God send us?

It has been a while since we last blogged. So we want to get back in the blogging saddle , so to speak. We want to tell a story about our journey as we have tried to serve the Lord! We hope that you will enjoy some of these stories of how we came to taking the step into going to the Nations and what it has meant to us on our family. Way back in 1985 when the Lord healed our marriage and as we started to receive and walk in His healing we started ministering to marriages, we were very content to do it here in the US in the comfort of our home. When we started dating back in 1975 Stephanie had a call on her life to be a Medical Missionary and gave it all up to get married. As you may have known we were not equally yoked and Joe was not a Christian even when we did get married. So Stephanie has always had the missionary call on her life. Joe was a Denver Police Detective and worked in the Homicide Unit from 1986 til 1987 so he had all the adventure he needed. We ministered to marriages in Nova Shalom which became Marriage Ministered International in 1993. Oh by the way Joe in all he had been through in the police department had a fear issue when it cam to flying so of course God was content in us being content. In 1991 Joe found a letter in the mail box from Todd and Candi Halberg who were the National Directors for MMI at the time. Joe opened the letter and started to sweat and shake. The letter was asking us to consider being on the International training team and there was a Training Weekend coming up in Denmark and Sweden if we were interested.  NO WAY! Joe had never been on a commercial airliner and wasn't about to make his first time to Scandinavia! He actually flew a small plane in High School in a Aeronautics class but that was when he had no brains or fear and now NO WAY! After all you don't know if those pilots are any good. Forget trusting them and of course God would understand Joe not trusting Him. Yep Joe was willing to face 5 guys with guns before he would get on a plane. So as Joe brought the letter in the house the only way he knew he would not have to worry is to not tell Stephanie about the letter. WHAT! Boy was that not what we taught! So after Joe finally showed Stephanie the letter and saw her face light up like a light bulb and get all excited he began to tremble and give every excuse in the book why it couldn't be done. "We have to raise our own money! How can we do that?" " How can I get time off work to do that?" "We just can't do that , who will watch our kids?" Well Joe went on and on and on!!! What was it that was holding him back? Could we at least pray about this? "NO!" we aren't doing it. Now the journey begins.....