“Since fourth grade, I felt the calling to be an overseas missionary. I viewed missionaries as people who are out in the world to help people who have no hope. They get to speak to them and show them God's love. I just remembered a moment when God spoke to me and said, “I want you to do that” and I just kind of went "Okay, awesome, sounds like fun.”

I went to our North Africa base. I loved it; I loved all of it. I loved the local team that I got to work with in North Africa, they were just amazing people. I feel undeserving that I got to meet those people and feel incredibly blessed, beyond any reasonable understanding or reality of it. Also getting to experience this with the teammates I went with was very special.

When we had the chance to spend time in one local family's household, there was a pinnacle moment for me, specifically. It was very much a Muslim household. We stayed predominantly with the mother of the house. She was great and took on very quickly to us referring to her as mom or mama all the time. She treated us like we were her children and we also got to spend time with her two actual children. The husband was there only occasionally because he worked a lot.

They had distant family members, or at least what we would refer to as distant family members, like mothers-in-law, sisters-in-law like cousins, and their children.[...] They would randomly show up and we're just like, “Oh, were y'all expecting them to be here?” And it was like, “No, they just came by.” 

Getting to see the close-knit family aspect for them had a huge impact on my life personally because I do not have that kind of experience inside my family. My nucleus family is scattered, so we don't see each other often. Then, aunts, uncles, and grandparents are even more scattered. We'll spend years without being able to see each other.

Being able to see a family that is so deeply connected and bound to each other was a blessing that I didn't intend on experiencing. I don't think any person could have prepared me, even if they had said, “Hey, so you're going to go on this three-month journey to learn what it is to be like a missionary, and you're also going to experience a close-knit family that is entirely foreign to you.”

Being able to see a family that is so deeply connected and bound to each other was a blessing that I didn't intend on experiencing. I don't think any person could have prepared me

That entire week was just such an amazing series of days, even things like cleaning and cooking for our new mother. The daughter was very confused to see a guy willingly in the kitchen cooking, because it did not make sense in her head. The daughter got a kick out of the idea of just enjoying listening to music as much as I did, or dancing boggled her mind. The older women also found great joy in the things I did, especially the mother-in-law, who was basically like a grandmother. I think every time she saw me in the kitchen, either cleaning or washing dishes, she would just laugh, every single time. She also quickly adopted us into her home.

There was a moment I finally realized, ” this is a heavily Muslim home”. Islam impacts everything they do [...] yet, I could still feel the impact of the teams that have been there before us. [...] Being able to be present there, in spite of it still being a heavily muslim household, there was a feeling of God's peace still there. As if you could tell that there had been groundwork done here. Other groups that spent weeks here have somehow left a spiritual marker here. You could tell the difference and it just made me appreciate the time I had with that family even more. 

My heart ended up breaking slowly after leaving. Then, as we continued with the program, I started to realize how often my mind would just go back to that family that we had spent time with.[...] Even now, months later, I find myself thinking so many times about that family and how much they welcomed us into their home.

I think about a conversation I had with the mom. After asking me about my family life and being raised without a dad, she started to break down and told me about her difficulty of losing her father. And how her brother was out of the picture at the moment. He had become the new father figure and it was breaking her heart that he wasn't as involved as she wanted him to be, but she didn't feel like she could talk to anyone about it. I remember at that moment realizing that there was so much weight on this woman's heart. She was speaking to a complete foreigner who barely understood the language that she knew. We used a lot of Google Translate, but she was being so vulnerable towards me. I knew this was significant, but then talking with the Cafe 1040 overseas staff there later, they were bewildered that that even happened. They all said, "That's just not common, just in general, to cry in front of anyone. You are a stranger, but you are also a man, and she was a woman." 

I remember hearing that and realizing that the only reason that she even felt so comfortable with me was because she knew that I was a part of this group of people who had been in her house before and we were from a reputable source. We were from the same people, the same North Americans that she had experienced year after year, and she knew that we weren't going to be like other tourists who she might have had experiences with. We were people who genuinely cared about her. I can still visually see that moment in my head so clearly, and it just shatters a part of me every single time. I could not be more grateful for having even just that experience. 

