Well look at that--Long

Ok, after how many years, My beloved husband has gotten onto the blogging and fundraising bandwagon. We joined Mercy Ships in April 2004, so I guess better late than never. Don't get me wrong, he does many thing great, but keeping in touch, not always so much. I am very proud of him. Early in our time with Mercy Ships, I did most of the correspondence, but as the years go by, I have gotten more and more busy. Now I find myself in a position of being the support to his work with Mercy Ships. Over the years, I have seen Mark grow into an amazing new person, he really is not the man he once was, well in some ways:) He was always wonderful, but he is different. He has grown into a new person.

The whole idea of fundraising as a missionary has been very hard for him. I remember the many years leading up to becoming missionaries, and Mark would say over and over that the Lord would have to drop the funds on our head, because he would never take money from others. In the meantime, we supported and did things for missionaries for years. Then There was this huge change in his spirit and he knew that we were to serve full time and that he could live on support. Early in our missionary life I handeled most of these matters, but by virtue of the way we have worked with Mercy Ships, it was not for me to do, nor did I have the time. So communication has been poor and things have slipped terribly.

We lived on the ship for a few years, then we came back to the base for Mercy Ships and Mark went to graduate school. During that time, we knew that we needed to put down some sort of roots, for the kids and for the future. I got an opportunity to be at the Mercy Ships base and work in a small clinic in Tyler. During that time, the Lord really grew my ministry in the area. I was and am now again in a clinic that is a set fee for service for visits, affordable visits. My heart has been for people who either have no insurance or high deductibles. Some of my specialties have been bio-identical hormones, weight loss, and general care (including lots of missionaries). God showed me a fantastic ministry to my patients.

My goal for the part time income I have brought in to this point has been to fill in the gaps in our support. Those gaps grew, support fell off and commitments increased with his school and the house, and some crazy medical things that came up. It was weird how some things fell apart all at one time. Just a few weeks after we decide to buy a house, Mark injured his shoulder and ended up needing major surgery, our deductible was huge and we took that hit. We did ok financially with his school for a while and then things just began to grow. Then jobs changed for me, and wow just things changed and changed.

Now the Lord has us in a great but scary place. I am for the most part working for myself, paying a doc for all of my support services. Upside, I did not have a large investment to start the practice, downside--I give him a significant percentage. The biggest Upside is that if we can get our feet on the ground, I am in the situation that I could go with Mark the next time he is off to Africa on one of his trips for assessment. I want to be back serving with him on the field so bad.

It has been great to watch what he has been doing on the field. He loves what he does. He loved graduate school and knows that it has made him so good at his job. So here we are in a balancing act that we have been loosing lately financially, but knowing it is going to come back around the right direction because we both know we are doing what God has called us to as a couple and as individuals.

So here is the swift kick in my husband rear end----step up to the plate. We live a life on support and this is yourr story to share. So he is going to stop keeping the story to himself.

So take a look at the archive of past blogs to see some our past adventures.