We prayed about whether it was time for us to step out of the boat and
follow the Lord again in faith. Could we trust Him after the greatest tragedy of our lives?
We are Mike and Lynn and we have been involved in ministry since we graduated from college in 1982. Before we celebrated our first wedding anniversary we were serving as youth pastors on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. We had the privilege of raising three boys, and since 1993 have been on a most unusual journey. When we graduated from seminary in 1986, we had a plan to guide us all the way to retirement. That plan did not include what would change the direction of our lives, the birth of a third son who needed a liver transplant. Our baby boy received his liver transplant at four months of age. Needless to say, our world was shaken, but by the grace of God we moved forward as a family. Because of Stephen’s preexisting condition, however, we were told that ministry overseas would not be an option for us.
In 1993, the Lord redirected our lives and opened doors we never dreamed possible! We were invited to serve as pastors in a church in Ukraine. Since 1983 we have been to and through 26 countries and 48 out of our 50 U.S. states. We were incredibly blessed to serve in foreign countries as a family unit. We learned and experienced things we could never have known had we stayed within the borders of our country.
In 2006, our lives came to a screeching halt when our boy, Stephen, was admitted to the UCLA Medical Center for seven weeks…..
Following an unsuccessful second liver transplant and 12 hospitalizations over his 18 years, Stephen went to be with the Lord. We were stunned and undone, and our faith was brought to its knees. We had been to many countries over the years doing the Lord’s work. We had seen the Lord do the most unusual and amazing things to ensure our provision. Why didn’t He do the one thing we wanted the most? In a deep and long season of grief, we didn’t know if or when we would ever return to ministry. At that point we had not had a place to call home for 13 years. And yet, even in this darkest of hours, our journey continued.
Seven years later we received an invitation to go to Israel. Lynn had desired to go there since she was 10 years old, and had been called to serve the Jewish people since her early teens. Like our earlier trips overseas, if we went to Israel, we wouldn’t know where we would return to when it was time to come back. We prayed about whether it was time for us to step out of the boat and follow the Lord again in faith. Could we trust Him after the greatest tragedy of our lives?
Since our first trip to Israel in 2013, we have returned to stepping out of the boat in faith and to following Him into opportunities to serve in other nations, most recently in Kathmandu, Nepal, Israel, New Zealand, and Istanbul, Turkey. We serve the Lord through FaithWorks, our nonprofit organization that was established in 2000. Through this vehicle we follow through on our passion to minister to the nations and to bring hope to the hopeless.
