So why in the world are we still here?

So Why in the world are you still here? If you read our previous blog, you may be asking that very question. I will do my best to explain. After Velda and I began seeking the Lord together about being called to the mission field, we did what every good Southern Baptist does, we contacted the International Mission Board (IMB) of the Southern Baptist convention (SBC)and began applying for service with the division of the IMB known as the International Service Core.(ISC) (Gotta love those acronyms. "Hi, My name is Paul Rikel, I am part of the ISC with the IMB of the SBC." Just rolls off the tongue doesn't it?) Anyway, enough of that, The Morreaus were serving with the ISC/IMB/SBC so we pursued that same avenue because it was the only opportunity for people to serve who have had a divorce. So we made contact with them and filled out a few forms, prayed, prayed some more, waited, prayed while we waited...Then we got the news we had been waiting for. Only problem was, it was bad news. "Dear Mr. & Mrs. Rikel, Thank you for your heart for missions and intrest in the ISC of the IMB of the SBC. However at this time we are electing to cease the application process. We see that you and your wife have a history of divorce and we have found that divorce does not bode well in certain cultures. Thank you for your interest...etc." WOW! I must say that one stung a little. We had a ton of questions like "God, why would you put this call, passion, and heart for the people of Africa like this and then shut the door? Where in the Bible does it spell out "Thou shall not Be Missionaries if thy havest hadeth a divorceth? (Lil' rusty on my Kings English) What now?
Well, we went to Brother Dan, Jeff Wallace, Tommy and Cyndi, Wes and Laurie, and others and sought wise council. All of them told us the same thing, "Keep applying!" So that is what we did. We contacted the IMB and asked them to prayerfully reconsider our application. After a few days we received the news we had been eagerly awaiting.Once again it was bad news. I can not remember the exact wording but it went something like this, "Dear Rikels, Did you not understand the email we sent you a few months ago that said Noooooo? What part of Noooooo don't you understand? Don't make us tell you again!" You get the idea. (OK, i have to stop here and say we have the utmost respect for the IMB and harbor no ill feelings toward them whatsoever.) So what do we do now? Well I suggested we look into other missionary agency and we did check into a couple of others, but basically got the same reply, the divorce issue was a problem. On a side note, the ISC of the IMB was a 2 year commitment and after your term ended you had to reapply. Two years after we were turned down, the ISC program was suspended due to financial reasons and remains suspended today. God shut that door because that was not the right door at the right time.
So after a couple of rejections, we realized that yes, God had called us, but it just wasn't time yet. McKinley was in Junior High school and that is probably not the opportune time to move a child to a third world country and we realized God was wanting to do some things in our lives to prepare us before He sent us, so we prayed and waited. Over the next few years we returned to Zambia 3 more times. Each time we felt reaffirmed and fell deeper in love with the people there. In between trips we did anything we could to be an advocate for the people of Zambia and speak about them and missions to anyone who would listen.
After a while we began noticing God was moving us to make some changes in our lives. God basically started making us uncomfortable in our little world that we had become so comfortable in. I wont go into all those ways he was shaking us up, but I will tell you that the book Crazy Love really got us examining our lives. Not only that, but we felt like He was calling us to leave our big comfortable church. (Not that the church was comfortable, we had just become to comfortable in it.) That took some doing on God's part. But after seeking God for along while, it became clear He had another place of service for us.
