I’ve Never Been to Kenya

There has been a lot of talk about missions at my church lately. The leadership teams have been talking about it. Our guest speaker last week shared about his 3-month mission trip to Indonesia. Our pastor’s wife and one of his twin boys (only 8-years old) went to Kenya on a mission trip in March of this year. Our high school and college age youth are going on a mission trip, of sorts, in June to do some service work up in Washington for a week.

I’ve never really been on a “mission trip.” It’s not that I don’t want to, God has just not presented me with the right opportunity yet. But I would love to go to Kenya or Haiti or South America on a mission trip some day. I have kind of felt like I’m missing something, like I’m not really “going and making disciples of all nations” as Jesus commanded in what is called the Great Commission. Matthew 28:19.

But then the other day I was looking at my blog stats on a free service I use called Get Clicky. I get a lot better stats on this service than the basic WordPress stats because it will tell me how many new visitors I’ve had, how many unique visitors (instead of just page views), and what pages each visitor viewed. It also tells me the first time each visitor visited my blog since I signed up for the service. But best of all, it tells me where in the world my visitors are located.

Guess what? I haven’t been to Kenya, but my blog has! Just the other day someone from Nairobi, Kenya read my poem Forgiven. I’ve also had visitors from Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa, India, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Bangladesh (I actually have a World Vision sponsored child there, too), the Czech Republic, Jamaica, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and many more! My blog has been read all over the world. Most of my visitors are in the United States, but many are in countries where the Christian faith is not the predominant religion and some are in countries where Christians are persecuted and their faith illegal.

So maybe, just maybe, as I go into all the world with the words that God gives me to write in this blog, I am making disciples in nations I have never physically set foot in, and probably never will. Perhaps I am providing encouragement to Christians who face struggles and persecution, helping to strengthen their faith and courage.

This revelation doesn’t mean I don’t still want to travel for a mission trip someday. But I in the meantime I am, through this blog, doing like Paul and Barnabas did for the early church.

After preaching the Good News in Derbe and making many disciples, Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia, where they strengthened the believers. They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God. Acts 14:21-22 (NLT).

If you are a fellow blogger and are interested in how far your words of encouragement are reaching, I would highly recommend Get Clicky. It’s free and easy to use, and when you see where your visitors are coming from it will give you useful information that you can use to know where in the world there are people seeking God’s truth and in need of your prayers.