And that's all I know about that . . . .

Hello friends! 

Over the next 6 weeks I will have a few ladies that

I admire and adore helping me with the blog. 

I want to take this time to share with you how

God uses many different people

in many different places

 to accomplish a common goal -

 seeing lives changed because of God. 

This week it will be me writing.  I want to talk about being a "new missionary". Although I don't know much, here is what I do know.

Let's start from the beginning . . . .
I was raised in a pastors home.  I am a PK {Preachers Kid}.  I always hated that term.  I hated how people assumed I was either really good or really bad.  I never understood why we had to be the first ones at church and the last to leave.  How come we never could skip church on Super Bowl Sunday?  Why did all the good TV shows come on Sunday nights or Wednesday nights?  But anyways, back to the point of the blog.  So I grew up in and around church, from as far back as I could remember we have always been in church.  As a teen I remember telling God at church camp one year - "I sure hope you don't want me to do anything in ministry because I have done my time."  I wanted to be an artist. 

a piece of the puzzle

Jump ahead about 7 years and I am married, two kids, home owner, living in the Holy Land Texas and just about as happy as can be.  My husbands says to me . . . "I think God is calling me into ministry.  I think we should go to Bible College."  So in a matter of two months we both had quit our jobs, sold our home and loaded a moving van and was heading to Springfield, MO again.  {in the 7 year gap Mike and I had met and married at Baptist Bible College in Springfield and then moved back to Texas}

a piece of the puzzle

We had another baby.  
Mike graduated college.  
We moved to the Detroit area.
We worked in a church for a little over a year. 
We made some friends. 
We had another baby.
We moved back to Texas. 
We worked in a church for almost 4 years. 
We built some friendships and learned a lot about ministry.  

a few more pieces to the puzzle

Over all this time Mike would bring up missions.  We would talk about different countries.  I was always negative. I always tried to find an out, an excuses, a reason we could not go. 

"Why another country?  America is full of heathens!  Just look around." 

 But always, we would come back to missions on the foreign field.  And each time I would think back to church camp - "I sure hope you don't want me to do anything in ministry because I have done my time."  I would cry and beg God to change Mike's mind.  One day God changed my mind. One day,  I saw a group of Japanese people and I didn't just see people, I saw souls.  Lost souls.  {This will be a story for another blog.}

a piece of the puzzle

So here I am, a new missionary in Japan.  We have been in Japan for 6 months. WOW - 6 months. We are doing well. We are all learning the language - some of us better than others!! The kids are making friends. Mike is helping to start an English ministry at the church this week. I have made a friend and we are having a Bible study once a week. I have plans to start park ministry in the fall {if I can read the Bible stories by then}. I really am excited to see how God is going to use our little family from Texas in this country, this city, this neighborhood. I feel that we are on the brink of something big here. 

God has done some amazing things in my life.  God has grown my faith by leaps and bounds.  I have a real relationship with God.  Not just Sunday morning, "bless this food", only when I am in trouble, kind of relationship but the real, can't live without Him kind.  And because of this relationship with God all my other relationships have fallen into place too. {not that they were really out of line to begin with} 


You see God took each of these little pieces of the puzzle to start a masterpiece in the Wyatt family, in me.  Each time something happened I questioned God just like the Israelites wandering around for 40 years - Why now?  What are You doing?  How come we have to move again?  Why missions?  Why Japan?  One day I will learn to have complete faith and trust in what God is doing.  One day I will understand in my heart as well as my head that God will not leave me nor forsake me.  I am ready, for the first time in my life, to be completely used by God ~ however He sees fit. 

And that's all I know about that . . . .

"For I know the plans I have for you,”

declares the Lord,

“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

 plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11