At the beginning of this year we began visiting other churches. One of the churches we visited, and ended up joining, was Oak Grove Baptist Church. After our first couple of visits we began to feel that this may be the church God was calling us to, so we asked the Pastor, Michael Durham if we could meet with him one evening and ask him about the church and let him know a little about us. Early on in the conversation, we shared that we had been called to the mission field. Hey replied, "If I may ask? If you have been called to the mission field, why are you sitting here in my office?" Velda and I both looked at each other as if we new that was a very good question. We gave him the standard waiting on the Lord's timing answer, but we both sensed that the Lord was saying "It's Time." We talked about it and agreed that we needed to get the ball rolling. We had made contact with a ministry called World Venture a few months earlier and had made initial contact and they basically told us that we would be accepted by them, but for lifetime service with them, you have to have a bachelor degree with a year of Bible college. They even offered to give us a 2 year assignment and allow me to meet the education requirements while serving on the field. Velda and I discussed it and decided that sense we would have to rely on the financial support of other while on the field, we did not feel right about then having to pay for my education. So we came up with a plan. I would enroll at Mid-Continent in the Adult Advantage Program and get my degree. This would put us on a time frame of me finishing my education requirements about the time McKinley started his second year of college. He would stay here and we would go to Africa. Good Plan Right? Notice I said, "We decided, we discussed, we agreed"? Once again we were meeting with our Pastor for membership classes at Oak Grove. We told Him of our plan and he asked, "Are you going back to school because that is what man says you have to do or because that is what God told you to do?" Once again Velda and I looked at each other and realized we were making logical choices and not seeking God. That is when we earnestly began seeking the Lord's will and realized he was telling us to "GO". So we prayed about with who and believe we were led to SIM. They have a great organization and do a lot of work in Sub-Saharan Africa including Zambia, somewhere World Venture was not currently working.
With that being said, We have by no means been accepted yet. We may have the door shut any day. We realize that. In fact for us to get from here to the mission field will only happen if God does it. We are trusting Him. We are learning to listen to Him and not the world. We believe education is important and so does SIM. In fact I will probably have to take some classes tailored specifically for missions and cross culture evangelism but when i finish this term at Mid-Continent, I probably will not re-enroll. Instead, Pastor Durham has agreed to disciple and train me to help prepare us for ministry and I will probably take the classes recommended by SIM, online, in order to serve with them.
So why in the world are we still here? God wanted learn to trust Him more. And we have. In fact, we will have to trust him for everything if we Go with SIM. They do not pay us a salary, we will be totally relying on the support of ministry partners, friends, family and churches. He wanted us to start doing what we wanted to do in Africa in our lives everyday here in the U.S. He wanted to teach us some things about his sovereignty. He wanted us to be more mature in our faith and sound in our doctrine. He wanted us to learn to Let go and let God.
Stay tuned for; "why in the world would they want to know that?"

How in the world did this happen?

As many of our friends and family know, we are currently seeking acceptance from SIM missionary organization as full-time missionaries to Africa. You may be asking yourself, as am I, "How in the world did this happen?" Well, here is the story.
One fall Sunday night in 2006, I was sitting in church minding my own business when God did something I was not expecting. Isn't that just like Him? Anyway, I had sensed God preparing me for something for a couple of years, but was unsure what it was. I had been Director of men's ministry for our church and really had a heart for discipleship of men. I thought maybe God wanted me to write a book, or begin speaking at Christian men's events. Missions were not even on my radar. No, that was Velda. She was GA director and was always talking about missions, missionaries, going on trips, being a missionary someday. I remember thinking, "You go ahead, I got work to do right here." That was true, however God has work to do all over the world and I we were about to be a part of it.
That particular night, a vision team had returned from Zambia where Tommy and Cyndi Morreau, members of our church, were serving with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. (That is the IMB of the SBC. Baptist love them some acronyms!) Tommy was someone I very much looked up to, respected and admired for his walk with God and always considered him to be a mentor. So as the team was giving their report, I was listening to hear what our friends were up to in Zambia. Then they showed a video. Suddenly I was heartbroken for what i was seeing on the screen. Not heartbroken like you get when you see the feed the children videos of the starving kids in Africa, but a broken heart that can only be done by God opening my eyes and breaking my heart. I remember thinking "I am supposed to go to Africa! God, I cant go to Africa. Why me? But there was no denying it, He wanted me to go.
