A Missionary in the Making

“Merrikay, what would you think about blogging about your journey to become a missionary?” asked Randy Shuffield, our Executive Pastor at CBC. I was taken back…I could easily see how people would be interested in stories of great missionaries who are on the field doing great things through God. We all were on our knees and praying for our own Dave when he was being held and questioned in that big Asian country. And just a couple of weeks ago, Mike Messerli blogged about the Uriay people in Papua New Guinea hearing about Christ for the first time (Reaching the Uriay). Now that’s exciting stuff. That’s the kind of stories where people can really see God at work.

But he continued, “I want people to see what a missionary’s life is like…what you are going to be doing, how you are preparing for it.” So I guess that makes sense. If we think only about the people who are serving God in far-off exotic places and hear only about their mountain-top experiences, we don’t have a real picture of what a missionary’s life is like. It’s sort of like seeing Pastor Steve in front of the congregation on Sunday morning and thinking that you know him well.

So, I am going to embark on this blogging journey and we’ll see where it leads us. For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve been going to Crossroads for about 20 years. Pastor Woody Woodward was leading us and we were preparing for our very first trip to Haiti when I first came. In fact, it was on one of those early trips that I started to understand God’s love for the world. I’ve been a Christian for 30 years, coming to the Lord as an adult.

I raised two boys pretty much on my own, and they turned out pretty good with a little help from Dave Semmelbeck and Brent McKinney along the way. Scott, my oldest, now lives in Chicago with his wife Emily and their two children, Miles and Eleanor. My younger son, Jack, his wife, Cammie, his two daughters, Scout and Sawyer, and I all share a house in Double Oak. Retirement? Peace and quiet? Knitting? Not in this household!! But it’s just what I need to keep me young!

Until September, I was the owner of a book and Website publishing company. We published material about IBM technologies and had 8 employees. I joined BEE World in February 2010 and since that time have been balancing my life between those two worlds…running the company and preparing to go on the mission field. I can’t tell you how freeing it is to now be fully involved with BEE.

All of this rather mundane detail is to show you that I’m a very normal (and rather mundane) person. Certainly not a Christian superstar, and yet God has called me into ministry. And that’s what this blog will be about. I guess I could title it “Mundane Ministry,” but then who would read it? And the ministry isn’t mundane…God always turns the mundane into miraculous.

So instead, I’ve titled it "The Third Third." You see, the first 30 years of my life, I was totally lost and missing the whole point of life. The second 30 years of my life, after I became a Christian, I grew in the Lord, raised my boys, earned a living, and did my best to serve God. Now, for the third 30 years of my life, I hope to serve Him as a missionary!

As all bloggers say, I would so appreciate your input. Any question? Comments? Ideas for topics? Bring them on. You can either post them here and I’ll answer them publicly or if you’d prefer to email me privately, that’s good too (merrikay.lee@gmail.com).