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Simply Edify
Missions in Panama: Faith Across Borders
Beth Shields shares her family's journey as missionaries in Panama, including their unexpected path from Mexico, cultural adjustments, and ministry to indigenous communities in remote mountain regions.
• Third-generation missionary family serving in Panama for the past nine years
• Ministry focuses on discipling indigenous pastors in remote mountain communities
• Homeschooling four children (ages 9-18) while managing mission responsibilities
• Raising children on the mission field provides unique cultural awareness and ministry opportunities
Please pray for the Shields family's health concerns, and their ministry to indigenous communities.
Hello and welcome to Simply Edifies podcast. Our goal is to encourage women as we navigate the messiness of life through biblical studies, personal stories and practical tips that bolster our walk with Jesus daily. Thank you for joining us in our episode today.
Speaker 2:We are going to continue our series on missions here and we have Beth Shields here from Panama to talk to us about their life on the mission field. So thank you for joining us, beth, and I look forward to learning a little bit more about your work myself. I know Esty is familiar, more familiar with you guys.
Speaker 3:I have got to meet Beth and her beautiful family I. They came to our church a while back and our church got to go to Panama and a missions trip. I did not get to go but fun fact I don't know if you know this, beth I got entire week off of school as a teacher because so many of our staff came to see you that we had a whole week off, which was very enjoyable for us.
Speaker 3:I would have rather been with you guys, but we also have a lot of mutual friends, and why don't you tell us about just your ministry background and your family? Just give everybody else a little bit of an idea of who you are and what you guys are doing.
Speaker 4:So I'm Beth Shields, my husband is Ethan and we have four kids Elena, Noah, Sophia and Julia and they're all about to have birthdays soon and they're all going to range from 18 down to nine, and my husband is a third generation missionary. His mom was raised on the mission field in Mexico, he was raised in Mexico and then we have been missionaries living full time on the mission field since 2012. We were in Mexico for several years and then we've been in Panama now for the last nine.
Speaker 3:Wow, I did not know that about Mexico. I did not know. So, was that just something like as soon as you guys met, you knew you guys were going to be back on the mission field. That had always just been kind of Ethan's plan.
Speaker 4:He just felt since he was in his late teens that God was kind of leading him back to Mexico and everything. So when we first were like getting interested in each other and stuff, and he kind of let me know, literally said, I like you and it, and if I, and if I like you, I would want to like, date you and maybe even marry you. I just need you to know I'd be serious about this, because we've both been in serious relationships before and he's like, and so just need you to know that, like I would be, I want to go back to Mexico as a missionary and that's a hard life. Are you up for that? Like this is what you would be signing up for if we go down this road. And the Lord had already been working in my heart about some different things and I didn't know if I'd ever end up on the mission field or not. But I was totally open to it and I'd already been learning Spanish for several years just because I didn't know I was going to use it at all. But I'm very thankful for all that time I was learning it before I had to come and use it and stuff. But so, yeah, we knew that that's what we wanted to do and originally we were going to go and work with his parents for a while and then kind of move down on our own and work in a different place.
Speaker 4:And God changed a lot of different things and so we went to a place further South in Mexico right from the beginning and we tried for several years to do everything we're doing here in Panama but do there and the Lord was just shutting, door after door after door after door, and I think it was definitely a from point A to point B to get you to point C.
Speaker 4:But there's a lot to do at point B while you're there. And, um, some of the friends that we made, some of the people that we saw saved, are still people that we love and talk to on a regular basis and everything. And it's so neat to see their life changed by the gospel and know that we had a part in that. And you know, you don't always have to see the effects of why God asks you to do something or doesn't lead necessarily in a straight path, but it's always a nice reminder that even when it doesn't seem like things are working the way that you think they ought to work, or going as quickly as you think they ought to go, that God's working and using you for a reason along the way.
Speaker 3:That's really interesting. Well, when we were talking to Melissa on our last podcast, her story was very different, but also similar. It didn't. It wasn't just a direct leap into their final destination. It was a lot of time that was leading up to it, but it was purposeful. Um, but just. It's not always, you know, from point a to point b, just nice and clear. So that's interesting. What were you gonna say?
Speaker 2:um so like from mexico to panama. How did that happen? How did that like like leap happen?
