Jesus payed a larger price than you probably think.

I sin. But don't get all judgy. So do you. IN fact we all sin. That's why Jesus had to die on the cross as an atoning sacrifice and ransom for our sins. I recently read a short story about a boy who built a toy sailboat with great diligence. While playing with it near the coast, the wind changed directions and he lost it to the sea. Or so her thought. Several weeks later as he was walking past a toy shop, he spotted the sailboat in the window. He went in to reclaim his prized possession. The shop keeper refused to give it to him and demanded for him to pay for it. As the boy left the store with his hand-built special toy he was over heard saying, "You are twice my sailboat. First I built you, then I bought you."

That story really resonated with me last night as I was studying through 1 Corinthians and came to this verse. Do I really understand that price of that Jesus payed for the sinners. It probably isn't possible to over estimate the cost. 

I think that if we spent a bit more time thinking about the price that Jesus payed for us, we could better understand what it means to belong to Him. We might appreciate the pain our sin causes. We might be more in love with this gracious Father God who sent His Son into the world to suffer and die for us that his righteousness might be imparted to us.

This should inspire all of us not only to live more righteous lives, not out of fear of God's judgement but in reverence for His perfect loving nature, in gratitude for the price Christ payed on the cross and out of love for a Lord and Savior who came into the world to justify us even when we were and are in staunch rebellion against Him. This should inspire us to tell others about Him. This should inspire us to actively pursue His will and His calling in our lives. We should be inspired to live completely and totally for Him, after all, we are twice His.

Medical Mission Mentors: A Thank You Note

Dr. Sorg and I strategizing on how and where to set-up our mobile clinic in rural Haiti in 2011

Some days I feel like writing but don't have a plan. I know what I want, but I don't know how to accomplish what I want.

I want someone who can help me figure out how to follow my dream of being a career medical missionary. I have an excellent, albeit extremely busy mentor, Dr. Jack Sorg of ABWE. He was a missionary surgeon in the Amazon Basin for 20 years with his wife Sandy. He travels all over the world still, working for ABWE and leading teams on foreign medical mission trips on almost every continent to strengthen and extend the churches that already there.

I turn to him for advice as often as I need it. He is a great resource for me of spiritual and professional wisdom. I praise and thank God for this man and his availability to me.

We first met 5 years ago shortly following the tragic earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We wound up on a team heading up into the rural villages surrounding PAP and seeing to the medical and spiritual needs of those who had been all but cut off from the infrastructure that had previously existed in Port-au-Prince.

That was my first experience with medical missions, but before I even went, I knew that this was something that I had been called to. I was just a paramedic then. I was taking my pre-requisities for PA school during the day at a local junior college and working nights on an ambulance in Stockton, CA. I exhausted my Montgomery GI Bill before I even started PA school at Stanford. With 3 kids and a mortgage, having visited Haiti twice and no income, it would be 3 years before I saw Dr. Sorg again. It was at a conference where I met up with him and another missionary surgeon whom I revere for his generous spirit and willingness to speak into my life when I need encouragement, Dr. Bob Cropsey.

I guess I just needed to take a moment and express my gratitude for how these two men have made a positive impact in my life over the last few years and how I increasingly lean on their wisdom and insight to further prepare me for this dream I have.

If you are looking for a mentor to help you get started in medical missions, this site is a great place to start: http://www.medicalmissions.com/community/mentors

Shatter Your Plans on the Floor

"Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Tower of Babel (Vienna) - Google Art Project - edited"

I would not have chosen to do it this way. I never really wanted to be a Physician Assistant. It should have never occurred to me to use medical training to fulfill the Great Commission, yet it did. I had no plans for anything apart from making a living, raising some kids and watching some hockey on my days off.

I did not aspire to leave my firefighting job after working so hard to land it. I did not want to turn down a flight medic position (a job I had dreamed of since I was a teenager). I did not wake up one morning and just decide that it would be in my best interest to quit my career as a paramedic so that I could live on a fraction of the pay, live out of a suitcase for two years while my family barely scraped by a hundred miles away. I never considered that it would be this great idea to miss four solid months of work due to debilitating and paralyzing illness and injury during my rookie year of being a PA. I did not decide that it was best for me to go to rural Haiti, travelling on rocky mountain back roads in an SUV a month after spinal surgery. I did not conclude to have such financial insecurity in my first year as a PA.

My Tower of Babel (and we all have one) crumbled, as they always do. Apparently some people build more sturdy towers than me, because the second I place one brick on top of another, it seems, God knocks it over. I suppose (and I am) thankful that He does. I'm learning to not ask why. And I don't look at it as if I'm being bullied.

