It was a hot, beautiful summer day like so many others. Comfortably seated in our car, returning from a nice family vacation, we all admired the beauty of the Georgian mountains unfolding left and right. The car engine hummed as we traveled along the forested road. That’s when a long-forgotten song playing in the background interrupted my thoughts.

There sits Simon, so foolishly wise
Proudly, he’s tending his nets
Then Jesus calls and the boats drift away
And all that he owns, he forgets.

I turned the volume up. We have always loved the wisdom in Michael Card’s lyrics and the feeling of comfort dripping from his songs. However, this time, it just made my heart sink.

But more than the nets he abandoned that day
He found that his pride was soon drifting away
And it’s hard to imagine the freedom we find
From the things we leave behind . . .

I turned to Chris and whispered, “Do you remember this song?”

He didn’t answer right away. Hands firmly on the steering wheel and eyes fixed on the road, his quietness felt almost like an invitation to mind my own business. Then I noticed a lonely tear slowly roll down from under his sunglasses. That was my answer. He did remember.

Chris might have had his eyes on the road, but his heart has always known mine without any actual sight involved. He opened the palm of his hand and invited my hand in. As we drove quietly, hand in hand, with misty eyes and our children cluelessly giggling in the background, we both realized this was it, the moment we had dreaded for months, the day when our hearts finally caught up with the reality that had been there for so long. We will need to leave Georgia.

If you are familiar with our journey from its beginnings, you probably remember it all started around this song. About seven years ago, we leaped into the unknown, accepting a mission call overseas. We hummed “The Things We Leave Behind” for weeks as we made one of the most difficult decisions of our life: to give up everything familiar and go reach the unreached. Leaving behind our families, country, comfort and possessions seemed extreme and counterintuitive. Yet, we packed everything, said our goodbyes, and flew over the ocean to the U.S. After two years of preparation and training, we returned to our side of the world, this time to the country of Georgia, where our call waited.

Chris had been struggling with debilitating allergy symptoms for many months. The sole focus of his days and nights became survival. Our vacation in the heart of the mountains was a last attempt to disprove a theory we very much feared true — our family desperately needed clean air. Seeing Chris breathe freely, finish sentences without coughing his lungs out, laugh, and enjoy a medication-free life gave me a feeling of long-forgotten normalcy and happiness. It turned into paralyzing fear when I realized what it meant. How ironic it is to be allergic to your place of service! After much prayer and struggle, we understood we needed to prioritize health and trust the Lord to provide once again, both for the Georgian project and our family.

I spent a lot of time meditating on the words of that song. Fishers of fish leave their nets to become fishers of men. But what do fishers of men leave their nets for? Is there even such a thing?

This time, leaving things behind doesn’t fill us with a sense of freedom, but quite the opposite. The things we leave behind are precisely what keeps us going now. We find comfort and encouragement in remembering each of them. We know that our purpose was to be a blessing wherever we went, and not only did we get to do that, but blessings returned to us in the most surprising ways. We leave Georgia behind with heavy, still grieving, but thankful hearts.

In Georgia, many people became dear friends: people with whom we have shared pain and joy and many who, for the first time in their lives, heard a prayer coming not from a prayer book but from the heart. Friends showed kindness and grace during our most vulnerable “foreigner” moments, and we made it our mission to return the blessing. We leave behind a beautiful refugee community that, thanks to your help, we ministered to in many ways — a group of people who grew closer to each other and experienced God’s healing. We look back at precious relationships that we hope will ultimately lead to them accepting Jesus.

In the U.S., there remains a wonderful support team that exceeded our most daring prayers. The Georgian project is your project, too. Your friendship and support are, without a doubt, the highlight of our ministry. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your prayers, letters, emotional support, donations and hugs, for opening your churches, your homes and your hearts to our family. You have taught us valuable lessons that we will never forget.

At AFM, we leave behind a family that has seen us through thick and thin, at our worst and at our best. They were there for it all: the process of decision-making, raising funds, celebrating victories, repairing failures, grieving losses, holding hands on hospital beds, and providing good training and support in reaching the unreached. We are grateful to all of you for your love and for the amazing growth experience you provided.

The good news is that the Georgia project continues with Isabela and Filipe Gomez (see page 20), who have prayerfully committed to continuing what we started. We know they’ll be just as honored as we were to have your partnership and support.

So, for what do fishers of men leave their nets? I fervently believe they don’t. There’s no going back after that experience. While we are taking a break from fieldwork to recover and mend our nets, our call remains, and we are committed to putting our gifts to good use and continuing to advance the gospel.

“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

With love and gratitude, Chris, Ann, Evan and Emily Troy.

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