Speaker 4:well, that was very much a a totally god thing, because we try to keep it really short. But so we, we built an airplane. While we were doing deputation stuff, my husband built an airplane, knowing that that's. We wanted to use it to be able to reach the places that maybe didn't have roads to them or didn't have electricity into them. They weren't easy to get to, kind of a thing just really off the beaten path. And so we were in Mexico and, like I said, god closed many, many doors, very specifically with aviation and all this kind of stuff, and so we knew that he was changing our path entirely somehow, and we ended up and put the airplane up for sale as a very clear okay, god, you're going to have to do whatever you want to do with this. And if it was only to teach us the things that we've learned and to now, if we sell the airplane, have this money to invest in a property and a church we'd already been like serving an entire city and where we were going to put a church in an area that didn't have one and all this kind of stuff put the airplane up for sale and within a few days we get a phone call and this guy loves it, wants to buy it, and he was really like this is great, the price, full asking price and everything. And he was really like this is great, the price, full asking price and everything.
Speaker 4:But at the same time, while Ethan's talking to this man, we got an email and I'm telling I'm in the back going because the our, a friend, a mutual friend, had your brother, ethan's, all of Ethan's siblings are in the ministry as well. They're on the mission field in Mexico and in Aruba and everything. And he's he was a friend of his and he's like I just got back from taking a group of university students on a missions trip to Panama and I'm a pilot too and I'm telling you I think God could use you in your airplane here in Panama. And we were like no, don't want to do that, that's not on our bingo card for this year, kind of a thing, and but we couldn't forget about it, we couldn't forget about it, we couldn't forget about it. And he, basically we, we met up with him, we talked to him and all this kind of stuff, and I just started crying because I didn't want to go. We had a plan, we were working the plan kind of a thing, and I don't do well with changing plans, obviously, but this was a really big change plan.
Speaker 4:My life was very steady until we got married and went to the mission field. Right, lived in the same house my entire life until we got married, and then I knew it was going to be an adventure. I just didn't know how much big of an adventure, right. So we ended up and we're like, ok, we're going to go to Panama and we're going to check this out, but there has to be a yes to every single thing or we're not going to invest years, money, time, whatever into all of this just to see the same thing happen. That happened in Mexico. And we came and we got yes after yes after yes after yes, open door after open door after open door.
Speaker 4:The missionaries that he came to visit here are missionaries from Costa Rica and just doctrinally lined up the exact same way, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:And so within a few weeks we were back in Mexico, we were packing up our stuff, we were having a yard sale, and then we headed back to the States for a year of furlough and then we moved down here and things haven't gone near as quickly as we would have liked, obviously, but even now we see the reasons why God's been doing it at the pace he's been doing it, and and I have to keep telling myself that, even if things never work out the way that I think that they should work out, they're still working out the way he wants them to. And so just trying to be patient and then also just be in the moment, ministry is not all those things that we're planning to do, all those things that we want to do or that we think God wants us to do, or whatever. It's in the moment, it's in the everyday, it's with the people that we already have here with us that is such a great reminder for everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So what was your hesitation with, with going to panama? Was it, um, just because it was different, or was there something in particular that made you nervous about that area?
Speaker 4:no, it was just more very unknown, and I didn't want to make a giant move again. And we, when we moved, I was, let's see our youngest no, our youngest, our third child was just under two years old when we left Mexico and then that year of furlough and then came here, and so I think I just was in the throes of I'd gone through some postpartum depression and I think that was really affecting a lot of everything. I didn't want to this. I didn't want to do this. I wanted to do this thing that was going to settle us and I was going to be happy, because where we were living in Mexico was two and a half hours away from the city, so it was two and a half hours away from our pediatrician.
