The Crowne Affair, Part 2

It is June, and it is hot here!

But not as hot as it was in 1980.

In the summer of 1980 Denise and I sold most everything that we owned, packed eight suitcases (two for each member in our family at that time) and moved to Italy where we bought a travel trailer to live in. We went so that we could share the gospel with people who lived in the cities just south of Naples and north of Sorrento, from San Giorgio to Castellamare.

It was scary. We were doing something new. We knew that we wanted to share the gospel with people who did not know God and who were not disciples of Jesus, but we had never tried to do this outside of the United States and outside of a church structure. We were going to start churches in areas where we knew of no established Protestant churches (in the three years that we worked there we met a few believers but no local churches.) Financially, we knew we had to depend on the grace of God to "make ends meet." There was no financial backup plan to the support money that a handful of small churches and individuals were sending us and no financial reserves.

This time feels a lot like it did back then. It is a little scary.

We believe that we are doing what God wants us to do. Ever since I was an undergrad at UT-Arlington, Denise and I have felt like that there were two things that we were being called to do with both of them involving work with the "poor": First, to do cross-cultural mission work.; second, to work with college students as an English instructor. In both things, we had the same purpose: to share the gospel with those who did not know God and were not disciples of Jesus. 

Now we are working on the first phase of project #2: get the doctorate so that I can fulfill the ministry that we believe that God has given us. The financial part of this makes no more sense for us than it did in 1980 when we sold everything we owned - except, I think,  for a rocking chair, a wedding gift from Scott and Jan Homesly - and moved to Italy. But our life is not about finances. Never has been - by God's grace, never will be.

So why did I leave Dallas Christian School even though there is tremendous need there and many opportunities of ministry? For many years Denise and I have talked about this time coming. Now it is here. It is time to begin work on project #2.