Don't you love a productive day?

What a day! What a wonderful day!

We had breakfast this morning at the IMB in Richmond and then each of the regional directors around the world introduced themselves and mentioned a few of the job openings in each of their regions. Wow!! If each of you could hear the awesome diversity of job opportunities around the world, some of you would know in your heart, you could answer that call.

There are opportunities in Italy, France, London, and Austria (even some of those beautiful Mediterranean places). There are jobs for beach ministry in Indonesia. There are jobs where you would sit in coffee shops and music bars and meet people and develop relationships. If you like hiking mountains, they’ve got the job for you. If you want to live along the Amazon River, backpacking through the jungles looking for tribes of people, you can do it (and get paid). God can lead you to do some pretty amazing things for Him. Don’t say, “No,” just say, like Isaiah, “Here am I. Send me.”




We had our first small group time since dinner last night. The three couples shared salvation and baptism experiences and our call to missions individually. I think it took an hour for all six of us to go, but it was a sweet time.

Next we had meetings with the Office of Finance to learn about salary and benefits for almost an hour, and then the one we were all waiting for…the meeting with Travel/Freight Logistics. I’m sure you can understand the concern we all have for when and how they will pick up our “stuff,” what “stuff” that needs to be, and getting our “stuff” overseas, through customs, by plane or boat. The lady handling all the freight has been at the IMB for over 40 years! I think she is pretty much amazing and irreplaceable!

After a lunch of barbecue salad (sounds interesting, doesn’t it), Doug and I had an individual meeting scheduled with the regional office for Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa. We sat with a man and his wife who, for now, oversee that general area of Africa. It was an hour-long meeting, where they asked us a lot of questions, but it was also a great time to hear wisdom from two people who lived in Africa for 12 years, raised their two children there, and are getting ready to return in July.

The day started to wind down with all of the long-term missionaries hanging out in the library, reading, talking, copying information, checking out books, and discussing each of the interviews we had that day. It was sort of like a bunch of kids who talk after getting pulled in to talk to the principal. “What did they say to you? What questions did they ask?”

We had a one-hour session left, and then we got on the bus to come back to ILC for dinner.

After dinner, our small group had to find a place to meet on campus (without our leader) and have a “secret” church. We acted out what many churches might look like in a non-tolerant country, except without the fear those Christians have. We prayed, gave God adoration, read from only one Bible in a semi-dark room, discussed the scripture, and sang all with whispering voices. It was an incredible time of worship in song and word.

I am overloaded with information from today.

It was a good night.

It was a good day.

I am tired.

I am ready to go.

I am also ready to go to bed.

Good night.