!! I’m 9 years old. I’m very excited about going to Paraguay!!! It all started when my parents went on some trips to Peru. Our family got a little trigger from God telling us to go be missionaries in South America. So we sent my dad to go check it out for us. He came back with pics of cute little children, the camp and the soccer games!!! He bought Terere, a common drink down there. We decided we would go at the end of this year!!! I’m looking forward to a more simple life with kids to play with and fruits to eat!!!!!

My dad’s been back from Paraguay 4 a couple weeks now. I’m kinda nervous and about the whole thing. I still have no (N-O) idea what-so-ever (except pics and stories) about South America. But that’s what makes it an adventure. I know my life will change a whole lot once I get there. I can’t wait 2 see what it’s like. Sometimes I’m so excited I want 2 go TOMORROW! Other times I want 2 stay here. This will be my first big plane ride other than on a private plane. That will be exciting in itself! There’s so much I like about the culture and the people (4 what I know). It’s all so interesting, yet it’s every-day-life 4 the people that live there! -Camille

So in October of last year (2007) I got the chance to take a trip to Peru. Our goal was to teach the church leaders in the northern city of Piura, how to plan and hold a summer camp like we do in South Carolina. Here goes God taking what I had done for years for fun and making it a ministry opportunity. I had no idea that all that fun was actually being credited to me as “experience”. The thing I found right away is that youth are youth wherever they are.

I struggled through some language barrier but realized that these youth were just the same as the ones we gravitated toward at home. While there I felt like I was at camp in SC. God showed me the similarities in these young people to the ones I know.

Then He showed me some of the differences. I found a quality in them that is at times difficult to find in the US. These youth were hungry and thirsty for God. So much so that it eclipsed their desire for comfort. In their church culture when a young person is too old to be in the children’s ministry at the local church they move directly to adult ministry and many times to leadership. God showed me a need there.

We have many young people in the church that do not have a ministry designed to accommodate their needs. God took that moment to water a seed He had planted. He revealed to me that He had for years been pouring into me everything I needed to answer His call.

Now I was at a crossroads. It was time to find out what all this meant. I came home after a whirlwind week. Though we stayed primarily in the same locale my emotions were all over the place. I want to please God but I want to feel safe. This prospect was crazy. There was only one thing to do. Go home, get immersed into everyday life, and hope to take a look at this from a “normal” setting. A comfortable setting.

I experienced the bizarre maladjustment to my old life that Christie had tried to explain to me. Wow--it was like landing in a science fiction film. I remember the stuff I left here but for some reason I was an alien here. I couldn’t shake that feeling that Christie spoke about. I kept feeling like I left something that I had to go find. I knew we had to “go ye…”. But we still needed to find His will for our family.

We decided to fast and pray for God’s direction. Together Christie and I had a common goal and we sought Him for answers. Just as He promises in His word when we seek Him He answers. He clearly spoke to us and now we knew for sure we were going into the mission field. We needed a way to learn some of the mission ropes so to speak and God supplied that as well.

A friend that we had confided in knew we were thinking of going to Peru on a mission call from God. He suggested we look into the possibility of working with a ministry in Paraguay that a friend of his operates. We started an online relationship with Dan Miller of Paraguay Missions. He invited us to visit and take a look at what God was doing in Paraguay first hand. I wanted to go but that type of trip is not cheap and it can’t be planned on a short notice.

About three weeks later through some truly miraculous circumstances from God I was on a plane heading to Paraguay. God supplied a donor to cover all my expenses for the trip. He allowed us to find the best flight and made me understand that even though I was a full-time worker, full-time student and the youth pastor at my church, that I could pull this time out to find His will.

I went and my eyes were opened to a whole new level of God’s providence. He illuminated my vision and I saw a tremendous work ahead of me. I met a great friend in Dan and found that God had birthed in him some very similar ideas I have had for years. The problem with these ideas for me was I thought for years they were for the US. I never dreamed He gave me visions for my future in another country.

So here we are back at home. We clearly know God is calling us to Paraguay to minister. “How long?” you ask……only He knows. All I know is that now at the dawn of this incredible journey I have all confidence in Him.

And now we begin the task of making this call a reality. We will need support. We need your support. We want your constant and vigilant prayers. We set about today preparing to forge a new life in a foreign country, all for His glory. ALL FOR HIS GLORY!