Here's how the story goes down: Some guys want to build a city and tower that would reach the heavens and unite the world. Literally, they said "...so that we can make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:4)

That's all well and good, right? Nope. Not for God's people. Who do we as His adopted children exalt in our efforts, our accomplishments, our life goals? GOD. Yahweh!

I'm not saying that I've failed at anything (of course I've failed at lot's of stuff) but what I'm saying is that God is at work. He sets my path straight. When I focus on my own schemes and dreams, I tend to look away from the perfect plan of God because what I want is, more often than not, quite self-serving.

If we seek the Lord's Kingdom, that tendency to pursue more self-exalting things becomes less and less of a burden. As we seek to exalt the Lord in our lives, our struggles and troubles and failures, and hardships and set-backs adn even our tragedies begin to make more sense. Of course there are many "why?" questions that will never be answered. I think one of the primary functions of this faith is to eliminate the need to have our "why's" and answered and just continue on, enduring for His glory, even when our plans fall to pieces.

What do you think? I'd love to hear from you and your ideas.

The Wisdom of God > My Wisdom

I struggle to always keep in step with the Spirit moment by moment. To submit and give up everything truly is radical and terrifying. However, when I think deeply about it, walking in my own wisdom, contrary to the spirit leading, is even more frightful. Though I struggle, I know that ultimately I want nothing more than to live in total surrender and abandonment to the spirit every moment I have left on this earth.

The spirit may leave me in total sacrifice financially, or he may lead me toward humiliation in the opinions of people around me. The spirit may ask me to move to a different city, a different state, or a different country. The spirit may ask me to stay where I am and spend my time in very different ways than I do now. The spirit could lead me towards actions like into Samuel six, where David danced before the Lord "with all his might". Others were shamed by his undignified display of worship to God, yet David said that he didn't care and that he would become even more undignified for the sake of the Lord.

Adventure or Nothing: A Young Woman's Pursuit of Happiness

I've been inspired by several noteworthy women in my life. Some notable examples are women like my Susan B. Anthony, Lottie Moon, Helen Keller, Elisabeth Elliot (and of course my mother and wife). Today, I met another one. I can't even use her name here, but I have permission to tell her story.

She grew up here in the Central Valley of California like me. This is a dry, withering, drought infested, economicaly depressed and increasingly drug riddled area with high levels of poverty. I don't get to witness much good in my area. My work has never allowed it, working in ER's, on the streets as a paramedic, in a rural health center, and in homeless ministry. I really need to branch out more, or get the heck out of this region.

But this woman, half a decade younger than me saw life that way as well. She woke up one day pregnant and on the streets after her boyfriend kicked her out. She determined that she wasn't going to end up depending on the government to support she and her children and enrolled in nearby college.

On a whim she applied for a job with a large multi-national company in a major Midwest city. She never thought she'd get the job and was shocked when it was offered to her. She is making a good sum of money and has found a house in a nice suburb of that city. She is still a single mom and came home to take care of some final details but has been living in this city so foreign to her for two months. She related to me that the city is a scary place to her. It's never someplace that she could have seen her self but realized that there was no future for her or her children here and decided that it was worth the risk.

The gravity of such a move struck me like a bolt of lightning as I sat there dumbfounded by what I was hearing. This woman, barely old enough to have a college degree had already accomplished what so many more privileged people fail to do every day. She admits her fear, but tells me that her faith in God is stronger than that fear and grows more every day. I have heard stories like this in my life, I've heard a lot of bragging about personal accomplishments, but never have I spoken to someone so humble, so capable and so faithful that she didn't even doubt this opportunity. She didn't worry about whether it was God's will for her life. She didn't poll as many people as she could find, she didn't try reading tea leaves. She trusted God and took a huge step of faith at a moment's notice when she was asked in that unexpected phone call, "yes or no?"

Helen Keller, Lottie Moon, Elisabeth Elliot, Susan B. Anthony and the multitudes of other courageous women whom loved and trusted their Lord would have applauded this woman's character along with me, of that I have no doubt. What a blessing to meet her! I will forever be inspired by her faith, strength, courage, humility and love for her children and I aspire to be more like her in so many ways.

Send us.

A photo from our most recent medical mission to Haiti in May 2015

I find that there are days, long days that start early with frustrations that seem insurmountable. Frustrations about finances, security, social standing, and reputation mount on me. I find that in those times I tend to either withdraw into my thoughts, seeking escapism rather than facing the insecurities or I step out, face them and look to The Lord for answers. When those answers don't come immediately, I still become frightened.

I've made career decisions, very recently, career decisions that seem foolish. I turned down a position to be trained in neurosurgery. I would have gained such valuable experience and expertise that career-long earnings and job security would be concerns of the past. 

