What do missionaries look like?

When I think of missionaries, I think of the old people (at least that is how they seemed to me) who would come to my church with their slide shows and share stories of their work. I think of going to the jungles of some place I've never heard of and encountering cannibals. I think of women dressed in frumpy dresses with their hair pulled back, who are seen but not heard.

Kenyon and I have signed a two year contract to go to the mission field in Cambodia. We will be living in a city, the capital city of the country. I have no intention of becoming the stereotypical missionary woman, I don't think I'm even capable of it if I tried...I inherited too much of a rebellious spirit to be so docile or sweet.

I still struggle with calling myself a missionary. Why? I guess somewhere deep inside I think that missionaries should feel comfortable standing in front of crowds sharing the gospel, which I don't. I'd rather just share with a few close friends how a relationship with the living God changed my life. I guess I assume that missionaries should have it all together - the perfect family, the perfect life story, the perfect marriage, and be perfect people. I don't have those things, my family, life story, marriage and me are far from perfect. I've been thinking a lot about this concept of what a missionary looks like. What I've discovered is...missionaries look a lot like us - ordinary people.

I am learning that God is in the business of using unlikely, ordinary people to do his work. All we need is a willing heart. We were willing, and now we are going to the other side of the earth (literally). Do I have it all figured out? Not even close! But, in humble submission I will follow the One who is greater than me.

What do you think missionaries look like?

International banking options

We have had to make a lot of important decisions in preparing for this move. I've had the good fortune of traveling the world prior to moving overseas and those experiences provided me with at least a base knowledge of the challenges we will face (I'm sure some of the challenges will still be difficult regardless of the foresight).

One challenge I was anticipating is access to money. My employer can direct deposit my paycheck to any bank with a routing and account number. In my early days of travel the best way to access money was by ATM. Over the years ATM's had become easily accessible around the globe. Using an international ATM eliminated the need to carry large amounts of cash or reduced the pressure of anticipating every need while traveling. There was a time when ATM's also offered the best exchange rate. Many places had stopped accepting traveler's checks because they were easy to duplicate and were often fraudulent.

In the past year I have seen my bank charges soar for using an International ATM. We aren't just talking the usual $2 charge for using an out of network vendor. The first fee was $5, the second was over $7 and the last was $11. Add that up over the course of two years and we are loosing a significant amount of money to bank fees. That was my motivation to look for other options.

We have decided on an internet bank. Yup, no building, no teller, just the internet. Our paychecks are directly deposited. We will utilize online bill pay for accounts payable. We earn interest on the money in the account (an option not often available at traditional banks). I've trusted this company for years to handle my savings and found the experience quite pleasant and the interest rates better than anyone else was offering. We will still open a bank account at our new location to avoid ATM surcharges, but the online bank offers easy and fast electronic money transfer from one account to another. This option satisfied all of our banking needs and even gave us the bonus of earning interest on our dollars.

As a side note, I learned quite a bit about off-shore banking through this research process and the one take-away I have from that experience is: it pays to be rich. The more money you have, the better perks and benefits you get. In case you are wondering, we don't even have the minimum balance to enter the off-shore banking world.

Dear phone company

In the days before cell phones and voice over IP (VoIP) things were likely good for the local phone company, there weren't many options. If one wanted to make a call, they had to subscribe to the only service available. In case you haven't noticed, things have changed.

Dear phone company,

I have recently discovered that your services are now obsolete to me. I watched pay phones increase prices and then simply disappear due to the advent of the cell phone. It is just so much more convenient to connect using a hand held device then to search for a stationary phone and hope I have correct change.

I also found a home phone completely unnecessary because all my friends and family realized if they want to reach me, call my cell. When I woke up to the fact that the only people who called my home phone were telemarketers and solicitors, I turned the service off.

A few years later, I began working in an international context and did not like the extravagant costs of international phone calls, nor the roaming and other charges added to my cell bill. I did some research and found a wonderful service called Skype, which allows me free calls anywhere in the world utilizing the internet. I can even do video calls, which is a feature not available in land lines or cell phones. Granted, there were some limitations because I had to be on a computer and so did the person I wanted to contact, that limitation is quickly changing.

In our effort to move overseas, I've done some additional research on International calling options and discovered that for $30 per year Skype provides a US phone number my friends and family can call and reach me anywhere in the world (provided internet access is available) through VoIP. It even has caller ID and voicemail features. When I get a voicemail, it sends me an email or SMS text. For an additional $30 per year I can call anywhere in the world to someone's cell or home phone. So, for $60 a year Skype provides worldwide calling access! This is not a monthly fee, it is a one-time fee, with no hidden costs. I had to ask myself, why isn't everyone doing this? My guess is because they don't know about it. Skype is now making handheld devices that look like cell phones to send and receive calls utilizing wi-fi.

Dear phone company, I believe your days are numbered because customers like me want convenience and global mobility.

Thank you, Skype, for the amazing options you provide. As a girl who is about to move to the other side of the world, I don't feel so disconnected from the one's I love.

Travel Essentials

When going on a short international trip I recommend packing Tide travel packs. Laundry facilities are not always available and when they are available they can often be very expensive.

One packet in the sink and you can do a load of wash, hang it to dry. Wa-la, clean clothes!

Yard Sale update

Kenyon and I hosted our first yard sale. I had to take a day off work and wake up before the sun in order to get everything ready. Though we advertised our sale to begin at 8am, our first customer arrived at 6:30am. We had just barely begun to pull stuff out of the house, but he looked over every item as we dragged it out and left with a few things in hand. He was the newspaper man, so we cut him a break.

Shortly after he left a caravan of trucks pulled up (this was just after 7am). I still hadn't finished pulling everything on to the yard, but that didn't seem to matter. These obviously experienced yard salers came, saw and left. This is what our yard looked like at their exit, I still hadn't finished pulling everything out of the house and on to the yard.

We had a steady flow of traffic during the published hours of the event. At the end of the day we had sold a lot, but a lot still remains. Goodwill or friends will be the beneficiaries of our remaining items.

Some highlights of the day...I learned that people can be incredibly generous. When we told them why we were selling our stuff, they didn't haggle with us. For the most part, they just paid what we were asking. One of our neighbors came over to just give us some money. One woman bought some stuff, left, then came back and gave us a check as a gift for our move. There is good in humanity! Also, I had to publish my number in the paper to place the add. I received some calls asking for directions (which is always important in this mountain community), but I also received a prank phone call. I don't think I've received a prank phone call in fifteen years! It made me laugh, which provided some much needed comic relief during this stressful time.

Have you ever held a yard sale? What was your experience? When you go to yard sales, are you looking for something in particular?