From Two Paths to One Purpose
We are blessed to have Jim and Ginnie Street as active members and servants of our church. Currently, Ginnie is in the steering commitee of the Women in Mission, and Jim is one of the leaders of the Disaster Response and Recovery team. Their story is a testament to the power of faith, perseverance, and the incredible journey of answering God’s calling.
We had different faith experiences early in life. While Jim was raised Methodist and attended Church regularly with his family, Ginnie’s family didn’t attend church, but she was encouraged to, and did for a while. Like many young adults, we both strayed a bit after leaving home and joining the Navy. We both were married previously to spouses that didn’t encourage living a life of faith.
When we met, we were both attending churches in Florida and soon began our faith journey together. We were married in 1997 and continued to worship and serve in that church. Before Jim retired, the Navy moved us to Virginia. Knowing that we would only be there for three years, we promised ourselves not to get too involved. Within 6 months of arriving, Jim was Lay Leader and Ginnie was the Missions Chairperson. We both attended the Walk to Emmaus during that time and felt God moving mightily in both our lives. During that time, we participated in our first mission trip, to help do restoration work in community 10 years after Hurricane Hugo.
When Jim retired in 2002, we moved back to Florida, where we had our ‘Final Resting Place’ built (we thought that we were done moving around). Jim went back to school and Ginnie worked several jobs, finally ending up in her dream job as administrator of the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate. We both volunteered for Habitat during that time and felt blessed to be able to serve others through that ministry.
After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2004, Jim used some of the skills learned at Habitat to help rebuild homes in Mississippi. Ginnie wanted to go as well, and we realized that our “dream house” came at a price – we needed her income to pay the mortgage. If it weren’t for the mortgage, we could live on Jim’s military pension. So, we began praying and thinking about how that might come to fruition.
In the middle of this time of discernment in 2005, we went on a short-term mission trip with our church to Honduras and served the people on the northern coast of that country. During this trip, we both felt the Lord speaking into our lives in various ways, that this was where He wanted to use us. We affiliated with a mission’s organization to become cross-cultural workers and spent the next couple of years preparing, which included emptying and selling our dream home.
In 2008 we flew to Latin America and attended full-time Spanish language training in Costa Rica. While there, we served several ministries as we immersed ourselves in the Latin culture. In 2009 we moved to Peru, where we worked alongside another cross-cultural worker in the jungles of the upper-Amazon basin. After 6 months we went back to Honduras and worked for 18 months with the couple who hosted us back in 2005. Our time in Latin America was spent working alongside the local Christian leaders (clergy and laity) to help them better reach their own people. We weren’t called to preach, but rather to help provide them with the tools needed so that they could. We did this through the hosting of short-term teams (evangelism, medical, dental, construction, auto repair, etc.), as well as through providing teaching resources, micro-industry assistance and financial support. We worked with other mission organizations encouraging and supporting other cross-cultural workers.
In 2011, we left Honduras and returned to the US, thinking that we would quickly turn around and go back to another location, but God had other plans. Since that time, we have found our mission field here in the Texas Hill Country.
Our life of faith still continues to mold and change us. We have found God to be faithful, if we trust Him and get out of the way. There have been bumps along the road, and they have given us doubt, frustration and tears. In every instance though, as we look back, we can see the hand of God leading, encouraging and providing for us no matter what.
- I imagine traveling, living within different cultures wasn’t always easy. Was there a time in your life when it was difficult to trust God? How did you turn around and put your trust in Him? How did He helped you overcome difficult moments?
Living in the developing world gave us ‘faith lessons’ on a daily basis. Things that we had taken for granted in the US, oftentimes a challenge when language and cultural difference exist, but one of the faith lessons that we learned happened before we ever left for Latin America. Living in Florida in 2007, we had put our home on the market to sell. Unbeknownst to us, the real estate market was headed down. We had made all of our preparations and were only waiting for the home to sell, but it remained on the market for over a year. We had the mentality of “When God sends us a buyer, we are ready to go”. One day we had the revelation that we needed to step out in faith. We changed our attitude to “We are going to go in faith, trusting God with the sale of the home.” Three months later, we had a contract and sold it from Costa Rica. There were daily challenges during our time in Costa Rica, Peru and Honduras, but we oftentimes got our faith reminders from those who we were serving - people who truly relied on God for their daily existence.
- How you see God working through DS Methodist Church?
One of the main reasons that we choose to serve at DSMC is the outwardly focus of the congregation. So many churches are centered on congregational care, and although it is important to care for each other, Christ calls us to ‘go and make disciples. DSMC is always looking outside of our doors and reaching out to the community and beyond to make an impact for the Kingdom in the world.
