500 rupees

This morning I've been visiting with a pastor from India.  He lives in a rural area and was about to head out on a two month mission trip to tribal people groups leaving his wife and family at home.

He asked for my prayers for their provision.  All he had was 500 rupees ($7.47) and planned to take $2.00 with him and leave the rest with his wife to care for them for two months!

We visited for more than an hour.  I still don't think he understood that his first ministry, his main ministry was his family.  If he had not taken care of them he had no right to go do "mission work."  

How easy it is to miss the mission field right in front of you thinking that mission is "out there" somewhere.  One thing I told him was this-  Your family is your mission.  If you miss that, if you don't take care of that then don't bother going out to preach the gospel somewhere else.

As I look back on my life I see many times when I've done the same thing.  Times when I missed the mission field in my own home for someone out there.  It's sad, it's easy to do.  But this morning I told my friend in India, "You can't go until you have taken care of your family first." 

Our first mission field as parents is our children.  Our primary mission as men is our family.  If we miss that we missed everything.