What we wish we had known

Craig and I moved to Ecuador on the Lord's leading. We had no prior mission experience. Our visit to Ecuador was our first overseas experience at all! We had lots of prayer and knew this was the Lord's calling. We kept a journal as we prepared to leave and that has been a source of comfort on days when we wondered what we were doing in Ecuador :)

We had the loving support of our home church. They agreed to act as our sending agency and they have helped us along the way as we have stumbled.

Our church suggested that we put together a board before we left. This was a great suggestion, and we wish we had spent more time setting it up and writing out by-laws before leaving. We originally went down to work with another ministry. We would have all greatly benefited by having a written agreement of what was expected. Some training in conflict resolution would have been wonderful too. Accountability was big for us and we have been so thankful that we set up our board for accountability purposes.

Before we moved, we found out about visa requirements, drivers license requirements, green card type requirements. This was huge, as we already had our appostilized birth certificates in country when we moved down.

Making a budget was another big thing. We set up a Quicken file to enter all receipts and donation. This made end of year taxes easy.

A huge struggle once we moved was the language. We had no Spanish skills when we moved down and everything we learned, we learned through building friendships in country. I still wish that my skills were better, but slowly, we learn more each day.

The biggest things we learned along the way were that serving the Lord could be fun and that you can share love even with language barriers. Also, the Lord will most likely use you in a way that you didn't expect. We went down to "do" one thing...and the Lord opened up a whole ministry that was much more than we could have ever planned out ourselves. We have built lasting, deep friendships with the community. That was one of our goals in going down and I think it made a big difference in effectiveness.

One thing we have been trying to put together, that we should have done before we left, was a home team. Our advice for someone looking to go into overseas ministry is to start early in putting together a home team. Have people that are willing to pray for you, willing to help encourage you and your family through mailing letters and small packages, have people who want to help you when you come back to the US for visits (adjustment can be a BIG issue and having friends set up to listen and make your adjustment easier will be a blessing), and with finacial help, newsletter help, etc. Rather than go out raising finacial support, look for friends who want to support you as a friend and who are excited about what you want to do. Remember, that by going overseas, you are just one of the myriad of people who are involved in that ministry. And, you don't need to go overseas to be involved in overseas ministry - there are ways you can support missionaries all over the world. Discouragement can be a big problem when overseas, but having a team behind a missionary, encouraging them and participating in all aspects of their ministry can make a big difference in their effectiveness.









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