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In 2006, I traveled to South Asia for my third time. I had volunteered in South Asia with various mission organizations in 2003 and 2004 and kept coming back because I was captivated and heartbroken by the region, its people, and the cultures I encountered. From the bustling city to the remote jungles in the foothills of the Himalayas, my heart was broken by the depth of poverty and the countless numbers of idols and false gods being worshipped in sacrificial devotion.

During that third trip, I traveled with my church from Grapevine, TX. It was a vision trip to seek-out partners to minister among the lost in South Asia. 

Ramesh, a field operative with World Vision, had accompanied many American workers to the remotest parts. On one particular trip, he felt challenged by the Lord to pursue the least-reached in his own country. This led him to found COI in 1991. Since then, the home-grown mission has grown exponentially and now includes 10 children’s centers as well as vocational training centers throughout South Asia, mainly in poverty-stricken slums.

Their work in the slums resonated with me. COI was providing educational opportunities for children living in some of the poorest conditions. They also offered life-changing skills training for women through sewing centers and computer training. But they were doing so much more, they had church-plants and pastor training, as well as micro-enterprise endeavors and well-drilling projects. Additionally, COI produces a TV broadcast that answers the forbidden questions Muslim have about Christ. By 2016, COI had formed Genesis of Hope (GOH), a distinct organization, to encompass their children’s center ministry. 

During that whirlwind trip in 2006, my team visited a site called Shahabad Dairy Center. I did not know then the plans that God would lay on my heart, and the hearts of many at MCC, for Shahabad Dairy.

In 2018, I returned to my beloved land, in faith and friendship, to assist friends with the final aspects of the adoption of their son Ravi.  While there I was able to introduce them to another ‘Ravi’, on fire for God and orchestrating many of GOH’s efforts. We also visited one of their many children’s centers. The visit eventually led to MCC’s remarkable support of a 1,000-child Vacation Book School in the heart of Hindu and Muslim slums. 

"While there is still heart-wrenching poverty

in this slum, within the walls of the center

there is an undeniable joy and peace."

Bolstered by generous donations at our local Vacation Bible School, we were able to provide many board games to several of the centers. As I helped deliver those games and gifts, I was awed that one of them was my Shahabad Dairy.

To me it felt like my journey had literally come full-circle; something wonderful and exciting had begun. The impact of GOH in this area is undeniable. While there is still heart-wrenching poverty in this slum, within the walls of the center there is an undeniable joy and peace. One of the same pastors I met so long ago continues to labor here and the effects of the gospel are apparent in the smiles and laughter ringing through the halls of the children’s center. 

MCC’s recent partnership with the children’s center comes at a much-needed time for GOH. GOH was receiving much of their funding for the children’s centers through an organization no longer allowed to operate by the government. That organization did many extraordinary things and the loss of support meant that GOH had to cut many services they offered.  Thankfully, GOH has been able to continue to serve the children.

MCC’s partnership will fill in gaps in funding for the Shahabad Dairy center to:

•                 Tutor children in English, math, science, and history

•                 Serve a mid-day meal

•                 Celebrate birthdays, festivals, field trips and events such as VBS

•                 Perform health check-ups

•                 Provide school uniforms once a year 

For me this journey has proven to be circular.  My prayer is that it will become so for our church, as well.  We look forward to bringing opportunities to minister to these precious children and teachers in Shahabad. You can do that now through the Hope Campaign.  Visit genesisofhope.org to assist.

** Due to certain cultural, political, legal, and logistical complexities, we have chosen to provide this personal narrative with the utmost sensitivities to real-world concerns expressed by our partners and within the media policies of Mountain Christian Church.

I walked through a door one day that changed my life forever.  It was at the top of a flight of wooden stairs that hung off the outside of the feed store. I was sixteen and searching for something far different than what I found.

I had spent the summer between my sophomore and junior high school years on Grandpa Harry’s ranch in North Idaho, fencing.  Not with foils or sabers, but with pliers and stretchers and sweat. I came home with an education in the vernacular that accompanies barbed wire; and with the desire to learn the old cowboy arts of leatherwork and braiding. My great-grandfather had been a rawhider. In Harry’s barn I found his long-forgotten tools, books, and notes; then began to ply my hand at the ancient art.

I was not good at it, and on returning home, quickly ran through the raw materials I’d brought from Idaho. That fall day, at the top of the wooden stairs outside the saddle shop, I hoped I knew just enough to appropriate the right leather and leave, without appearing as ignorant as I knew I was.

Ian Tyson was on the radio and a scrawny guy with big mustache looked up from behind a saddle-stand and studied me.  He would have had to stand twice to make a shadow, but the knurled hands that held the carver belied a strength of character and iron poise that the years would allow me to later appreciate. This was Joe. He was a craftsman.  And Joe had his ways.

