Seven years ago, David and I traveled with a good friend to Vietnam and Cambodia in which we traveled from the south to the north of Vietnam and into Cambodia. During this trip we visited ministries to the blind, orphanages, schools in homes and on the water, and remote areas where our mere presence brought questions to the local people. We met people from every walk of life who risked everything for the gospel. We met children who were born into such poverty in a country where they had no identification papers, and could not go to school that every day they pull heavy carts to pick up recyclable bottles to help feed their family. After this trip, we knew we wanted to do something to help. Soon after this trip we met with the leadership of ECR and through much prayer and many meetings, we began our journey with ECR. We have continued working with the ministries that ECR was working with at that time, and we have met people along the way and have been able to come beside them in ministry, all to further the Kingdom of God to unreached people.
My personal journey into missions began when I was sixteen years old, and I said “yes” at an altar call to missions, but it was not until 2001, at the age of forty-six, that I took my first mission trip. Several times every year between 2001 and 2014, I went overseas to work with children and to teach. God never forgot my first “yes,” even though I did, for so many years. In 2014 we began our leadership role with ECR. David was retiring from a business he had led and worked at for almost 40 years and I was going several times a year to Africa to work with children, but the Lord brought ECR to us and we said “yes.” God is never finished with us and there is a reason – there are millions who have never heard the gospel. Let us all say “yes” to share the gospel with someone. “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” (Mark 16:15)