“Anyone who tries to keep his life will lose it. And anyone who gives up his life for My sake and the sake of the Good News will find it” (Mark 8:35).

“But Daddy, why can’t we stay here? They’re expecting us to be a part of the church. I could make friends with the other kids. I don’t want to leave!”

“You know, you are right. We could have a great time coming to church each Sabbath with all these foreigners. I don’t want to leave either. But that’s not why we came here. We want to help the people in this part of North Africa start their own church, and that’s probably not going to happen if we all stay together here in this city.”

We have only been in North Africa a week and a half, but already we are feeling a need to belong, to put down roots, both physically and socially. It has been especially hard for our three children. Over the last two years, we have moved three times. They are ready to settle down somewhere for the duration. To be honest, I would not mind that myself. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

Our plane touched down 12 days ago (as of this writing). Since then, we have been staying in an Airbnb while calculating our next move. Our first thought was to stay in this large city for the first year, focusing on our language and culture study. These last several days have given us a wonderful taste of what life here could be like: mouthwatering Euro-African style cuisine, large supermarkets, the beach just a five-minute walk away, and very kind people, some of whom speak English fairly well, in addition to French and Arabic. Even trying to secure a taxi ride on several occasions has grown my prayer life substantially.

Our maiden excursion to the souk, the grand bazaar downtown, turned into a wild adventure: forging through shop-lined passageways, merchants vying for our attention, bodies pushing and shoving each other through narrow spaces, and enticing aromas and colors at every turn. One shop filled with colorful rugs and lamps made us feel like we were in a scene from Arabian Nights. Yes, living here for a year would be very interesting indeed!

Yet as we have reflected and prayed over this matter, we remind ourselves of why we are here—to start an indigenous church-planting movement amongst the natives of this land. To give us the best chance for that to happen, we have decided to take a further step out of our comfort zone—move to a much smaller city, with significantly fewer foreigners, thereby increasing our contact with nationals. The plan is to be there for at least a year, give ourselves a good start to language and culture acquisition, and pray for God’s clear guidance going forward.

As I continued to explain to my daughter, “We need as much direct contact with the people of North Africa as possible. That will be much harder if we are so connected with and dependent on foreigners. It will be kind of painful now—to leave a place where we could fit in so easily—but we will see that it is the right thing to do in the long run.”

(Long pause) “Okay, Daddy. Let’s do it.”

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