Speaker 4:It was two and a half hours away from the city, so it was two and a half hours away from our pediatrician. It was two and a half hours away from large grocery stores, from a dentist that did more than a few things, you know that kind of stuff, and so I think we already had contacts there. We already had people that we were doing Bible studies with and everything in the area, and so I think it was just more the fact that I wanted that stability and I didn't want to uproot my entire life again to go somewhere else. But it's definitely something that God wanted us to do and I'm so thankful we did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. I mean, I think back to when April and I had so many toddlers amongst us running around and there were things that just was. It just seemed like too much. You know so many things, but like too much, and I can only imagine trying to wrap my brain around an entire move to a brand new country and yeah, even the furlough. I was just thinking of you guys on furlough traveling with a two-year-old and that's a lot yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it really is. Now that we're here and we're settled and stuff, it's been a lot nicer because we only go back all of us if there's something else to go to. If the church is going to fly all of us in we'll go, obviously, or if there is a family wedding or something really important that we all need to go to, then we've all gone before. My mom passed away from cancer several years ago and so we went and we spent several months with her before she passed away and stuff like that. But for the most part now, with the kids all being bigger, it would be easier to go. But now school, school. It's really hard to stay up in school and so we've been just doing smaller trips or Ethan's been going by himself, and that's been so much nicer. What do your kids do for school? Bob Jones University Press. Okay, so you do homeschool them? Yeah, we do homeschool. There are some good schools here in Panama. There are, but there are none in our area. There are several public schools. They're just not as nice as some of the other school districts that are around and yeah, so I'm very, very, very thankful for the opportunity to homeschool our kids, even though it might drive me insane some days. I am very thankful for it.
Speaker 4:There was a lady in the church that I grew up with that I just love to pieces. She was she is the best thing ever and she told me that she thought I'd be a good teacher and I had to interview her for something before I left high school. And she said she grew up in the mission field and she said that she had studied to be a teacher in case God ever called her back to the mission field, that she would be more equipped to teach her own children because she had been sent off to like a boarding school. And I thought that's really cool. I guess that's really practical and that's why I studied to be a teacher is because of her. And it's been so nice, because I don't always feel adequate anyway with all the things that I'm doing with the kids, but at least I feel a little bit more prepared.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really cool. I figured you probably did, but I wasn't 100% sure. Your whole life has been a little uprooted recently with the house moving and everything, but I can imagine trying to be in traditional school would be very difficult right now oh yeah with your kids, like how do they do like with the different culture?
Speaker 2:I mean, they've been, you've been there for a while now. I'm sure they've kind of gotten adjusted and all the things. But how, how is that?
Speaker 4:um, in some ways we are still different. We're always going to be really different, and partially because the kids have gone back and forth to the States a lot in their lives, but for the most part we're all really used to living here. My youngest is the one who was born here. She is definitely very much from here in a lot of ways because she when we first got so for those who don't know we just built a house finally and we just moved in about a month ago and now we have air conditioning for the first time in forever and my youngest-.
Speaker 4:It took forever to get used to the air conditioning. She was so cute. We have it set at. It's probably, I think, 76-ish, something like that. I don't know what the equivalent is, but Anne, she's always like Mommy, Mommy, I am so cold. Do we have long sleeves or a blanket somewhere? So she's definitely my Panamanian baby. We went to Mexico last year to visit my in-laws because it was their 50th wedding anniversary and like a ministry anniversary as well, and so the thing was the whole family got together, from all the different countries, all got together, and it was amazing and she the youngest, she just struggled with the food, Like she liked it okay, but she kept going can't we just have like some plain rice and beans? And they eat a lot of rice and beans in Mexico too, but it just wasn't the same kind and she just was like I just miss the food from home.
Speaker 3:So yeah.
Speaker 4:They're so cute.
Speaker 3:Can you say again what someone from Panama is called? You said she's your. Yeah, I don't think I would have said that. I think I would have said. I don't know what I would have said now, but that just struck me like I. It just sounded different than I was expecting. That's so funny. I wish my children would ask for rice and beans chicken nuggets.
Speaker 2:I think her and my son would get along, because he loves rice, but which he does. He didn't love rice until we moved to hawaii and they have a lot of rice here, like a ton of rice, like you can get rice as a side at mcdonald's instead of fries. Yeah, he loves rice, it's just all.
Speaker 3:So what was the hardest thing, like culturally? I know you you had spent time in Mexico so you'd already had one kind of culture change what? What was the hardest thing coming to Panama for you?
