I remember my mother asking me as a boy, “Don’t you want to become a missionary like your father?”  I also remember my very direct and clear answer:  “No.”  At the time we were living in Beirut, Lebanon, and my observations of other missionaries working there did little to encourage me towards a missionary occupation.  Regardless of whether my observations were correct or not, they did shape my thinking about missions for the next decade! Actually I never “became” a missionary.  Since I never wanted to be one, it must be an act of God that I ended up on the mission field at all!  It started on a vacation to Britain in 1975 when I visited a church in North Yorkshire called Hollybush Christian Fellowship.  The church met on a farm near Thirsk, and they were in the middle of revival.  I yearned for the very spiritual life they exhibited.  As a result I went to England for God to heal, encourage and revitalize my own life.  I never thought of it as “missions”.  Following the call of God - according to our pastor Jim Wilkinson, was to “go where He wants you to go, to be what He wants you to be.”  Simple, yet profound.  So when Jan and I moved to Germany, we still didn’t consider ourselves missionaries, but just simple people wanting to do the will of God wherever that was.  (I was actually surprised to discover: that’s what a missionary is!)