I had to take a stand and ask the questions "What am I doing this for? What am I pursuing and where do I put my trust?" I have financial insecurity now. My paychecks bounce, my checking account has become overdrawn for the second time in the last 6 weeks because of this too. I don't understand why this is happening. The frustrations for my wife and me are mounting. After graduating from one of the finest schools in the world, we find ourselves worse off financially than we were when I was a paramedic, working nights and and going to school full-time by day. 

And I have to remind myself why I turned this position down. I chose to stay in this job position. I pray every day that the Lord opens a door into another job. One that prepares me for the mission field both with knowledge and experience but also with financial security. I know that there will be other job offers. I'm assured by other physicians that there are other jobs out there that will prepare me. 

The problem for me is that is seems that there are so few people that understand our calling into missions. And we need that encouragement right now. No, we REALLY need that encouragement right now.

We are buried in debt now and feel hopeless at times to ever climb out of this financial hole. How could someone who only wants to bring God glory, share His Word with the unsaved, bring medicine to the hurting, malnourished developing world face so much opposition? Some would say that it's because I'm not meant for missions, that God has something else in mind for my family.

It certainly seems that way at times. But here is where we must take our stand. There is NO guarantee that life will be easy when you follow Christ. In fact, one may argue that the only guarantee any person may have when deciding to follow Christ is that life will be very difficult.

Recently, I was watching a webcast in which Dr. Kent Brantley was giving some updates on Ebola medicine and at the end fielded some questions. During this time he relayed a question that he had heard about his own fight with Ebola. He had been asked if it was his faith that healed him of the Ebola. He got very serious for a second and said that following Jesus, being filled with faith and being a Christian doesn't protect you from anything. 

Then he shocked me something that should have never shocked me when he proposed, "I got Ebola because of my faith."

I started thinking about his trials, the trials of Steve Saint and his father, and numerous others who followed Jesus into turmoil. 

The fact is that I'm sick to death of half-heartedly pursuing this. I'm sick to death of being embarassed because of everything that we struggle with financially. The world tells us that this isn't how we were meant to live, but experience tells me, the Bible shows me and the Gospel compels me that difficulty and trial is part of it. 

So we walk along, unsure of ourselves, knowing not what the future will bring. Afraid to fall into obscurity, becoming entirely irrelevant, we just keep going. Our faith isn't the size of a mustard seed, it's much much smaller, but we still believe. We feel very alone, but we believe. We have no one to walk beside us and provide direction. We have no one that seems convinced as I am that God has called me to missions. I mean if I were to follow conventional wisdom, the fact that my church seems not to be interested in preparing us for the mission field, our friends (save a few really staunch devoted supporters of our calling) are not interested in praying with us, walking with us or encouraging us to move into the mission field. In fact, there are days when I feel entirely alone in this. Days like those I doubt. I seriously doubt! But God will do something to draw me back onto the path, reigniting that passion for medical missions.

If you are reading this and you care at all, if you have any encouragement, advice, want to walk alongside us, please let me know. Until that day, we will wait to be sent.

A Call to Our Churches: As The Native Among You.

More than 13 million people worldwide have fled conflicts and crises in which religion has been a key factor, according to the 2015 report from the US Commission on International Religion Freedom (USCIRF). Timothy C. Morgan, 13 Million Flee Religion-Linked Conflicts Worldwide (Christianity Today)

The question that we should be asking ourselves after these opening words from this article is: "Where are all of these refugees going?"

According to the USCIRF, about 100,000 or more per year should be coming to the US. Our current ceiling for accepting refugees annually is about 70,000.

Personally having met many refugees who successfully found asylum in the United States in the 80's from the Khmer Rouge and knowing children of refugees from other nations in Southeast Asia, this issue of housing and integrating refugees is definitely not a new one.

We've had regular influx of refugees from Sudan, Ethiopia, Iraq and several other nations for several years. But finding your way in the US isn't easy. The film "The Good Lie" is an excellently done glimpse into the challenges of settling in a new nation.

In spite of Christian leaders calling for Christians and other religious minorities to remain in the countries, it seems as if most in the Middle East and other nations where violence and oppression against minority religious groups is a mainstay have decided the the risk is too high and since 2007 the US has accepted 84,900 Iraqi refugees alone.

Why should we be involved?

In Leviticus, when God is establishing the law for His people He specifically makes mention of the foreigner when He says:

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34 ESV)

When I read this article that I quote in the very beginning of this post, I can't help but wonder what re-settlement is going to be like for these families. Where will we put them, will they end up in ghettos? Will we be willing to help them acquire the skills and knowledge to navigate our complex society? Will there be jobs where they will be able to make enough to support their families? This is something the church, at-large, must bear a great deal of responsibility for.

I want to make a call out to the churches of my home town and beyond:

Let's open our homes to refugees! Let's actively seek out opportunities to welcome them into our lives no matter how inconvenient, uncomfortable and cumbersome it might be!

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34 ESV)