On the third trip to his shop that fall, Joe offered me a job. Not really a job, an apprenticeship.  A true, old-school apprenticeship.  I would not be paid until I could produce something worth selling. Then I would be paid only in the leather I could use to educate myself and make myself better in the art. By this time, I had learned that Joe had three beautiful daughters and, despite the non-pay issue, I agreed to give it a try.

“For what it’s worth,

"...I think Heaven is riding stirrup-to-stirrup

with your best friends, through belly-high grass,

on your best horse, forever.

Jesus and I think you ought to be there.”

~Joe Penfold

That singular decision, regardless of motive, turned out to be the best I ever made.  Joe was more than a craftsman: he was a horseman, a farrier, a father, a philosopher, a teacher, a mentor, and a profound Christian.  My education expanded beyond the saddle shop: eventually he agreed to teach me how to ride saddle-bronc horses and then to shoe horses, again as an apprentice all the while showing me what it meant to walk as a Christian.

Joe had his ways.  Even now, the kernels of wisdom he imparted ebb and flow into my life as sage gems. As our relationship grew beyond friendship and mentorship, he taught with patience, love and respect. Everything had a double-entendre. Speaking of horses, he’d say, “You have to give to get.” I understood it to apply to horses, humans, and Christ.  He taught me “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast”; patience and diligence and effort, in waiting for the Reward.  He’d say that he was alright to not be wealthy, because he was as rich as he ever hoped to be. This was just his way. He expected me to understand and he expected me to grow. In life, in manhood, and in Faith.

I worked for Joe for about three years. Somewhere in there he started to pay me, or at least he would sometimes let me bring in my own business.  I spent more hours with Joe in the shop, in the truck, or bending over underneath horses than I have spent with any other man outside of family, before or since.

Joe loved me and I knew it.  What I didn’t know then, was how he groomed me into the man I became. Gently, never harshly, never rushed, and always measured against what he thought I could handle.  Between my first and second year of college (freshman and sophomore years denote a successful passage from one to the next), I came home to shoe horses with Joe, again. 

That summer, I thought I would marry an Idaho rodeo queen but when she showed up with another guy’s truck and his ring on her finger, I lost it.  I’ll spare you the details. I drove across four states for two weeks before I drug myself back around to silently (and smellingly) climb into Joe’s truck at 4:30 one morning for the day’s work; as if nothing had happened and nothing had changed.  He took it all in stride. He didn’t pry.  He didn’t judge. He was just there.

About a week into my silent brooding he finally looked at me over a bologna sandwich and asked, “Dave, what does Heaven look like to you?” The simple question rocked my shaken world.  At that point, I was beyond recognizing normal, much less Heaven.  I told him so.  He grunted, and half the sandwich disappeared under his mustache. He took a drink of water and told me, “For what it’s worth, I think Heaven is riding stirrup-to-stirrup with your best friends, through belly-high grass, on your best horse, forever.” Then, “Jesus and I think you ought to be there.”

In my worst moment, Joe showed me he loved me the way Christ loves me.

Many things have happened since then. I feel, guiltily, that life swept me away from Joe. Years and miles have churned up between us. Happiness and sorrow; failure and success; the steady drum of time and place have pushed me on.  I sometimes yearn for the soft eddies of our companionship: one quiet, humble man tutoring a naive apprentice about life and love; earthly and heavenly.  The years make that horizon seem further and further behind.

But Joe has his ways. And Jesus and I look forward to that ride.

I don’t know why she called me.

I don’t even know why she noticed me or knew I existed.

She called to invite me to join a high school/college girls’ group she’d started. I couldn’t make it on the day and time they were all meeting.

So she, with 4 children, a husband, a household to run and other ministries going on, rearranged her whole life to allow me into it.

She offered to have me come over for a couple hours on a specific day.  These hours would bleed into dinner time…a time that I now know is rather hectic when you’ve got any number of kids at all.

I often think of how inconvenient a guest I was.  And I cringe.  I often should have left earlier when kids were sick or she had a ton going on.  I should have helped more with her kids.  I should have brought dinner for them instead of just partaking in the family meal every week.  I should have asked more about her and how she was doing.

But she never, ever made me feel that way.

Her goal was to obey Christ, of course…to make disciples.  She did this so graciously and effectively with each of us who met with her.  But I always truly believed that she really just wanted to hang out with me.  I always felt that she genuinely enjoyed my presence and was glad I came.

I honestly had a very immature relationship with Christ when she began meeting with me.  We began working through a Bible study book together….the first of many.  I had so many wrong ideas about God, His word, and “truth”.  She gently and skillfully corrected me in a way that made me want to seek out more and more Biblical truth.  She was patient.

