Sometimes God calls us to do quite simple things- like “Go and pray for a friend” or “Help your sister change her flat tire”. These things can be quite ordinary, but nonetheless they eventually reveal to us more and more in some capacity who the person of Christ is. Our lives so far as a family have been filled with these “simple things”. Take the kids to school, pray before dinner, teach your son to ride a bike, etc etc. And we have certainly seen the face of Christ in all of them. But over the last few years we have sensed that God was moving us in a deeper way- we just we not so sure exactly what that was…
We are a family of seven (at least for now) Phillip, Lacy, William (8), Annie (7), Miriam (5), Norah (4), Lily (1) and we will be using this blog to highlight the many ways God is speaking to us or revealing Himself to us. We are The Brupbacher’s or The BruCrew
About a year ago some dear friends of ours invited us to attend a short term mission trip in General Cepeda, Mexico. This was something that we have longed to do as a family but basically had always written it off because we assumed our kids were too young or simply because we were always expecting a child… But, the power of an invitation by some dear friends of ours proved to be just what we needed- just the proper amount of encouragement and invitation from God to eventually change our lives.
So we loaded up our van and made the two day drive into Mexico with a bunch of other families. While we ought to devote an entire blog to that trip we will simply state that the following occurred in our lives:
1. God showed us the beauty and truth in His words “Blessed are the poor in spirit- those whose entire dependence is based upon God.”
2. Blessed were we to even be able to dwell among them and serve them for even just such a short time.
3. Could we be called to live a life as a family serving and befriending the poor- sharing the Gospel with those in great need and learning from their simple and beautiful faith?
After our incredible week we headed back home with the question burning in our hearts “God could you actually be calling us to move to a foreign land to following you as a missionary? The question was both invigorating and terrifying. We sought out some spiritual direction and continued to ask God to move in our hearts and minds and to speak to us in this area of our lives.
Neither one of us is extremely trigger happy when it comes to these types of things so we simply kept bringing it to God in prayer. Over time we found that God continued to place this desire on our hearts and that indeed the calling was real. There was so much stirring in our hearts- “Come and follow me closer” “Come and serve those in great need” “Do not worry for I am with you” “You can trust me in the little things and now I am asking you to trust me in a larger thing”
Then one morning we were blown away by a video we saw on Facebook shared by a friend of ours- quite simply the video summed up everything that was going on in our hearts and minds.
Take a moment to view that video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2StRNNnBh4k
So, put simply, we found that Jesus was calling us to go deeper into our faith and to sell all we had to follow Him in preaching the Gospel and serving the poor. This is the calling He gave to us- and we are thrilled. We searched far and wide looking at various Catholic and Christian mission organizations and have found an unbelievable home with Family Missions Company. They are a group of lay Catholic Missionaries who dedicate their lives to preaching the gospel and serving the poor. We have joined into their formation program and will be sent out to a foreign land to preach the gospel and serve the poor in early 2017.
We will dedicate this blog as a family blog for those of you interested in following our simple little journey. We will also post prayer requests and various needs of those we serve. We have been so blessed with tremendous families and friends and we would love for you to come with us on this new journey of ours.
You can also learn more about how to support our mission at the following address:
https://www.familymissionscompany.com/project/phillip-and-lacy-brupbacher/
“I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly” -John 10:10
“Life is short I wanna live it well” -Switchfoot
Sincerely
– Phillip 10/04/16
phillipdouglasbooks.com 