Bringing our Mission to the Mission Field

I know the title above sounds crazy, and there were times during our stay in New Orleans that I said to myself (and to Micah) "Ok, soooo not doing this again!"  After all at surface level it does sound completely crazy to bring one mission field (our littles) to another mission field (New Orleans reconstruction).  But then when you think about it again...  It's not crazy, in fact it's commanded in Scripture.

Deuteronomy 6:5-7 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up."

No, you won't find anywhere in Scripture that commands us to take our children hundreds of miles away in order to serve others, but we ARE to teach our children to love the Lord with all their hearts, souls, and mights!  And this does mean teaching them to serve others.  According to the Bible this is God's heart.  It is very tempting for parents with little ones to feel like all they are able to do is to just serve their family.  It's easy to think, "We'll focus on serving others outside of our immediate family when life is not so crazy."  Sure there are times in life where it is physically impossible to do anything else but what is right in front of you. The point is that we should always be looking for ways to train our little ones to serve others.  This is best done as they watch their parents in action!  Regretfully our family has not always striven to do this.

Hebrews 13:16 "Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

Galations 6:2 "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."

Many Christian parents find various ways of obeying this teaching, but since becoming parents Micah and I have realized that the average church sponsored "mission trip" is not very inviting to a family with little ones. When Micah and I were single we served on various trips overseas and in the States. This is something that we both have longed to share with our children and it just didn't make sense to wait 15 or so years to do so. To be honest many short term mission trips are not ideal for bringing a preschooler or two (or 4 for that matter) along, and for good reason.  I wouldn't say that EVERY trip ought to have little people in tow, but after a stay in New Orleans, we have found ourselves more and more excited about sharing short term ministry trips with other families like ours.

The Work Begins

Micah and his brother Ben began work on Mr. Joe's roof on the Monday after Thanksgiving.  They were not able to find anyone to help out for the first two days, but by Wednesday they had a local man named Rich helping out full time.  On Thursday another man from the area named Andy was able to provide some on the ground help for that day.  On Friday one of the staff members, Alex, from Crossroads Ministry (a para church resource group) was able to commit to helping out with the rest of the project alongside Micah, Ben, and Rich. Crossroads Ministry and St. Roch Community Church were instrumental in providing the materials, manual laborers, and the tools to complete the job.

Weather was a real concern every now and then.  Before we left Illinois for Louisiana the weather report was calling for rain 4 out of 5 working days.  We asked friends and family to pray for the Lord's favor. By the time the work week was in full swing, the forecast was calling for just 1 day of rain!  As it turned out there was only a very small amount of time (maybe an hour) that was negatively effected by the weather. The rest of the time the area was dry and the temperatures were perfect for winter roofing (60's and 70's the first week and 50's and 60's the following week.)  We praise the Lord for all of the weather related blessings, and are so thankful for our friends who remembered us in prayer!

A Part of the Culture

The kids and I manned the home front.  There were days when it felt impossible to entertain 4 little people without the normal comforts of home, but in reality we were so blessed to be able to stay with Micah's brother Ben in his apartment on the Navy base.  Putting the kids down for naps was much easier there than it would have been had we stayed in a hotel.  Micah's brother Ben was very generous in so many ways and helped in so many ways to make the trip go smoothly!

We were also able to do a bit of site seeing with Uncle Ben.  It was neat to experience the differences in culture with our family.  We visited Great Oak Plantation, got to walk through an old cemetery (one of Micah's favorite things to do), toured the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, walked the French Quarter, and got to sample delicious Louisiana cooking.  Gumbo, jambalaya, cheese grits, wow! So good!

Reciprocal Ministry

As many of you know I am an avid knitter, I pretty much have yarn with me wherever I go.  I decided that since I couldn't be any help with the roofing venture that I would use the two weeks that we would be gone to learn how to read a crochet pattern and to crochet as many baby items as possible to donate to an area pro life ministry.  This gave me many great opportunities to remind the kids what we were doing at Uncle Ben's house.  They knew that daddy and Uncle Ben were fixing Mr. Joe's roof, and that mommy was making blankets and hats for babies.  I reminded them that they could help us do more to serve by being obedient, entertaining their baby brother, helping with chores, etc.  Towards the end of our trip the kids and I covered pretzels with chocolate as a gift to give to Mr. Joe before we left.  The kids also made cards to give to him.      

 We were so blessed by Mr. Joe's Christlike spirit.  The kids and I got to chat with him both Sundays that we were at St. Roch's Community Church.  Micah and Ben were encouraged by his fellowship throughout the days that they worked on his roof.  Mr. Joe also sent back a pie, bread, various treats for the kids, etc during the week.  The last night of our stay in New Orleans we went to the City Park to see all of the Christmas lights with Mr. Joe.  Before piling into our cars Mr. Joe told us that he wanted to take us to "The Morning Call," a restaurant inside the City Park that served Beignets, a doughnut that you can only buy in New Orleans.  We enjoyed sweet fellowship with him, and just as we were leaving he gave us a bag of doughnuts to take home with us.  What a beautiful and humbling experience to be blessed by other brothers and sisters in Christ!

The Work Continues

The roof is finished now, and the baby items were received by Save a Life ministries in Selma, Alabama. We can't wait to see what new project the Lord might have in store for us.  Currently our plan is to use the 2014 ministry trip time that Micah receives from Samaritan Ministries to help with the reconstruction efforts following the November tornadoes that hit Washington, Illinois and Northern Indiana.  We also look forward to researching ways to help other families such as ours minister on short term mission trips around the world. Our plan is to find those who are already in the ministry field and ask them what it is that they or those they know might need that a young family or family with little ones would be able to provide for them.  We will also be looking into finding places for families to stay while serving that would best use the resources of the Body of Christ.