She welcomed me warmly and listened intently, affirming my feelings while pointing out truth…she was kind.

She hardly ever spoke about herself.  If she did, she confessed her own sin to me.  I’ve never known anyone who confesses so much and so often.  She was always so aware of her sin and so repentant of it.  She never bragged, was never arrogant, and never acted unbecomingly.

She made our time about Jesus and about me and whatever was going on in my life on any given week.  I cringe again as I think about some of the things I said…sometimes silly or trite or just typical American twenty-something chatter.  She placed importance on the things that were important to me.  She prayed for me in those things.  She didn’t think her opinion was something valuable enough to dwell on…she sought out Jesus’.  She taught me how to pray scripture.  She did this in the midst of parenting 4, then 5, then 6, then 7, then 8, then 9 children.  She’d apologize for times she’d have to stop our discussion to discipline or comfort or direct a child.  I was grateful for the instruction, and still am.  The magnitude of the time, peace, and so much else she sacrificed to pour into me is completely humbling.  She did not seek her own and was not provoked.

The magnitude of the time, peace,

and so much else she sacrificed

to pour into me is completely humbling.  

I lied to her once.  She asked me a question and I lied right to her face.  I thought I could shake it off and forget it, but called her in tears an hour after I left her house.  I was so ashamed.  Her response was completely gentle and gracious, and soothed my broken heart that just yearned to crawl in a hole and disappear.  She prayed for me on the phone and reminded me of the mercy bought for me through Jesus’ death.  She did not take into account the wrong(s) she suffered at my hands.

She was there, in the dressing room, at my wedding.  “You are stunning”, she sweetly said.  She knew Matt and I had decided not to even kiss each other for months leading up to our wedding.  She’d kept me accountable concerning the purity of our relationship for almost the entirety of it.  She’d reminded me sternly at least once that Satan did not want to “mess” with us…he wanted to kill, steal from, and destroy us.  She prayed fervently for our protection and resolve.  And on our wedding day, she celebrated and rejoiced more than most of the guests present.  She did not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoiced with the truth.

I called her right after I called my mom when my first son died.  She sobbed on the phone right along with me.  She visited me that evening in the hospital.  She held my hands as I sobbed at her kitchen table.  She wiped tears away when she saw me crying in church.  She continued to pray, continued to encourage, continued to spur me on to seek the truth as she sought Jesus right along with me.  And when my other children were born, she was there…to counsel me through the hard first weeks, the problems with nursing, the first illnesses, the puzzle of intense shyness, the potty training, the school decisions, and so much more.  At my worst and my best, she was there at every step to lift my eyes, mind, and heart to the Author and Perfecter of our faith.  She bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, and endured all things.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’ll say it simply: she loved me.  And that is the way I always left her house…feeling loved.  I left feeling confident in what God was doing in me, glad He made me the way He did, hopeful about the future, convicted about my sin, grateful for God’s grace, and empowered to walk the path He’d marked out for me.

This, my friends, is true discipleship.  It is painful and trying and messy and beautiful.  I can’t ever hope to repay Molly Malizzo for the way she loved me.  I pray that she sees some of the fruit of her actions, as I learned to disciple others (my own children included) by being discipled by her.  I learned to invite others into my life (though a natural introvert…like Molly) as she invited me into hers.  She showed me how to love others in their mess by loving me in mine…over and over and over.  She’ll never know all the ways those hundreds of hours impacted me.  God used her mightily in my life; and through her love, I experienced His.

Discipleship is costly.

But if you and I are willing to

open up our schedules, our homes,

our lives to those God puts in our path,

we will be utterly shocked at all that God

does through our sacrifice.

Discipleship is costly. But if you and I are willing to open up our schedules, our homes, our lives to those God puts in our path, we will be utterly shocked at all that God does through our sacrifice.

To Molly and all those who have done the hard, glorious work of discipling (loving) us:

Thank you for picking up the phone and calling us. Thank you for making room for us in your lives.  Thank you for loving us. We thank God every time we think of you.

I love to walk and hike and The Appalachian Trail has been a long-time favorite locale for adventure, so this year found me leaving Springer Mountain in Georgia headed north up the trail. My plan was to end up in Maine, through all 14 states of the trail, and its 2,192 miles, enjoying lots of the side trails on the way.  I’d been on the trail four other years, so I had a good sense of the physical challenges and scenic highlights of this trek, but there were in addition three specific personal objectives I targeted. This is an account of how God fulfilled one of those ambitions.    

Deuteronomy 10:12 asks:

“What does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”  

I would have seven or eight months hiking, and I wanted to learn how to better walk in the ways of God.  I was looking forward to lots of time reading the Word, meditating on God’s ways, and opening my heart to Him in prayer.  I did have wonderful times of scripture study, and I treasured the hours I had to meditate on the greatness of God’s creation and love, but my prayer life became a disconcertingly uncomfortable and unproductive experience. 

