"Can't This Wait Until We get to the Mission Field?"

Ok. So there's some things that you would expect to experience on the mission field, right? Things like different foods, a language barrier, cultural differences, a possible change in climate, a lack of comfortable things, snakes and my personal favorite... insects! For some reason the whole insect thing bothers me more than any of those other things. Is that weird? Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a wuss. I'm a man's man. I love God, the UFC, football, and I'm married to the hottest woman on the planet. I'm no pansy, really. But for some reason insects (especially spiders) have really freaked me out here lately. Now I'm not "jumping up on chairs screaming for help while I hold up the hem of my skirt" freaked-out. It's more like a healthy "why are you crawling around me and bothering me inside my house" freaked-out. It just seems like the insect population has increased and they've all moved into my yard and into my house. It's seems like within the last week I've seen every insect you could imagine. There's been giant mosquito's in our kitchen, we killed a scorpion crawling in the hallway, last night I pulled 2 ticks off Robert with tweezers, and I killed a huge army ant that attacked me while I was laying in bed last night too! Yesterday MJ and I were eating in her car and she yelled, "watch out" as she pushed me forward in the driver's seat. There was a big spider crawling on the headrest of my seat. It was huge! When I grabbed it with a napkin to kill it, it was actually hard to smash it was so big. It was like trying to smash a small mammal. Where did this thing even come from?! As I was leaving the house the other night I looked back and noticed a huge pile of sawdust next to the front door (see picture above). As I looked closer I saw a small hole with sawdust pouring out of it. It was one of those carpenter bees drilling a massive hole in the door frame of my home! Seriously?

We were in Brazil a few weeks ago and saw tons of insects. No big deal. We were in the jungle so that's to be expected, right? And in the back of my mind I've been preparing myself for the fact that me and bugs are going to be commonplace. We'll be peacefully co-habitating together... once I move to Brazil. But not now!

So can't the bugs wait to attack until I get to Brazil? Please? That's not asking a lot is it?

I'm reading David Platt's new book "Radical Together" that came out last week. It's a very encouraging book for anyone who is feeling a passion for missions. And it's also a very challenging book for anyone who is a Christ Follower who doesn't have a passion for missions. I'll probably post something about it later. But in the book he really emphasizes the fact that getting the Gospel to the nations is "all" of our responsibilities and not just a "select few." It's all of our responsibility. And something happened the other day that really blessed me. I got a text message from a friend of ours on Saturday. In it, he said, "that his son was selling books and pictures at a yard sale because he wanted to send MJ and I money to help us with our move to the mission field in Brazil. He'll never know how much that encouraged us. To know that this little boy wanted to help with missions... wow. What a blessing. Thanks Parker! Thanks for understanding that missions is something we all should take part in and the Kingdom of God is going to be expanded because of you, little buddy.

So, that's about it for today. I've got to go to Home Depot and buy some insecticide and get rid of all the insects that have invaded our home, because I'm not living with insects... until we get to Brazil, that is.

Love Ya,

Jim