Speaker 4:I don't know, I mean you know, I think for me, because the only two places I'd ever spent a lot of time obviously was the US, where I grew up, and then Mexico. But Panama is very much a mix of both of those cultures for me, because it's the Latino culture, but yet Panama has such a history with the United States that there's a lot of American influence, and so there's a lot of things that I was really familiar with which was really nice to come to. We can still find certain Mexican products or even certain American products, which is really nice. So where we lived and where my husband grew up are both like cold climates in Mexico, and so people there typically build their houses and everything much bigger, because they're going to live inside their houses and try to stay warm inside their houses, and so they're very warm and inviting, like they invite people in and people just come by and will knock and come and visit and all that kind of stuff, and here it's not really like that at all. It's very, very, very hot. So people here the cheapest way to build is block walls and a tin roof, no insulation of any kind, and so it's always really, really hot inside the house. So people build their houses a lot smaller, but then they have, like maybe, a larger porch or they'll just make an outdoor area, or even they'll go to the point where they're just going to cook outside. They'll have like an outdoor kitchen, you know, where they just cook with firewood and cook outside and everything, and so there isn't near as much of a invite you in kind of a culture here.
Speaker 4:So it kind of took us a little while longer to get used to that that people. People seemed at first not as friendly, but that's because we were used to people being friendly and inviting in a different way. People here are friendly and inviting. It's just in a different way than we had expected it, and so it took us a long while to see that. But there's just a lot of little things that are different.
Speaker 4:When, like when people are upset about something or they want something, people will get a group, whether it's like 10 people or whether it's a couple hundred people and they'll go out to the Pan American Highway.
Speaker 4:It's the only road that runs east to west through Panama, because Panama is narrow and skinny and you've got the Atlantic Ocean, you've got the mountains and then you've got the Pacific Ocean, and so there's really only one place really, that the road can go, and so people will go up to the highway and they'll block it, and that can last anywhere from 30 minutes to the longest we've had was six weeks and you can't get in and out of town.
Speaker 4:No supplies come in, anything like that, and that that was really frustrating because it sometimes it doesn't happen for months and then other times it happens, like I said, nonstop for weeks, or it'll happen every couple of days or and so it was really hard to find that balance between stocking up on different things but not taking it to an extreme, or like stocking up and being prepared for all those kinds of things, but then not freaking myself out and hyperventilating about the fact that, oh my goodness, I can't get out, as if I had some weird trauma in the past about that, you know, or whatever. But um, it just really it really has been something that's been kind of hard to get used to yeah, that would be for sure.
Speaker 3:I get claustrophobic just watching, like whenever there's a hurricane in florida or something like that and the traffic is blocked, I panic. I don't live anywhere near there. There's like 10 roads beside. I could go five different directions from my house, you know. But that stresses me out just to watch those like news updates. So I I can see why that would be very, very frustrating. And you gave me a little bit of geography lesson because I haven't really thought too much about how animals laid out, so that was so interesting too.
Speaker 2:You understand, like hawaii is a little bit like that too, isn't it april as far as, like the roads are kind of yeah, there's like um, basically like two I guess, if you count the other one is three but three main roads here in oahu. So it is kind of one of those like the traffic gets backed up like crazy and there's certain times where you're just like I'm not even going to bother, I'm not going to go anywhere, but no, not like the aspect of people protesting type thing. But yes, definitely with you know, you're kind of trapped, you're like, oh well, I guess that road's no longer able to be used. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So do you is the area where you live, somewhere that you drive most of the time Do you walk mostly?
Speaker 4:It's mostly driving. Everything here is a little bit more spread out because we are not in the city. So Panama City is about five, six hours to the east of us, and then one of I don't know if it's the second or third largest city in the country is about an hour west of us, and so we're in a really rural area. We're in a cattle province. A lot of cattle, a lot of rice, a lot of just anything that they can grow and cultivate. This whole area does that.
Speaker 2:So what are the people like in a more rural area as opposed to the city area, like do you have different struggles, I guess, as far as like reaching them, as than you would with in the city, or is it kind of not much of a difference?
Speaker 4:I do think it is kind of different because we do have several friends, because we go to we go to the city that's nearest us on a pretty regular basis for different things or for doctors or the hospital. Is there that kind of a thing? And the poor of the person? It seems to us in our experience that they just seem to be more open, typically to the gospel, because they know they have needs. You know, or the people a lot of people that we work with are so poor that they're used to asking for help and so when it comes to you know, the gospel and this and that and the other, they realize, oh, oh, I have a problem and I need Christ. Yeah, that tracks Like I have a lot of problems in my life.
