Brisbane, Australia 2002. My first (and only) time kissing a kangaroo.
I'm not sure if the same can be said for the 'roo...he was way too willing!
I (Missy) have wanted to go to Australia since I was a child. As a young adult I grew serious about my faith and wondered if perhaps God was calling me there to do some sort of mission work. I didn’t necessarily know what that entailed (don’t missionaries live in grass huts? Do they even have grass huts in Australia?), but I knew Australia was near and dear to my heart and felt like it was worth investigating.
During my junior year at Murray State University, I took a semester off to do a Discipleship Training School (DTS) with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Brisbane, Australia. (In case you’re wondering, I get a commission for every acronym I use). My DTS was one of the most amazing times of my entire life. My faith was stretched in ways I never dreamt possible, and I developed deep, authentic friendships with people from all over the world. Perhaps most important was the confirmation of what I had always suspected: I love Australia for a specific, God-ordained purpose. I knew I was meant to come back to Australia, but had no idea when or how. It made sense that I would return to what I knew, so my intention was to finish my degree at Murray State and then return to YWAM.
While I was in Australia hearing God confirm my call, God began giving Andy similar instructions. To be clear, Andy and I were not dating at the time. We had dated prior to my departure, but we had broken up and didn’t really communicate much for the first several months of my trip. However, when I returned we got back together and prayed that God would show us the next step.
As Andy’s college graduation grew closer, he realized that he too needed to spend some time in the land down under. After he graduated, he did a DTS at YWAM Brisbane. Toward the end of his program, I flew to Brisbane for a month. While there we were able to get a better idea of what it would be like to join YWAM as a couple, working with the programs they were already running. After much prayer and counsel, we knew two things: God wasn’t finished with us in Australia, but YWAM was not the best fit.
Side note: YWAM Brisbane is a great organization that does good work. We have a ton of love and respect for YWAMers, but we just couldn’t see ourselves thriving there. Kind of like how I have a ton of respect for elementary school teachers, but could never, ever do their job. YWAMers are the elementary school teachers of my world. Except YWAMers probably don’t wipe as much snot. Anyway, I digress.
As you may have inferred, Andy and I came back from Australia and got married. We lived in Kentucky for a couple years before moving to St. Louis in 2007 to help start The Chapel, a concert venue/performing arts space/art gallery operated by Memorial Presbyterian Church. As a musician, Andy is always looking for ways to combine his faith and his art (in ways other than playing in the worship band). When we heard that Memorial wanted to construct a space where artists and musicians could feel served by the church, we were floored. We prayed about the decision to move, but it was mostly a no-brainer. What we didn’t know was how instrumental the city of St. Louis would be to developing our views on what ministry could look like in a western nation.
Stay tuned for part two, in which we explain the vision for The Chapel, our experience in St. Louis, and how we got connected with MTW. If you’re lucky, we might even tell you about the time Steve and B tried to feed us chicken feet!
Some of my fellow YWAMers and me at an outreach carnival we threw at the botanical gardens on Easter Sunday.
You can tell we take ourselves very, very seriously.
