Kaycee Kaba... Missionary to Mexico!

10 ten years ago, I did not see it coming.

Kaycee, Chelsea, Becca and Jacqee in 2006 in Ensenada 

The year before, in 2003, I was contacted by a friend and asked if Adventures in Life would be able to host a group of students from the Asian American Christian Fellowship [AACF] at UCLA for a week of mission in Ensenada. Little did I know then how far what my friend Asher Sargent calls the ripple effect would extend.

That first year with AACF was amazing. They did nothing. Really... nothing. Nothing at all, except reach across cultural lines, and love on people as if they were Jesus himself, which of course for that week, they were. Never before, and never since, had I ever seen a group so able to put their wishes and needs aside, step outside themselves, and serve quite so selflessly.

It truly cemented the idea I had that mission, and short-term mission [STM] in particular, could be about something more than just building stuff. What I saw that week, and year after year with AACF, was STM being about people and relationship.

The next year they returned and a young woman named Kaycee was on the team. If I was to look back at that particular team, some of the people who became leaders were obvious. More than a few of that group have gone on to make a significant Kingdom impact around the world.

But Kaycee was not one who was on my radar. 

At least not at first. But then, she kept coming back. Year after year she served with me in Ensenada. Then one year she joined our intern program and found herself with us in Oaxaca, hundreds of miles from her little comfort zone of Ensenada. Soon she was leading a team each year to Guadalajara to serve alongside Pastor Raul and our ministry there.

Donde esta Kaycee? Inside the AIL Ministry Scooby Van years ago with her AACF Team

That’s when I began to wonder if maybe Kaycee would join the ranks of some of those other AACF team members and step even deeper into the mission field. I decided then to began a deeper conversation with her about her future.

I kept coming back to her, always with my trademarked “hard” questions, finally ending, a couple of years ago, with a “why not?” Why not step out, follow your heart, and Jesus, and serve long-term in Mexico?

Today, Kaycee joins me on mission Mexico. While she will be working directly with mission partner Rod Fry in Mexico City, Kaycee will also be working alongside AIL Ministry as her schedule and ministry permits.

10 years ago, Kaycee arrived a little scared, for a week of ministry with folks she still serves to this day in Ensenada. Over the years, she has been stretched and grown into an incredible woman of God with a gigantic heart for the people of Mexico. Now, because of that heart for God and Mexico, and a willingness to listen to His leading, she is stepping out in faith, trusting in a way unimaginable that first year she came with AACF.

One day Kaycee told me she wanted to eat her way across Mexico... here she is with me, off to a great start!

From a week long short-term mission trip to Ensenada, to Oaxaca, to Guadalajara, and now to Mexico City, Kaycee’s ripple continues to move and have a Kingdom impact.

Please join me, and the Adventures in Life community, in welcoming Kaycee Kaba to the long-term mission field, and make it part of your mission to pray for her, not just today, but regularly, as she seeks to build the types of relationships in Mexico City that will become bridges to Jesus for a brand new ripple in her life. 

What's in your Wallet?

Recently the question "What's in your wallet?" has become known as the advertising slogan Capital One and their multitude of charge cards.  This got me to thinking...

Over the years missions work and by extension missionaries have changed.

Years ago when a missionary for Jesus left the shores of his or her home country, the friends, family and church of that person held a wake or funeral.  Because of the difficulty of travel, likelihood of disease or danger striking, and short life spans in general, everyone knew it was not see you later, but goodbye.

When that person landed in his new land he set out to make new friends, build or find a house and put down roots.  His first task was to become part of the community he was sent to serve.  Locals saw a commitment to be part of them and this was a major step in the advancement of the Gospel around the globe.

For whatever other shortcomings we can now trace to bad missions work, the emphasis that we had on becoming part of the community we were serving was and is not one of them.

Sadly, we are quickly leaving this attitude behind, and it is not just in the short-term world.

Recently I was in Mexico City and was greeted by a US Missionary.  Like me, he has been serving in Mexico for 20 years.  He married a beautiful Mexican woman, his kids were born in Mexico and he helps pastor a church in a small colonia of about 4000 people hidden among 22 million other inhabitants.

He also lives where Mexicans live.  His house is typical for his area, his neighbors are all Mexican, and he is not dreaming of the day he will be coming back to the states. Clearly he has given his heart to Mexico and her people.

Too bad my experiences with Rod, whose blog you can read here,  are not typical.

I asked a good friend years ago why he was serving in Kenya.  Was there a specific call or experience that led him there?  "No" he answered, "there was just an opening."  When I asked him where he lived, he said he lived where the other missionaries lived... in a small gated community.

I have regularly sat and listened as US based missionaries on home leave make jokes and mock the country where they are serving.  It breaks my heart because if the people who our churches send to be "like Jesus" cannot be counted on to be an advocate for the country they are serving, who can?

I wonder if our desire to commit our lives, and indeed our hearts, to another country is just another relic of a bygone age.  I wonder if if our inability, or unwillingness to give our lives wholeheartedly to another country and people is hurting our missionary focus.

Short-term mission is here to stay.  As surely as the monarch butterfly migrates each year and the swallows return to Capistrano, thousands of people will annually leave the shores of the US to serve in other countries.  They will go through the rituals of getting prepared, making sure their to do list is all covered.

And then they will make one final switch sometime before they arrive on site.  They will take their US money out of their wallet and replace it with the currency of the country they are going to serve.

That's the reality.

I just wish we could switch our hearts as easily to that country.

A few years back I asked my wife out to dinner.  I was pretty embarrassed when the check came.  But it wasn't because I had no money.  It was because I had the wrong money.  I was loaded with Mexican pesos.  My wife wasn't surprised, having learned long ago that Mexico had become my adopted country.

When Alec Baldwin asks in that Capital One commercial what's in your wallet, he isn't even aware of how profound that question is.

When I think about a new generation of missionaries traveling around the globe to replace the fossils of the current missionary age like me, I hope and pray that their answer to Alec's question is not Capital One or dollars.

I want to hear dinar, pesos, yen, cuna, quetzal and rupees.

Because the first step in joining the community you are going to serve in knowing where your heart is.  That's why when Tim Dearborn, author of Beyond Duty, asked a Haitian Pastor what someone must do to be a good missionary to Haiti, the simple answer he received was "Love Haitians!"

Missions is about heart.

What's in your wallet?