Speaker 4:I have needs, yeah, okay, but the more money that people have, it seems like they're more closed off to that thing because they feel like they can probably fix it themselves. They're more used to getting solutions, like paying for solutions or or you know that kind of a thing. I don't know if that makes any sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure, definitely Jesus dealt with that. So so, yeah, it makes sense. But I know when our church was down there they said um, specifically like the ladies, when they were speaking with the ladies they loved the girl ladies very much, um, but they said they don't typically like open up very easily.
Speaker 4:yeah, they're pretty quiet um until they get to know you really well.
Speaker 4:Now it's a lot different. Now it's like they'll share or they'll hug or this or that and the other. But when you try to because we so we have a main church that we work with our Costa Rican coworkers he's the pastor of the church and then my husband's the assistant pastor, and that kind of allows us to be able to go out and minister into a whole bunch of churches that are up in this indigenous reservation to the north of us. And so anytime we go into these different churches up in the indigenous reservation and stuff and try to, you know, have different classes or whatnot, when it's one of the first times that they're seeing me or even my husband or something, they, they really they don't participate very much. They really they don't participate very much. They don't, they don't talk a whole lot. Of course, the further that you go into the mountains too, though, the less Spanish that they know. They speak their native language and stuff like that. So that also has to do with it a little bit as well.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:How often do you guys go up into those different areas with the more native speaking peoples and stuff?
Speaker 4:It really just depends. Our summer here is from January through May and then the rains start and then the rains run through December pretty much. So we typically are up there a lot more in the summertime just because you can get there on the roads a lot better. Some of the roads are paved, a lot of the roads are paved, a lot of the roads are not, and then a lot of the places past that don't have roads at all, and so we go up a lot more during the summer and then they have like a pastor's Bible Institute.
Speaker 4:Every two weeks or so my husband's involved in an association of pastors and stuff like that, and so just trying to disciple these pastors a little bit more, because a lot of them are pastors because they were willing and because they had been saved longer than other people had been saved, and so when this group of you know believers wanted to pastor, they're like, well, he should do it because he's been a Christian the longest or something like that. So that's one of the main focuses that we have is just trying to really help educate them and to ground them in sound doctrine and stuff. And then occasionally my husband will go and he will drive in as far as he can park his truck, walk, spend the night with one of the pastors at their village, and then he'll go on. He'll walk all the next day to go on to other places and then they'll hold like a big conference or something and he'll stay for a good four days, maybe a week sometimes, and he'll they'll do classes and stuff up there.
Speaker 4:Those are the ones that I do not go to. I cannot, I am. I am not a walk through the wilderness kind of a missionary wife.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I couldn't imagine especially. I mean, I've not done extensive research on the animal life and insect life of Panama, but I could imagine that it would be pretty interesting. It's not stuff that I would want to deal with.
Speaker 4:That's one of the things. Like we have the Fertilance, it's one of the deadliest snakes in Latin America and they're very prevalent up there in the mountains and stuff, and so the indigenous people have a lot of beliefs about snakes. That's how many snakes there are. A lot of their native religion beliefs are based around snakes, so it's not a place I like to be, very often off of the beaten path, you know. Oh, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:So when he's out there, do you have any?
Speaker 4:communication with him we do now. Um, when they would first start, when he would first start going and stuff, we didn't near as much. But now the government's made a lot more effort in the last six, five, six years to put internet like starlink in the schools and stuff in these communities. So kids might have to walk hours from multiple communities to get to a larger one, but there they will have internet access and stuff like that and so he's never been further than about an hour walk from internet access, which is really nice. So because those first few trips I was, I was a lot more of a mess, but now that he can kind of talk to me at different times he just has to get to the school and access the internet. It's really nice.
Speaker 3:When you said four days to like a week, I'm like okay. So she's sitting there like I don't know when. I'll see him again sometime maybe. Yeah, that's not my forte.
Speaker 4:I am a worst case scenario a lot of times person.
