We received this email from Reid and Michelle McCarty, which they sent to many friends and family after their time here in the Philippines with our missions ministry team. I hope it will encourage more and more to consider taking vacation time working in missions. Our ministry, FJ Ministries, is intended to help pave the way for families to go into short-term missions and their words are very encouraging.
Hello all,
I don’t post much, but I believe that God wants me to share a word of encouragement here. We just returned from a short term (2 week) mission trip to the Philippines with a group from Youth with a Mission (Y.W.A.M.), and it was an incredible experience for our entire family (husband, myself, 6 year old, 3 year old and 1 year old)! If you have ever considered a family mission trip but thought you couldn’t afford it or your children were too young, I encourage you to seek God’s direction before dismissing the idea. It was amazing to participate in what God is doing around the world every day through Christ followers of every denomination. We witnessed healings, saw hundreds come to know Christ, watched many new believers attend Bible studies and prayed with and played with the Filipino people as well as people in the Y.W.A.M. group from 5 continents! Our daughter got to hear her dad share his testimony and pray with people to receive Christ, and she was so excited to get to give them Bibles and shocked to realize they didn’t have any! I especially encourage parents of teenagers to check out the classes offered by Y.W.A.M. around the world for young adults. I can’t imagine a better way for teens to internalize a Christian world view than by actually going out to live the great commission. If you are interested in reading more about our outreach, go to the Riley’s Blog, which is a blog from our friends, the Riley’s, who are still in the Philippines with their 3 children. If you want to learn more about Y.W.A.M. check out their website.
Thanks for letting me share with you about our trip!
Isn’t it exciting to see how God loves us and honors our obedience to Him???