It was while Norma and I were living in a small town on a remote stretch of New Mexico desert, and I was reading a book by an Asian preacher, that God gave me my heart for missions.

In 1995, I was in my fourth year as minister of Central Christian Church in Portales, N.M. Norma and I had come to love the many great Christians who made up that church, but we were crying out to God to point us in a new direction.

Portales is a town of about 11,000; except for Clovis, it is about two hours in all directions from planet Earth. When we accepted the call to minister to the Portales church, Norma and I knew from the start that it was unlikely that we would stay there for more than a few years. We had both spent our entire lives in big cities. We felt no attraction to the tiny town or the desolate terrain, and the church also had its problems. The previous minister had been fired, leading to the loss of several members and a deep rift among those who stayed. But we accepted the church’s invitation to pay them a weekend visit, fell in love with the people there, and we came away with a strong sense that God wanted us to go there to help that church find its way back to a better place.

We had a very successful ministry at Central Christian Church. Attendance grew from about 125 to more than 200. The youth program, under our leadership the first year and then with the help of a full-time youth minister, grew by leaps and bounds. The church had five elders, most of whom had held their positions for years; I set out to recruit and train new elders to join the existing ones, and we succeeded in involving the next generation in leadership.

By the end of our third year in Portales, I believed that our work at Central Christian was mostly done. I began to inquire about other ministry opportunities. That is another story entirely, and an amazing one that I will have to tell some day — but during the summer of 1995, I was actually hired by three different churches, one after another, but each time God slammed the door shut in the most unusual ways.

After those events, Norma and I were emotionally wrung out, feeling lonely and a bit lost. Continue reading How God Gave Me a Heart for Missions One Christmas →