Speaker 3:I can relate with that I'm not, but I probably would be in that situation. So do you think? I know one of the questions that we had kind of written down was just being a mom on the mission field. Do you think that there's well, I'm sure there are what are some challenges or something that you've learned about just motherhood? That might be different from your perspective. I think.
Speaker 4:Well, I don't know if this is it, but I've. One of the things that I really like is that just by me having had to learn a second language, it really has opened up a whole new world to me with understanding the Bible, just understanding words more in depth and this and that and the other, and I think that's been really great for my kids as well, to grow up around multiple cultures, because we have Mexican family my three oldest were born in Mexico and some of my in-laws are Mexican and so we have a Mexican family and we live here in Panama and we have Costa Rican co-workers and we have so many, so many different nationalities in our little tiny town that it's just really opened up a whole different world for them that I didn't have growing up in rural Ohio and I just think it's been really neat. We wanted the kids to be born in Mexico because we knew we were going to Mexico as missionaries anyway, and so we wanted the kids to be born there to give them another passport, because Americans are allowed so many places in the world but not everywhere, and so I don't know what the Lord's going to do with them eventually. But I love that they have the opportunity through the different passports that they have, but also just through the upbringing that they're having to. You know, do whatever the Lord might have them do, and it might just be to go back to the States and be faithful in church, and that would be great too.
Speaker 4:Just keep trying to tell the kids that they there's nothing specific that they have to do, but that they just need to follow the Lord, and I love seeing how the different opportunities though here on the mission field and ministry and stuff has just given them more of a love for the ministry, and the older that they get, the more they want to be involved, and I love that because of the necessity of having needing more, you know, sunday school teachers or whatever.
Speaker 4:My oldest daughter has been teaching Sunday school for a couple of years now, and now my son, who's the next oldest, he is start, he's going to start getting involved and both of them will teach classes. When we go up into the mountains to churches, they'll do kids classes and stuff like that. Anytime that we host groups, they're translators and it'll take people, you know, to go out shopping and they'll help them barter and things like that, and so I don't even know what it would be like to be a mom in the States, because I wasn't really for very long at all, but I just think that it's been so neat having an entirely different worldview than I grew up with Not that the one I grew up with is bad at all, but just I just feel like it's so much more open and I think that that's been really awesome for me to get to experience, but then also really great for the kids.
Speaker 3:I don't know if that answered your question at all, but no, definitely it does, and I think anytime kids can see a world that's bigger than themselves and bigger than what their comfort zone, it's good for them and benefits them in the long run. My, my daughter just went on. It's so funny. She went on a missions trip and people go, oh where did you go? And she goes Tennessee.
Speaker 3:Oh, but our church did send a group, our youth went to Tennessee to help with like a vacation, bible school and just like helping a ministry out um. But they got to also go into like memphis and see, just see things that she would have never like, just experienced things she would have never experienced before. And even just helping um. I got a lot of pictures of her like mopping and and weed eating and it's just like it's just a couple states over. But even that I'm like I know that just that little bit of her mind being open to more is going to benefit her and seeing the need for service. It's not just our church, it's everywhere, everybody there's a spot for everyone to do something.
Speaker 4:And two, you know you're talking about her mopping and doing all those things like that is service, that is ministry. You know, I think a lot of people come down here sometimes thinking that they're going to do wonders and thunders, um, and they end up and they do a lot of grunt work, or you know they'll, they'll help us pull weeds or they'll help us run the mower or whatever the thing is, and but it's just because this is our life, this is just normal life too, but because life is the same everywhere to a point, and yeah, we still have to mop, we still have to do all those things, and it's, you know, not to glorify it just because it's here or anything like that. But but yeah, I mean, all of those little things are service. We all need to be serving and that's. That's great that she got to see that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I just feel like, when you were saying that, like that's such a bigger, broader scope and the language thing, I think is really good, and I wish I had personally learned another language. There's just I did, I did Spanish in high school, but that's about it, so it's good for your brain. If nothing else, it's just good for your brain. There's a lot of people there's a lot of people at hope's point though, um, who are trying to learn spanish right now, just so you know good, so have to come back. Yeah, they were inspired, so, um, I don't know what they're saying, but I know they're working on it I appreciate that that point of view as well, especially with military.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's kind of a same similar thing that I have with my kids, like experiences that. Like, like you were saying, I grew up in New York like one place, one house, one you know, permanent location, my whole life, and that's not the experience that my kids have and I'm, you know, I can see just a lot of different, uh, positive things that come. There's negative too, but positive things that have come from having a broader scope.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so what are, what are some ways that we can specifically pray for you and your family?
