God Travelers

This summer, as every summer, I have seen the departure of several of our young college students to go serve the "One who loves them the most" overseas. Some go for a couple of weeks, some for the bulk of the summer. It is hard to watch them leave, especially those that I have had opportunity to know well. Moms and dads watch them leave with many emotions – excited because their child is serving Father, but grieving because this one they love so much is heading off to places where they (mom and dad) do not know and cannot be. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and friends feel a degree of the same emotions for many of the same reasons.

Others, even fellow Father and Son followers wonder “why on earth they’d want to do that!” It is simple, really. It starts out of a heart of obedience to the Son’s commands in Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15-16, Luke 24:46-48, John 20:21-22 and Acts 1:8. It grows as they hear others speak of what Father is doing in far away places, and what He is teaching them as they go. Father opens doors of relationship and opportunity to get these young men and women on the field—and they go.

Many of them return with incredible stories of what they saw Father, Son and Spirit do while there were wherever they were. It is a bit like the report of the Seventy followers that Jesus sent out in Luke 10:17. Many of their hearers back home are amazed. They have never seen God do what these God travelers have seen. The travelers, whether they ever go across the border again, will never be the same. They will have a perspective on God, and a perspective on the world that too few of us have. Some will go again, long-term.

Still, it is a bit tough to watch them leave. Yet this is what we have brought them up to do, what we have taught them that the Book says: to obey Father no matter what—no matter where.
Are these God travelers perfect practitioners of the faith? No. Haven’t met anyone who is. They are like you and me, struggling in some areas, victoriously living in others, but they are stepping out (way out, in some cases) of their comfort zones to do what is obviously a clear call in scripture.

The ones that I know who are gone this summer, some in places too sensitive to mention, are in my prayers. So are their parents. (I am fifty-eight and my mom still worries when I head overseas. It is in a parent’s job description.) If you know of some, be sure they are on your prayer list, too.

These God travelers, though young, challenge me to never forget that Jesus said, “Go.”