Brooke has asked each of her immediate family members to write a blog, and I volunteered to be first. I just got back from a wonderful mission trip with the Southminster SOJO, or Sr. High. One of the other chaperones was Beverly Gray, and in her blog about the trip that is posted on the Southminster website, she revealed that months ago she felt called to go on the mission trip without knowing where it was going or when it would be. However, she knew for certain that she and her family were being called by God to go. That’s pretty special!
The Merry family also received a call in 2003. I’ll never forget the moment it happened. I was preparing supper, peeling carrots beside the sink. Heather and Brooke were upstairs doing homework when Dan arrived home and bounded up the stairs from the garage. He said, “I have a question to ask you.” That got my attention and I said, “what’s going on?” “What do you think about our family going to Malawi and living there for a year?” Now, you might think I would start laughing, or say something like “why would we want to do that?” But the Lord had prepared me and as soon as that question was out of his mouth, it was like a blanket of peace descended on me. I knew that we were being called to go to Malawi, and I knew that we would, indeed, go. In the months that followed when roadblocks were thrown up, I kept saying, “we will go, don’t worry.” The girls were excited and before long, off we went for what we now call “the most wonderful, difficult year of our lives.” When it ended, Brooke did not want to come home. We knew right then that she would go back at some point, and sure enough she also received a call.
After 5 years of training to be a PA, she began working for a Christian doctor in a field that she loved and has been an integral part of that medical practice for 2 years but the Lord has called her to go back to the place where she learned how to speak Chichewa and eat nsima with relish. She is leaving her job and feels called to teach science courses at St. Andrew’s Mission School. She is excited about her year ahead. As her mother, I am very proud of her taking this leap of faith, and incredibly grateful for the remarkable support she has received from the people of Southminster Presbyterian Church, her family and friends. She is humbled by your generosity and for making her call become a reality.
I would be lying if I said I will not miss her each and every day she is gone. Our conversations about books, going to the movies together, cleaning up the kitchen together after family meals, sharing a hymnal in church together, and sitting on the couch together cheering our Pittsburgh teams on, will be greatly missed. She lights up my days, but now God is calling her to spread that light to students in Mulanje, Malawi, and my heart and prayers go with her!
-Beth Merry
