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There’s a training exercise for short-term mission teams where you’re asked to share about your ‘Hat, Home, and Heart’ in order to get to know your other team members better. My usual response to the ‘Hat’ portion is that I wear MULTIPLE hats (I’m sure you do, too). Here’s some of my current hats:
Gateway Director
This is the hat most of you would probably be familiar with me wearing, as I’ve had this hat for the past 22 years. Of course, the Gateway Director hat I wear involves the oversight, training, and leading of churches and other ministries in the ways of short-term mission, sister-church partnerships, and the leading of mission and vision trips, as well as international networking.
Gateway training in Osaka, Japan – 2017.
Hockey Defenseman
This hat (which actually requires the wearing of an actual hat/helmet) has been one I’ve worn for many years and still enjoy wearing as I seek to stay healthy and active. Many of you know what’s entailed in playing this position. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’m scoring many goals, but hopefully it does mean that I’m helping make sure the other team is not.
Playing hockey!
Central Europe (Hungary/Serbia) Field Director (New Hat!)
As of January 1, I started to wear this hat as well. If you’ve followed my past newsletters, you’ll be reminded that I’ve mentioned this responsibility more and more. And as 2024 moves forward, I’ve already begun a lot more interaction with our global mission partners in Hungary and Serbia, as well as making plans to travel there at least two times this year. In addition, I serve on the boards of MEK Hungary and ZZ Serbia, the organizations our partners direct, which is also another hat.
With a short-term mission team in Hungary – 2023.
Husband and Father
My relationships to my wife and my son continue to reflect the most important hats in my life. We spend as much time together as we can, whether at home, on vacation, or just enjoying events and life. This is by far the most significant (and the most meaningful) hat I wear.
As I’m sure many of you could attest to, there are many more ‘hats’ that I could describe. And as I’m sure is the case for any of you reading this, balancing our hats is always one of the greatest challenges before us. Thanks for your prayers as I seek to balance mine.
For the Kingdom