This trek started for our family years ago. It probably started even before our kids were born. When Christie and I were married we both realized a love for working with youth. I fought this urge. I didn’t want to be used by God this way. I had no intention of being involved in ministry at all if I could help it.

I had grown up in church and was not interested in anything but being able to come to service and have my church card punched. I didn’t want anything more than to be a “member”. What’s crazy is that I never really considered the time I put into summer camp as a worker as ministry. I had for years gone to camp for what I thought as selfish reasons. I went to see friends and to have fun. All the while God was using these experiences to teach me how to reach youth.

It’s not God’s plan that any of us just be members. We are all ministers, we just operate from a different pulpit. Our first jump into a mission-oriented work was when we had several late teen, early twenties guys live with us for various amounts of time. This may not seem like mission work and we didn’t think of it as such at the time. But being newly married and having someone live in the house with you was a trip to a foreign land!

From there God opened doors and managed to have us involved in many different facets of youth ministry over the next few years. We were volunteer leaders at one small church. Later we were fill –ins until the church we attended found a full-time youth pastor. God gave us the opportunity to be directors of a summer youth camp for several years.

During all of this one thread remained in our lives, the youth and the young adult. These people are the ones that we seemed to gravitate toward. They would come and visit, watch movies and eat at our house or out. We really seemed to be in touch with them. As our love God grew we began to yield more to Him. He gave us the chance to become the youth pastors of a church near where we live. Over the course of many years God had tooled us to fill this post. He had shaped our lives such that our existence caused us to grow in the direction He wanted.

As time passed we met other missionaries and watched television programs about the mission life. Many of these showed the horrible conditions that these folks elected to live in. At the same time, they showed the pure joy they possessed by being in God’s will. They were living the “go ye into all the world and preach the gospel…” scripture just like the apostles.

The concept appealed to us but we had a life going on here. We were buying a home or birthing a child or making a career change. We were not willing to relinquish that part of ourselves to God. We were deep into the “normal” life that seems to rob so many of us in North America. We had dabbled in missions. When we heard a missionary speak live we always tried to give a hearty offering (as long as we could still pay the bills). We sponsored a World Vision child. We made care package shoe boxes and the like. Many years at Christmas we went to the local store and picked names from the angel tree. We would take our own kids along and buy gifts for these less fortunate children. We had no idea that God was preparing us for a work of our own. Each of these things were thrown into our hearts and stirred.

Christie got the chance to go to a conference in Oklahoma. While she was there God planted a love for the Hispanic people. In South Carolina, Hispanic ministry was in its infancy. Our church recognized the need for a ministry effort statewide to touch the Hispanic population. In the mean time a friend of ours had started travelling to Peru. From his initial visits he began to lead others there for short-term trips to minister to those people. People from all over our state were going on these trips and bringing back stories that plucked at the heart strings. Many of our friends told us of their adventures in Peru and relayed how they managed to raise the money to go.

While all of this was going on, a national overseer from the country of Colombia heard God’s call and moved to our town, to our church. He came to begin a missionary effort to the Spanish-speaking people in our area. Christie decided that she wanted to go to South America and see for herself. We began to raise the money and God truly blessed. She went on a two week mission trip and God planted the seed in her. She came home different. It was a strain for her to fall back into the regular swing of life here. Everything seemed to remind her of something in Peru.

I thought it was great for her to get to go but I still did not have a desire to go for even a short trip. I knew someone had to do it, but for me, someone would have to simply be someone else. The following year Christie returned and met up with some of her new friends from the previous trip. Again she came home out of sorts. She said it was like she left something there and needed to go back. Not to retrieve it but to find it.

By then I had been looking at countless photos and hearing the stories from a firsthand account. It somehow seems more real to me when she tells me something than when someone else does. She can make me see it, hear it, smell it, and touch it. Now I was interested, but the trips she had gone on were a hailstorm of travel. Stay up late get up early and ride in a ridiculous excuse for a bus. It didn’t sound glamorous. I wanted to test drive Peru but not like that. I wanted to see the country but not the whole country in 5 days on the back of a burrow or in a tiny canoe.

In October last year I was extended an invitation from our state youth leader to go with him and train workers for camp in Peru. We would go with a group of 4, stay in one location for the bulk of our time and put on a practice camp with the Peruvian leaders. I hesitantly accepted with the provision that I needed to raise the money. The money poured in and killed my chances for an excuse. I went and God completed a portion of His work in me. More later….