The title of this blog may sound like the beginning of a bad
joke, but in actuality, this has been a description of my last few weeks of
life. Before I get into this, let me
give you a little context as to why these weeks have been important. For those of you that don’t know, at the
beginning of this year I was appointed as a missionary to Ireland with
TEAM and I will be going there at the end of October. Even though most of the people in Ireland
identify as Catholic, Ireland has the lowest percentage of Evangelical
Christians of any English-speaking country.
This history with the Church, but lack of meaningful relationship with
God has been heavy on my heart and is one of the main reasons that I have
wanted to do missions in Europe.
This call upon my life was recently reaffirmed in two
different conversations in the past few weeks that I have had with two
different agnostic individuals, Doug and Sam.
Both of them grew up with some background with the Catholic church, but despite
their “religious heritage,” both of them have decided that following Jesus was
not something that they were interested in.
Doug had some negative experiences with people who claimed to be
Christians that gave him a distaste for Christianity as a whole. Sam, on the other hand, simply could not believe
different parts of Scripture and accept all of Scripture as truth. As I listened to these stories, my heart hurt
for the pain that had been brought into their lives at different points in time. 
Both of these guys are currently on a search
for truth, but as hard as they search, truth seems to be evading them.
I had really good conversations with each of them, but in the end, we
had to just agree to disagree. I told them that
the Bible says that the only way to heaven and a right relationship with God is
through Jesus Christ, not simply believing He existed, but placing your faith
in Him and turning your life over to Him.
However, at the time of our conversations, neither of these guys were
able to accept that as truth. As I
reflected on these two conversations, I was struck by the fact that these are
the same sorts of people as many that I will be ministering to in Ireland: those that have a history with Catholicism, but no meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ. God is burdening my heart for those who need
the gospel!
I continue to pray that God will reveal truth to these two
guys and that eventually they will find an amazing, life-giving relationship
with Jesus. Not only do I wish this for
these two individuals, but this is my prayer for the people of Ireland as
well. God has brought incredible meaning, purpose,
truth, and LIFE to my life, and I hope that someday, He will bring those things
to them too.
