Janie’s Thoughts…
As I prayed that first night away from home and in our small trailer, I was full of mixed emotions. I had anticipated setting out on this adventure as one of God’s servants, but I was also somewhat concerned for the tremendous task before us, and how it would affect our five children. After everyone finally went to bed, I stayed up to pray. I remember sitting in the corner of the trailer on an ice chest in the dark and thinking how I had always felt my home was too small. I needed a bigger home and more bedrooms, I thought! it dawned on me in the darkness just how spoiled we Americans are! How ungrateful we are for God’s blessings. How we take for granted the things we have and complain about small insignificant things. We had been in a three bedroom home with a spacious living room, large den, kitchen and dining room, and now my family of seven was living in a 24-foot trailer half the size of our den!
That first evening away from the comforts of home, I spent quite a long time thinking about what I was leaving behind and what we might face ahead. I pondered the thought that as God was calling us as missionaries to America, we have brothers and sisters in Christ called as missionaries all over the world who have given up the ease and riches of American living to follow their calling. These missionaries serve Christ in places where there is little food, no air-conditioning, poor sanitation, and other difficulties, with some missionaries even risking their very lives for the sake of ministering the gospel.
“I knew God was calling me to a life of sacrifice-to lay down my desires for the sake of His kingdom…I was certain God was ordering my steps in this direction, therefore, I had no choice but to entrust Him with my future. To withdraw my life from His plan now was not an option. All I knew to do was to rest in the promise that God knew where He was taking me.”1 I could have written those words in my journal on that first night in the trailer park, but here I am quoting the words of a missionary to india, Huldah Buntain, from her book, Pathway to the Impossible. In 2010, right before publishing this book, I was able to locate Huldah, and she mailed me a copy of her book. Huldah and her husband, Mark, followed the same missionary life as Mother Teresa, a life serving the poorest of india. I was not surprised to discover that she had expressed the same feelings that I had expressed to God in prayer that first night in the trailer park, as I turned away from everything that I knew to set out on an adventure of the unknown with my family. Huldah learned at a young age what God revealed to Jim and I in 1977, that “if (we) trusted God and put (our) life in His hands, He would reveal to (us) His will and purpose for (our lives).”2 I saw throughout her book that she verbalized my feelings, feelings that I suspect are expressed by most wives when living a life of missionary service.
On the missionary field Huldah learned that 
“success is not fully based on our ability to perform, but rather on our ability to listen to His voice and obey His leading.”3 We must have “faith for the impossible…our faith is not based on circumstances…God is bigger than our needs.”4 These were truths that Jim and I knew in our hearts from years of Bible study and seeking to follow God each day, but as we embarked upon this faith adventure across America with limited funds, and God leading us into an unknown place, we were preparing to find our faith truly tested, a test that for us would be like walking on water.