Twenty three years ago Mark and I took our two preschoolers and twelve pieces of luggage along with our brand new passports and one way tickets and boarded a plane for the great unknown—our answer to God’s call to transplant our lives in Brazil. It was no April Fools’ prank. It was the real deal. It was exciting and terrifying all at the same time. We had no (as in ZERO) language skills, had no idea where we would be living and could not even correctly pronounce the name of the city of our first assignment.

We were appointed as Career Missionaries with Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (now known as the International Mission Board, or IMB) in October of 1992. It took a couple of months for us to sort through, give away, sell, pack and crate our few worldly belongings, 8 weeks of orientation (as if anything could have prepared us for what we would actually face) and then several more months of waiting for visas before we actually arrived in country on April 2, 1993. And now here we are, twenty-three years later.

Much has changed, including our addresses (we are currently in our eighth place of residence), our official job descriptions,  missionary colleagues have come and gone, our national partners have changed, just to name a few.

Much remains the same, including our passion for evangelism and discipleship and our God given call to teach and equip workers for His harvest.

What have we learned so far?

• God has made the world’s wisdom foolish. The Bible tells us this in the passage from 1 Corinthians 1:18-31. Note verses 18 and 20b.

• God chooses to use what is foolish (in the eyes of the world) to bring Him glory. Note verses 26-31

1 Corinthians 1:18-31Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

Christ the Power and Wisdom of God

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved. 19 For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,and I will set aside the understanding of the experts.20 Where is the philosopher? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish? 21 For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the message preached. 22 For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. 24 Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom, 25 because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Boasting Only in the Lord

26 Brothers, consider your calling: Not many are wise from a human perspective,[not many powerful, not many of noble birth. 27 Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. 28 God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world—what is viewed as nothing—to bring to nothing what is viewed as something, 29 so that no one can boast in His presence. 30 But it is from Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became God-given wisdom for us—our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written: The one who boasts must boast in the Lord.

As we celebrate our “anniversary” of our leaving one home to make our home in another place, we remember these words from scripture. Maybe April Fool’s Day will be a reminder to you, as it is to us, that God is about something greater than we can imagine or envision.