The Reverse Missionary

*I read this a while ago and have wanted to share it!  Thank you Alise for sharing this message with me.  And now I share it with you, my friends. 

When I start thinking about missionaries, I think about people are sharing Jesus with people. A missionary is someone who knows the gospel message and whose life goal it is to tell that life-giving message to anyone who will listen. I’ve been in the Church long enough to know that you don’t have to go to Africa to be a missionary (though it totally helps your missionary cred), but missionaries have a group they’re out to make sure to tell the story to. The unsaved. 

I’m a Christian and my husband is an atheist.

So we all know who MY mission field is, right?

Yeah, not so much.

I’ve met a lot of atheists in the past two years and one thing I’ve found about almost all of them is that they know the story. They know who Jesus is, they know what Christianity teaches, they know what we believe. They’ve visited our churches, listened to our songs, read our holy book. The message is not the problem.

We are.

We, the Church. We who talk about grace, but are quick to cheer when the bad guy gets his. We who talk about talk about forgiveness, but would rather hold a grudge. We who talk about desiring persecution for His name’s sake, but make sure that we do our fair share of persecuting of “the other”. We who talk about God’s acceptance, but are loathe to share our filth with one another.

And I can look at this and point to all of the reasons why we suck, but I think it boils down to one thing. We don’t believe that God really and truly loves us the way he says he does. And when we don’t believe it, we can’t live it, not really. We serve a God can do “immeasurably more than we ask or imagine” and yet we place limits on how much he can love. We place them on ourselves and as a result, on others.

So my mission? To show love. God’s wide, long, high, deep, immeasurable love. Love that is wild and free. Love that reaches further than we can think, further than we dare to hope. Because when we get that, deep in our bones, we don’t have to worry about making sure people know the gospel.

For more from Alise, visit her blog “Alise… Write!”,

Lingo of the K—Quartet

Cheesy Weesy—Cheese-its

Octopus Pasta—small/skinny pasta

Purr-eee-to—Burrito

Par-ah-tay—Karate

Old Cars—Cars the Movie 1

New Cars—Cars the Movie 2

Shrek with the baby—Shrek Ever After

Shrek and the Dragon—Shrek 1

Woody and Buzz—Toy Story 1

Zurg—Toy Story 2

Woody and Buzz with the Bear—Toy Story 3

Life Saver—Light Saber

Con-fuk-shun worker—Construction workers

Ribble-ing—Dribbling

Star Wars: The Legacy Continues

I grew up on it.  I loved me some Luke Skywalker!  I know the deep desire to be able to ride on the Millennium Falcon.  I know the thrill of seeing Darth Vader for the first time!  However, here I stand, at close to 40 years old, and seeing my son fall in love with it for the first time is WONDERFUL.  He saw one of the “new” (AKA the sucky [personal opinion] ones that are the prequel) ones at my parents house and became OBSESSED with Darth Vader.  I searched for the “real” ones, and found out that since I don’t have a blu-ray player, I couldn’t just walk into a store and buy them.  Well, thank goodness for Amazon!  I bought all three for $40 and so K’s journey into Jedi-hood began!

Since I popped in Star Wars, A New Hope, he has been a Star Wars junkie. He carries his “life savers” (as he likes to call it) around the house (thank you B and R for buying him one—each) fighting the “bark” side.  Yes, my son has 2 of them!  He has a “vintage” Star Wars shirt that he loves to wear, even when it’s dirty.  He tries to talk in the Darth voice as much as possible (which can become annoying) and LOVES to “sing” the Darth Vader theme music even when Darth is not even on the screen.

All of these things are blasts from my past, and I love every minute of it.  I love that K REALLY likes some of the things that I liked when I was a kid.  I like that he is enchanted by space, spaceships, the Force, R2D2 (and by the way, I still have a stuffed R2D2 doll that my grandpa gave me when I was like 7), Ewoks, and yes, even Darth Vader!  Thank you Star Wars for what you are, what you have been and what you will continue to be in the house of Team Williams!

Unique Names

For those of you who know my son’s full name, you know that it’s unique.  I love it.  Well, I hope so, I gave it to him!  However, it seems as if, lately, I have had a slew of students with…distinctive names.  Honestly, they have been unique enough to make me want to blog about it.

—First we have Ciarrah.  It’s pronounced Sierra, but he mom wanted something different.

—Next we have Kristalle—I wanted to pronounce it like the Champagne, but nope, it’s just a regular Crystal. 

—I currently have a Mile-lissa (yes, there is a dash)—pronounced Melissa. When I asked her about it, all she said was that her dad’s name was Miles. Um, ok!

—I have a Demtrius, but he likes to go by Mark.  Oh, ok!

—I recently had a student names Susan, but she liked to go by Precious!

—I also had a student name Ia.  That’s it.  Nothing else.  No, it’s not short for anything.

—Then there was Jerlene.  Not too weird or unique, but kinda is.

—I had a student named Carmela but she liked to go by Kiki or Sunshine. Really???

—I had a student named Tonhetta

There are a few more, but sadly, I didn’t write them down to remember them once the class ended.  I don’t know if it’s just me being overly obsessed with names, what they mean and how people come up with such a name, but there you have it.