The Love of Christ impels them

When we returned to Vancouver 10 years ago after facilitating retreats in Texas, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI’s) encouraged and supported us and because of their open ness to lay missionaries, Agape Street Ministry was born. We are humbled and honored to have been a part of this ministry.

We have been so blessed serving among hundreds of courageous and dedicated lay people as well as Priests and Religious, bringing the love of Christ to women battling ad diction in the lower mainland.

As Pat and I prepare to leave our family, friends and home for the past ten years I feel a mixture of gratitude and sadness. I will miss the frequent phone calls between our five children and their families spread throughout BC. God is forming our newest grandchild who will be born March or April of next year. We have no idea when we’ll meet this precious little eternal soul.

The other ten grandchildren grow so fast and I miss them already just knowing we won’t be around to be involved in their lives. Our friends, volunteers and benefactors have played such a personal part in our lives here that I mourn the loss of them, as the miles promise to stretch between us. This is my sacrifice but when I compare it with what Jesus did for me it pales in significance.

For Pat, I know the world’s call to ‘provide for your family’ is the phrase that haunts him. The fact that we are 10 years older than our last move, that we were coming back to our own country and had family and friends here, puts this move to Mexico on a whole different level.

BUT we can only praise God as we remember all the times He has proved His promises are to be trusted! When He called us from our very comfortable life in Williams Lake eighteen years ago, the Scripture passage that He confirmed His call through was Matthew 6:19- 34

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be. No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky, they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown in the oven tomorrow, will He not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat? Or What are we to drink or What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

There are those who would scoff and suggest that we have taken the Holy Scripture too literally. Before we made the decision to answer His call to missionary life, there were two questions that we were determined to find the answer to. The first was, ‘Is God who He says He is?’ The second was, ‘Are His promises true’. The past 18 years have answered these questions with a resounding, “Yes. Yes. And YES!

We cannot take any glory for the journey we’ve taken in the past 18 years as “the Love of Christ impels us” (2 Cor. 5:14). God’s grace is totally responsible for our ability to take steps, albeit trembling ones, in the direction from which He beckons. And this we know; that, “I will instruct you and show you the way you should walk, give you counsel and watch over you.” (Psalm 32:8) He has shown us this in so many ways. Once when traveling to Belize, after 8 hours or more of driving somewhere in Texas, we were looking for a place we could park our 21-foot trailer for the night.
Nothing appeared close on the map and so we pulled into a truck stop and parked in one of the spaces. As the evening drew on, big semi trucks pulled in all around us. We were in fact ‘hemmed in’. I was miserable because we were so tired and the huge trucks, parked only inches from us, ran their motors all night. In the morning they left before dawn allowing us a couple hours sleep before we had to get on the road again. I was cranky and complaining as we resumed driving with another long day looming. As I turned on the radio the announcer was stating that tremendous winds had visited the area during the night “flipping trailers and causing serious damage”.

And here I had complained as the Lord placed protection around us! “The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord is safe. (Prov.29: 25) There are so many stories we can tell of Divine intervention that covered our needs and beyond!

God’s Love and desire to care for His children is so simple but we complicate it because we want control. We like to think we are responsible for all these things. And He will allow us that struggle if we choose it; but when we choose to depend on God for everything, He promises to supply all our needs,”Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.”

Although the journey ahead is scary and unknown, our Father is neither. He is “Abba”, our “Daddy” and He loves us and we can trust His perfect Will for our lives. Please pray that we will always be listening for and receptive to that Will.

May God Bless you all with continued growth in His Wisdom and Love (agape).

Love,
Vicki