Speaker 4:Uh, definitely some health things. I am going through a whole lot of random health things that all stem back to, like genetic connective tissue disorder thing that we found out that I have some answers, which is really nice. But also, now that we know that they have it too, it's good to help them figure out how to pace themselves and not hurt themselves and whatever. But also my youngest she's about to turn nine. The doctor thinks that she might have a tethered spinal cord. She's just had a lot of pain and a lot of problems and um and stuff, and so we're trying to get into a neurologist for her. We're trying to get into a neurologist for me too, for migraines and stuff like that. So we just have a whole lot of random health issues that we're trying to take care of.
Speaker 4:But, um, the healthcare system here is really different. And my youngest does have access to the public health care system because she's a citizen and it would be free. But public health care, it's great that it's free when they can actually see you. If they actually see you, if they don't just put you off and let you die and all the horror stories that we know with friends here and stuff like that you have to start lining up before the sun comes up and all this kind of stuff. So we're not going to do that with her. But that means that we have to go to a private hospital, which is obviously more expensive than free. And the nice thing is is we don't have to go through a general doctor, get a referral and go to somebody else and get a referral, like we don't have to do anything like that. But but then that means that we have to. We'll figure out which one that we want to go to. We have to find it ourselves, we have to. Okay, we've seen this doctor. Now let's keep all of that health information. Now we've got to go to this doctor and we're going to take all that health. Like there's nobody necessarily central to go back to um, or at least not in our case, and so it's just kind of a hard thing to deal with um on top of everything else that we're dealing with.
Speaker 4:So definitely for the health stuff going on, and then just also for extended family. We have extended family on both sides that are dealing with some pretty heavy health situations and personal situations that are just really heavy on us. You know you hate they can't be there for everything, and I know it doesn't matter where you live, you can't be there for everything, but I hate that we can't be closer than everything. But speaking about a little bit of that, I am actually going to Ohio here in just a couple of days.
Speaker 4:My dad is moving to be near down near my brother. He's going to be moving to a couple of states away, so I am going to go. I'm going to go do all that I get to see my grandparents, which is really nice. They're going to celebrate their 70th anniversary, so it'll be a good trip. It's going to be kind of a hard trip but cause we're selling the house that I grew up in, that stability that I had, so but um, but it's good, it needs to happen, it's the best, it's the best for my dad and and everything like that. It's just still kind of going to be a heavy trip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, are you going by yourself? Are you taking any of the kids or?
Speaker 4:I'm going to go by myself. I'm going to be gone for about three weeks and again, the whole school thing. They just got to keep up on school, exactly. The nice thing with homeschooling is is that we take breaks when we need to, and so we kind of homeschool year round, and then, whenever we have groups come, we take some time off. We take off independence days for all of the countries that we belong to, kind of a thing, and birthdays. I mean. If we can choose our days off, why not? So? But that means that no one's going with me and they just have to stay here and do school, so they're not too thrilled about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, those are some pretty pretty heavy prayer requests. I know health issues are frustrating, let alone having to deal with such a healthcare situation as far as that stuff is concerned. So we will definitely pray for you all on that, those points. And also, um, I know we asked Melissa too, but we would like to ask you guys if somebody would like who's listening, would like to give you a financial gift, um, or something like that. Is there some sort of a way we could like put a link to a place or whatever where we can send them to if they would like to do that?
Speaker 4:We don't have like a PayPal or Venmo or anything like that, but we do have online giving through our mission board. So yeah, that'd be awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, we will post that, that, and I just want to say thank you again for being willing to sit and talk with us, and I really appreciate it. I enjoy learning more about your mission there and it seems like you, our guys, are really doing a great work there, and it's I mean just being able to go out and reach those people, groups that are, you know, like you were saying, off the beaten path and stuff. That's amazing and, yeah, we'll definitely continue to keep you in our purse. Thanks, I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you, and we will see you guys next time.
