How do I tell my family I'm going overseas?

It's always interesting as to know how your family is going to respond to this idea of your going to the mission field. Usually, it's the parents who are sending their children away, and that seems a little bit more normal. But in our instance, it was our children who were grown and out of college and our elderly parents getting used to the idea of us going out.

First of all, I have to say that our girls (we have three daughters) really were pretty prepared, and they were not surprised when we decided to go out. They had been on a lot of mission trips themselves, we tried to bring them up with a broad worldview and so it seemed like a natural step for us.

And our oldest daughter was a missionary in India at the time.

Right.

I think our parents were a little bit more of a challenge. They come from a generation where this was just not normal, and so they were surprised, really surprised, when we said we wanted to do this.

Their initial attitude, and the attitude of most people, is, we've got plenty of people that need the gospel right here in the United States, so why do you need to go around the world to do that. The simple answer is because Acts 1:8 says you go to the whole world. And, as a practical matter, we were willing to go, and we had a command to go, we didn't have a command to stay, and we were able to go, and sensed God calling us. So why not?

I'm not sure our parents still understand it. But I know that God has worked in their hearts and given them an acceptance of our decision. And I would say that they are supportive through prayer. We keep up with them weekly, by phone calls. You know, the technology today is incredible, we can do video calls and email on a regular basis, which really helps keep us in touch.

I would like to tell one story about my dad, who was very, very reluctant. And he didn't even really want to talk about it, didn't want to talk about our going. Finally, I guess he told one of his friends, that he thinks a lot of, what we were doing, and his friend responded very positively. This man and his wife, that my dad told about our decision, happened to be very wealthy, they had some really good investments, and they were very excited, and their first response to my dad is, 'Oh, tell Austin and Beverly to call us because we want to support them.' And my dad was shocked. It turned out that they supported us with a huge gift right in the beginning of our fundraising. And by their gift, my dad's mind was turned around. And we really know that God did that.

His response was, well that really must be the Lord.

Yeah.

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