A week later,  I was mulling over it in my own time and thinking in my head, "If I was sent to be over here for these three months, strictly for that moment, for that interaction, that it was worth it." It was entirely worth it. I will forever be impacted by that inside my own heart. That one family is now permanently in my heart, and I'm convinced if I were to ever be there again they would be upset if I did not visit them, and I would be upset at myself if I didn't find a way to make sure I visited them and see how they're doing, see how her brother's doing and see how their children are developing and growing.

"If I was sent to be over here for these three months, strictly for that moment, for that interaction, that it was worth it."

When I get an email from the team over there it will say things like, "Oh yeah, the group is off doing this thing now." And every time in my head, I just can't help but think, how was their time in that house? I just want to ask this question, "How is their relationship with this family?" It's a burden that has been put onto my heart and  in my head. 

When I hear there is a group going to North Africa, that's all I'm going to be thinking about: “how are they going to impact that family? How is that family going to respond to them?”

 I know each group impacts this family. For example, the daughter, on the last day that we were there, ran up to me with a pen and a notebook that was half filled. She said, "You need to write something about your stay here in this."  I looked and I realized, every page was written by a student that had been in this house. It was her book; it had her initials on it. She wanted it written in English and to include complicated words in it so she could learn and practice her English. I remember writing in that book thinking, "How many times is she going to read the words that are on this book left by these team members?" I know she is using it to learn the English language, but also it's a book of fond memories. Memories of her almost holding us hostage to do another song and dance because she really wanted to do another song to dance, or even just watching us make fools of ourselves trying to make bread from scratch and we had no idea what we were doing. But also just the love and kindness that we kept sharing with them and how impactful that is for her as  she is growing up in that. Every few months she gets to experience a new group of people that will write in this same notebook.

 This family showed that it can take just years, years to reach into even the easier places, geographically, but still unreached. It's not like this particular family lives in the middle of nowhere, but they do live surrounded by an entirely different culture and religion that makes it incredibly difficult to push through or to pull apart from. It takes so many experiences for them to start to see. They have to experience God's light and love repeatedly, over and over and over again. It takes literal years and consistency to keep going and doing God's work for them to accept the gospel message.

The whole trip pinpointed that mission work is not only a slow process, It's a difficult process. But, once you start it, it's something that you want to do even more. So, I would say it's worth it. It's worth the slow progression of it all.

Please be praying for Mama Luna's family.

I want to say thank you to Cafe 1040 altogether. It's such a unique experience, such a wonderful learning time that is focused and intentional. When I tell people about the process of how Cafe 1040 gets students ready to go overseas, and then how important the staff is during the process of being overseas, and that even since returning to the United States, there is still staff reaching out and talking with us, has shocked a lot of people I've spoken to.

Even people I have talked to who are married to missionaries who have gone through other organizations, when I mentioned that Cafe has been helping my team and me to reacclimate after we have experienced, they kind of pause, look at me and say, "Wait, they are helping you? Like readjust and process everything? I wish I had that. That would have been amazing!” I am realizing that's not an uncommon thing, but it's so vastly significant. I know that Cafe 1040 has been such an instrumental part of the story God has been crafting inside of my life. 

One of the overseas staff asked me to try to find a new pinnacle moment in my life to call back to rather than just when I was in fourth grade, "God called me to be a missionary..." Not that having that moment in fourth grade was bad, but he wanted to make a point, that it is important to find a time later in my life where I had a better understanding of Christianity and faith and even missions. I knew exactly what I was signing up for: to be a missionary. Not because it's more important, but because it will be a stronger anchor than just when I was in fourth grade and I didn't know what I was signing myself up for. 

I can honestly say Cafe 1040 has become the catalyst and overall chapter in my life where I can go. Without Cafe 1040, I don't think I'd ever be able to have a chance to look back at that three months ago. That's why God reminded me repeatedly, “this is what I want you to do. What I have created and designed to do.”

I don't think I realized how important and how much I needed that. All I know is that I wouldn't have that if it wasn't for Cafe 1040 [...] Because it's caused a significant impact on my life that I now get to carry forward. Proudly and gladly.”