Several years ago our oldest daughter Jennifer asked us to allow her to go on a missions trip with the church. At the time she was 13 or 14 and I was pretty adamant that she was too young and naive to go out of the country even though she'd have been supervised by trusted adults. At the time that she asked I felt that it was her desire to socialize with friends more than a true calling to serve. I validated this one day when I asked her how'd she'd feel about us allowing her to go on the trip if I went along too. My going would satisfy a desire I've had to give back to the Lord in a tangible way as I have certain mechanical skills I have acquired throughout my business carrier and it would give me a chance to help protect my daughter out in an unfamiliar world. She flatly refused and said she'd rather not go then to have me "tag along". That told us clearly that it wasn't a servants heart that was calling her but a selfish independent heart. While the subject of her going on a missions trip came up over the next two years I used the same yard stick to measure her resolve. Would she mind my coming along with her? Each time she said she wanted to go by herself with the group and not have me or any family member along on the trip. My other daughter, Sophie, had also been talking about going on a Zoya Ministry missions trip for several years as she often met with the Abebefe's and Sophie considers Zoya a close friend. Now Sophie, at the time was only 9 or 10 years old and was certainly too young to go on such a trip (in our minds) so when she approached us with the idea we flat out refused.

Time passed. Earlier this year we decided as a family (there are 6 of us) that we would have a special family vacation. Our oldest son is heading off to college and so we thought we'd have a big family vacation this summer. We decided that we would go on a family cruise (something the kids had talked about from time to time but we didn't consider really realistic in our budget). We went ahead with the cruise planning anyway and so made some financial sacrifices in order to have this special family vacation. We put money down on the cruise and reserved 3 rooms aboard a beautiful cruise ship. Several times we discussed the many adventures we planned to have. And then one day all of that changed. On this fateful Sunday, before our children headed off to church, Jennifer asked Donna if she could stay for the Missions trip meeting. Donna told her she could go to the meeting but couldn't go on the Missions trip. After service, Jennifer called us and said that she was really led to go on the trip. We told her she could attend the meeting. My wife and I were at home talking in my office while I was catching up on some business work when we got a call from our oldest son Cameron. Now Cameron has an interest in medicine and is attending TAMU in premed but he has NEVER shown an interest in missions work. Well, on this particular Sunday, Cam calls us at the end of their service and said that he wanted to go the Missions trip meeting. At that moment both my wife and I started to cry as the Holy Spirit came upon us both and told us that these four children needed to go on this trip. With tears in our eyes, we decided that we needed to cancel our cruise and send them on this trip. It was clearly God's will for us to do this.

When the kids got home from the Missions trip meeting we held a family meeting. We sat down with the kids around the dinner table and asked them if they were really willing to sacrifice their long awaited cruise vacation to go on this trip and they all said yes. We knew it was God's will then and agreed at that moment to send them all - even Sophie who was only 12 at the time. In talking with Karen Abebefe later that day Karen told us that it had been on heart to take Sophie with them for over two years and she would volunteer to be Sophie's surrogate mother while in Nigeria. Needless to say we had no choice but to honor God's will and so we canceled our family cruise and sent all four of our children (Cam, Gabriel, Jennifer and Sophie) on the missions trip. Our God is an awesome God and does wonderous things when we just allow Him to.

John and Donna Beiseigel.