Barefoot Idolatry

I used to idolize missions. 

When I was little I read about how Amy Carmichael’s feet were like leather from walking through jungle paths in India so I walked around outside barefoot and tried to toughen up my feet by rubbing them on the sidewalk.

I was kinda weird. 

I read about Gladys Aylward in China and wanted to be single forever and run an orphanage. 

I read all of Jim Elliot’s journals and Elizabeth Elliot’s books. 

While many other elementary school girls were listening to the Spice Girls and doing the Macarena, I was devouring missionary biographies and writing in cursive in my journal. 

While this passion did not start out wrong, it became an obsession. I began to believe that missions was the best and godliest way to serve Christ. 

When I was 15 I went to Uganda and Kenya and that only solidified my passion for overseas missions. It was harder for me to come home from that trip than it was for me to be in a third world country for 6 weeks. I ate with my hands, used a hole in the ground for a toilet and didn’t look in a mirror. I had never been happier.

                                                    I'm the one in the middle...

After that trip, my plan was medical missions in a third world country. I believed that was the most radical way to serve the Lord. In doing that, I would hear “well done thy good and faithful servant,” when I entered Heavens gates. 

The single, orphanage thing was a phase and even though I was afraid to admit it, I did want to get married and have a family one day. Why was I afraid to admit it? Because if it didn’t happen, I didn’t want to be depressed about it. Does that even make sense? See, I said I was weird. 

My uncle asked me if I would be interested in a guy who didn’t want to do missions. No. Without a doubt, no. 

I was single minded, driven and ultimately mistaken and confused.  

I went to Uganda again when I was 18. This time for 4 months. I lived with a missionary couple who had 4 kids. 

Over those 4 months I learned something that changed my life. 

A wife and mom is a wife and mom no matter where she is. 

Kids need to be fed, bathed, wiped, snuggled and disciplined in every country in the world. Husbands need to be loved, helped, respected, and cherished in every country in the world.

 If I wanted to be a wife and mother, then my “job” wouldn’t be much different if I was in suburban America, or bush Africa. Yes I may deal with different issues and struggles, but my responsibilities and goals and loves would be the same. 

Your laundry needs to get done, your meals need to be made, your dishes need to be washed. 

I also could not dictate my husbands occupation. I could make a list of characteristics yes, but not to the point where any guy who didn’t want to live in a hut in Africa was a no go. What if I married someone who wanted to do missions and then the Lord changed his plans? Did that mean I married the wrong person? 

By the end of those 4 months, my view of missions was completely different. 

I realized that I loved other cultures and languages and unchurched countries, but I could not believe that that was the only way or the best way to serve God. I began to watch the women I knew and saw the common thread that was woven through the life of every wife and mom I respected: Sole devotion, first to Christ, then to their families. 

Their ministry to others was in the context of the church and their own home. They had high school girls in their kitchen, they had small groups at church, they did premarital counseling, discipled women and gave parenting advice. 

You can do that anywhere. 

I could do that anywhere. 

And then I told the Lord I would do anything for Him. If he wanted me to live in inner city and be a pastor’s wife, I would. If he wanted me to marry a business man and be involved in high school ministry, I would.

And if He wanted me to go to the bush in Africa and pick lice out of kids hair, I would. 

But not because it was my plan to have a radical life, but because it was His plan for me. 

As long as I was single, I would pursue missions, but I would also be open to whatever the Lord had for me.

A year and a half later I met Cory Cramer. We were studying in Israel for 4 months with a group from The Master’s College. He wanted to live and die in Washington. 

First pic together: Mount of Olives

But, before I knew that, I noticed that Cory was passionate about God’s Word, loved different cultures, and was disciplined and gave 100% to everything he did. 

He wanted to disciple young men, study the Bible and give God his life. Everything I valued. He was the best person I had ever met, and he did not want to do missions. I could see myself married to him for the rest of my life, and he did not want to do missions. 

I never told him I wanted to do missions either. I don’t know why actually. We talked about everything, but I never told him that.  

After we left Israel, we didn’t talk for a year. (for various reasons that are too long to share in this post) But, a year later when we did talk, Cory Cramer was talking about missions. 

Cory was talking about missions as an option. Not as a passion or pursuit. But as an option. 

We started dating. The plan was seminary, and then whatever the Lord had after that. But seminary first. 

Then we sat in chapel and listened to the President of Josiah Venture (Dave Patty). 

These are the words he said that were bolded in Cory’s mind-DISCIPLESHIP, STUDENTS, LOCAL CHURCH, WORD, TRAINING, EQUIPPING. 

And then a big 1% appeared on the screen. 

1% of the people in Eastern Europe know Christ as their Savior. 

1%. 

Cory’s fists were clenched and his knuckles were white. (He does this when he’s pumped up, is that normal?)

At the end of the chapel, Dave Patty asked everyone who was committed to being a part of Global Missions whether by going or sending, to stand. 

Cory jumped up. 

Now missions was a passion. 

And I knew (I mean of course I didn’t KNOW but “I knew,” you know what I mean??). I knew at that moment that WE were going to be missionaries. 

That was 2 1/2 years ago. Since then we have gotten married, had a baby, raised support and bought one way plane tickets that leave for Albania in 5 days. 

And I will STILL be a wife and mom. 

I will wipe snotty noses. 

I will help Cory Cramer. 

I will have girls in my home. 

And it’s God’s plan. Not mine. He directed through my husband. Not me. 

I cannot wait. But not because I believe I am going to get extra jewels in my crown or because I am serving God in the greatest way possible. 

He took away a weird idol I had, but then he gave me something much deeper and better: a desire to truly do whatever He had for me. 

He has me as a wife, He has me as a mom, and He has me as a light to everyone I’m around. 
Just like every other wife, every other mom, and every other believer. 

That just happens to be in Pogradec, Albania. 

Family Pic in Albania: Shiloh in my belly