At the conclusion of the service, I told Velda "God wants me to go to Africa!" She looked at me and said "God is telling me to go to Africa! We both can’t go, someone has to stay here with McKinley!" We decided to talk to Jeff Wallace, Dir. of Global Outreach, about going on the upcoming trip to Zambia. After speaking with Jeff, two things were evident. One, we could not afford for one of us to go, let alone both. Two, I was the logical choice if one of us were to go. We expressed concern about the cost to Jeff and he assured us that if God was calling us to go, He would provide a way. We left the church that evening trusting God to provide for my way to Zambia. Later that night as Velda and I were laying in trying to go to sleep, I noticed Velda was sobbing. I asked her what was wrong and she said "I have to go to Zambia and love on those kids; I know it is what God wants me to do." Bottom line was, we were both going and we were going to have to trust God to provide for both of us. And provide He did, but that is a story for another time.
After months of planning, preparing, and praying we finally arrived in Zambia. We were blessed to be part of a great team made up of people from Lone Oak First Baptist and Friendship Baptist. The team was fantastic and having the Pastors of both churches on the team as well was awesome. We were working with Tommy and Cyndi as well as Wes and Laurie Wilcox, also IMB missionaries, in training local church leaders. I immediately hit it off with Wes and off course it was great to see the Morreaus as well. Bur more importantly, I could tell that God was doing something in and through me like I had never experienced before. As I preached, taught, and visited with the Zambians, I felt God's anointing like I had never felt before. For the first time ever I felt like I was doing what God had created me to do. Even Velda said that God's anointing was upon me visibly, that she had never seen me like that before. The whole time I kept asking God "Is this it? Is this what you have been preparing me for?" Over and over I sensed he was telling me "Yes". I knew I had to be cautious and not get caught up in the Spiritual high and let my emotions lead me so I had just concluded a lengthy story where I had completely retold the story of Joseph in Genesis and I had sat down as Wes had taken over the session and we were getting ready to dismiss and I began to pray "God, help me to know your will. If this is it let me know. Help me to see past my emotions to hear you. We dismissed as I was finishing my prayer. As I was walking out the door, I was stopped by a wonderful Zambian Chief named Bo Nelson. He was in his 90's and was just an amazing Christian man with a love for God and His word. As I passed by, he took me by the hand and looked into my eyes and said "Mr. Paul, You are truly a man of God. You are a great help to the people of Zambia." Now he may have said that to everyone he met, but i know that it was God's answer to my prayers and a peace came over me.
After 10 wonderful days in Zambia, We were on the plain waiting for takeoff and I was still trying to process everything that had happened. i had not told Velda of what I had experienced because i feared she would think I was just being led by my emotions, something I had been guilty of in the past. As the plain began to lift off the ground Velda and I sat quietly as tears filled our eyes and i looked at her and said "We will be back" and she replied softly "I know".
In the days following our return to the U.S., I had confided in our Pastor, Dan Summerlin, and with Tommy and Wes about what I had experienced while in Zambia. Tommy and Wes both said that they were not surprised and i believe one of them said they were expecting to hear from me about it. Dan was very encouraging and it meant a lot to me to have the support of my pastor and he helped me tremendously through the whole ordeal. One thing they all told me was to pray that God would call Velda as well and that way it would be our call and not just my call. So for the next couple of months I prayed that God would call Velda. I started to get frustrated and even began to question my call when she didn't seem to be hearing anything from God. So one day we are sitting in the swing in our yard having a cup of coffee, when Velda says "So what has been bothering you the past few weeks". I said "Nothing, why do you ask" (I lied) She said that she knew better and that I needed to talk to her. So I shared how I felt like God had called me to the mission field while we were in Zambia and that i had been praying she would here the call as well. She looked at me and said "God called me three years ago and I have been praying that he would call you ever since." Talk about the power of a praying wife, there you go!
Well, that's how in the world it happened. Ever since that time we have been waiting on the Lord's timing. Almost 5 years of waiting. Now we are hearing Him say "Go". Can't wait to see how He pulls this one off. More of that to come so stay tuned!