We would appreciate continued prayers and words of encouragement as we seek the Lord's face on this venture that the He has given us a burden for!

 (The finished roofing project!  Photos thanks to Ben Repke.)

The rest of the mission trip pictures can be found here!
https://www.facebook.com/jrepke/media_set?set=a.10151758391291651.1073741836.541021650&type=3

Family Ministry Trip- New Orleans, La 2013

As many of you know our family spent 2 1/2 weeks down in New Orleans, La with the main goal of providing a new roof for a man named Mr. Joe who owns a triplex several blocks from the 9th ward of the city.  As you might remember this was one of the most heavily impacted areas due to Hurricane Katrina. Seven years ago during the aftermath of the hurricane, Mr. Joe had hired someone to redo his roof.  As it turns out the person he hired was not honest and did a poor job installing the roof.  Mr Joe did not discover this until after the man had been paid and left town with the insurance money.  

As of a week ago today the last brand new shingles were laid on Mr. Joe's house in New Orleans.  We saw the Lord work in mighty ways over the past several weeks.  There were times of great discouragement and times of extreme awe as we got to see God's sovereignty in action.  Here is our story...

(Uncle Ben on the far left holding Thomas with the rest of us Repkes)

How We Met Mr. Joe

This past summer Micah and I had a friend who traveled to Germany on a mission trip.  Our friend, Debbie Hostetler, also worked with Micah at Samaritan Ministries.  One day I asked her, "So how have you been able to get the time off for your ministry trip?"  She told me that some of it would have to be without pay, but that Samaritan Ministries gives their employees an extra two weeks of paid time off if they go on a ministry trip. This was the first that I had heard of this, and was very intrigued.  Since Micah had started his own roofing business this past year, it made a lot of sense to see if we could find an area that was in need of some construction volunteers. 

When I shared this grand idea with Micah at first he wasn't completely convinced.  He reminded me that mission trips don't just take extra time, they also take extra money. And on our strict budget that last part sounded out of the question.  

"But how about New Orleans?  Ben (Micah's brother who is stationed in the Navy) has been after us for so long to come visit him down there.  If we stayed with him that would cut out so much of the expenses, since we wouldn't need a hotel."

Micah agreed that that might be a good idea and encouraged me to look for churches in the area that would have some connections.  I sent out an email to several conservative/ reformed churches in the New Orleans area, but didn't hear back from any of them.  It was a couple of weeks before I tried again.  I thought that maybe my first email had looked like spam since it had multiple recipients, so this time I sent emails out to various churches separately AND I not only looked for reformed/ conservative churches, but also those that highlighted  rebuilding ministries on their websites.  I received an email back from Redeemer Presbyterian, a large PCA church in New Orleans.  They told me that they didn't have any projects going on that they could use Micah's skills for, but that their sister church St. Roch's Community Church would most likely be able to use Micah's help.  After contacting the sister church it wasn't long before we received a message back from Ben McLeish, part of the deacon ministry.  He told us that the offer to help could be an answer to prayer. He shared with us about Mr. Joe, a brother in Christ that has attended St. Roch's church for the past several years.  We learned that they had recently discovered that he would need a new roof.  Estimates were coming in around $10,000.  Because Mr. Joe is on a fixed income there was not nearly enough money to hire someone to do his roof.  

In the weeks leading up to our journey to New Orleans, we asked friends and family to be praying for the resources to travel down and also that the church in New Orleans would be able to raise the funds for the materials.  We contacted the Peoria Rescue Ministries to find out if they had received any excess donations that we could use to raise the funds for the project.  They were very helpful on multiple occasions, providing us with some of the excess food that was left over after caring for the needy of our own area.  We held several fundraising events at Samaritan Ministries where the employees donated in exchange for yogurt bars, cookies, fast food sandwiches, etc.  We also had friends helping out by making brownies, babysitting our children, donating larger monetary contributions, etc, all to meet the needs of other brothers and sisters in Christ.  Our church family at Providence Presbyterian church was helpful in sharing our ministry with the church members, providing funds, and praying for us before and during our work down south.

A week before it was time to leave, Micah heard from Ben McLeish that the church down there did have the funds to pay for the materials and that they could provide some helpers to work alongside Micah.  This was excellent news!  Adding to the great news was the fact that the Lord had provided just enough money to make the trip down south!

When we arrived in New Orleans we found out that Micah's brother Ben (not to be confused with the other Ben) who we were staying with had been able to get more than a week's worth of vacation time off and was planning to help Micah for the duration of the roofing project!  We had known that he would be helping the first few days, but had not realized that he'd be able to use that much vacation time.   Micah's brother Ben had also shared with us that several weeks back he had started attending St. Roch's Community Church. Since arriving in New Orleans over a year ago he had not found a church to call home yet.  He had attended for the past several Sundays and told us that he really appreciated this body of believers.  This made Micah and I even more excited to visit the church that first Sunday. 

The Lord's Provision

Looking back on how the Lord orchestrated this trip, His glory is completely apparent.  We praise God for Samaritan Ministries and the servant hearts of so many of the employees and members there.  Over half of our travel expenses were raised through donations that came in from the fundraisers that we held there.  It is also obvious that we would not have been able to make the trip at all had it not been for the extra 2 weeks of paid time off that Micah received as a full time employee at SMI.  

It's also neat to realize that if it hadn't been for our friend Debbie's trip to Germany, we might not have thought about being a part of a ministry trip at all this year.

And then if it hadn't been for other brothers and sisters in Christ coming along side us and giving of their time, resources, and prayers, then the trip would not have happened.

Stay Tuned for Part 2!