"More than the 10,600 photos I took, or the multiple shoes I wore out, the joy of quieting my own talk so that I could hear Him was the greatest outcome of this adventure."

In the first couple months of my hike I had a well-organized prayer list and could spend a couple hours a day praying as I walked.  God was just not ready for me to walk with Him this way.  He kept trying to insert His way into my walk and prayer, and I kept ignoring it.

Finally, God got to the point: He wanted me to listen so that He could talk to me.  I had been hogging the conversation, and He had lots of things to tell me.  If we were to walk together, He wanted me to speak less and listen much more.  But I was persistent in my attempts to pray to God my way, and it took me additional weeks to finally get His message, and He had to be very direct: SHUT UP AND LET ME TALK!

The remaining months of my hike were transformed by a real, continual joyful and loving conversation with God.  There was so much He wanted to tell me that occasionally I’d need to stop to take notes so that I didn’t forget messages.  My prayer time was a continuous time during the whole day and was a real two-way conversation as we walked together.  The burdens of my heart could be poured out to Him as we talked, and I came to know so many previously unobserved aspects of Christ that deepened and broadened our friendship, and my love for my savior. 

More than the 10,600 photos I took, or the multiple shoes I wore out, the joy of quieting my own talk so that I could hear Him was the greatest outcome of this adventure.  I hope to keep growing and deepening the conversation over my years. 

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." (PS 46:10)

This is the second in a two part series focusing on the impact of missions programs: both to create transformation in those who are sent and those to whom they are sent.

Missions programs matter because we are specifically commanded by God through scripture to go into the world and share the knowledge of God and to preach the gospel in the whole world.

We carry out what God has commanded us to do through missions programs by going ourselves, sending others including our loved ones, supporting those who are sent, and praying for those who go and their work among the people.

Missions programs matter because they are a catalyst for spiritual transformation. Transformation being defined as a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance. Spiritual transformation is a fundamental change in a person's spiritual life which results in transformation of our thoughts, desires, and actions.

How do missions programs and transformation come together? 

The process of transformation starts months before the airplane ever leaves the ground. As the missionary prepares for the trip, God is working in their heart to prepare them for the experiences they will have in a foreign country, as He is also preparing hearts there. And, in country, God is in control of who they meet, what they hear, and He gives them the very words to speak.

"Going on a short or long term mission trip changes, sometimes profoundly, the missionary and those whom the missionary visited, taught, and shared the Gospel."

Going on a short or long term mission trip changes, sometimes profoundly, the missionary and those whom the missionary visited, taught, and shared the Gospel. Without exception, every person we have spoken with after their return from a mission trip speaks of the impact the trip had on them, especially on their world view.

They talk about how their perspective on what is important in life changed from being self-centered and trivial to wanting to help others by sharing the love of Jesus Christ.

They talk about seeing and beginning to understand how people living in one room houses with dirt floors are happy with few material possessions but knowing that Jesus Christ gave his life for their salvation.

They talk about how much it means to those in far-away places and living in difficult circumstances, to meet Christian brothers and sisters who travel thousands of miles to show their love for them.

They talk about how God changed them during the trip by giving them the words they did not know ahead of time to speak while visiting a sponsored child.

Those returning from mission trips share about experiencing the love of Jesus as they worshipped side by side with local Christians in a small one room church, they explain seeing the profound joy in those they meet who recently accepted Christ as their savior even though they are still in dire poverty.

Most importantly, returning missionaries discuss seeing the transformation of the people they meet and visit first-hand. These missionaries may not be aware of their own personal spiritual transformation until they return home and start to recognize that they are different, that they have been changed. They may reflect on how their perspectives on the world have changed, how what they used to think was important is now trivial, and what is now important was not even thought of prior to their mission trip. Upon more reflection, they realize that there is a fundamental change in their personal relationship with God.

Returning missionaries often talk about the change in their heart that pushes them into new pursuits or new careers that are focused on caring for others or even becoming a full time missionary themselves. Lastly, they talk about the power of prayer, learning to pray with specificity, and learning to trust God to answer their prayers. What they all describe is their own spiritual transformation.

"Missions programs matter because people come to know Jesus as Savior and Lord and because they also are a catalyst to our own spiritual transformation."

Missions programs matter because people come to know Jesus as Savior and Lord and because they also are a catalyst to our own spiritual transformation.

Paul wrote in Romans 12:2

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

For many Christians, a mission trip is an opportunity to renew your mind, to alter your world view and your relationship with Jesus Christ. Is it time for you to go on a short term mission trip? MCC has multiple short-term missions trips planned for next year. For more information on those trips or any MCC Missions Programs, click here or contact Tom O'brien.