It’s Throwback Thursday! No, I will not be posting pictures of me as a little kid. I wouldn’t want to frighten you all off, or give you fuel for blonde jokes. (yes, I was blonde as a child) What I want to do is to tell our story from the beginning…it was dark, and I could hear my mother’s heart beat… Wait, not that beginning. The beginning of our journey into ministry. Tad and I had toyed around with the idea of doing something in missions full time for most of our married life, but never really believed it was possible. Of course, I would want to work in an orphanage and he is an airplane guy. The airplanes won. (they are bigger than orphans, I suppose) We even went to visit a school in Ohio that trains airplane mechanics for the mission field in around 2008. Tad is not a mechanic, and to fly for missions you must be both a mechanic and a pilot. Well, there were a lot of different reasons (including we had too much debt), so we shelved the idea of full time aviation missions at that time.
Then, God stepped in. The economy tanked, and everyone at Tad’s company was offered a majorly generous severance package. Apparently, Tad went to God in prayer about this and felt like he was to resign from his (good paying) position of 13 years, and take the severance. He came home one day and said, “I think God wants me to quit my job”. I replied, “Really? I think I will talk to God myself.” Then, I proceeded to ask God to be with Tad during his mid-life crisis and just show him the sports car he should purchase. It didn’t work. Instead, the Lord spoke to me that Tad should quit his job. OK, then. I was on my way to Jamaica for a mission trip with our eldest and my mom, and Tad had to finish wrestling with that decision on his own. While I was gone, he went up to work with the 3 younger kids to sign the paperwork to resign. I’m sure everyone there thought he was a total nut doing that when he obviously had kids to support.
When I returned home, we starting discussing what was in store for us next. Tad had an interest in teaching aviation full time (he taught adjunct for Embry-Riddle), and I suggested he look at Christian universities. So, I googled something like Christian Flight Schools, and the first thing that popped up was a school with YWAM (Youth with a Mission) in Colorado. Woah! We were all too familiar with YWAM. We were volunteer youth leaders and encouraged kids to do a YWAM training. Um, but we were not youth anymore, and we knew YWAMers didn’t get paid. Well, several days later, Tad got a weird e-mail. It was from a man we didn’t know sharing a video of his favorite preacher Francis Chan with his son-named Tad Henry. Tad did the nice thing and replied to the man that he had the wrong e-mail address, but we were believers and would watch the video. Then, we sort of forgot to watch it. Well, we then got another e-mail from this man to his son with the video attached. (his poor son must have been wondering why he never heard from his father). So, we decided we should actually watch the video. It was a preacher talking about selling all you have and following Christ. It really spoke to us! We knew then that it wasn’t just a wrong e-mail. It was God that wanted us to get that video. Yup. God e-mailed us.
Here is the link to that sermon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqCuembFu6E Warning! It could cause you to sell out, leave, home and do amazing things!
Six wings of fire 