Sink or Sit

PROLOGUE

Jason and I are ordinary people who try every day to walk in obedience to the Lord who opens doors and blesses us in ways we could never have imagined. On so many days, He takes me to places where I feel clueless—like when He led me to villages in West Africa, where I didn’t speak the language. There, in a land that is 94 percent Muslim, He called me to speak the gospel. I prayed, “Okay, Lord, what’s Your plan here?” Then He opened doors to a prison, an orphanage, schools, huts, and to the hearts of gentle souls who have become some of my dearest friends—and our son.

Jason was called by God to Niger, in western Africa, but for years, he and I traveled separately, as we had young children at home. Jason led groups of American missionaries in January, and I led groups in October as we traveled to the same region every year.

The Lord put it on our hearts to write a book about His blessings. You will see that we are writing separately and together. That is the way God has allowed us to experience this adventure.

Our shared prayer is that you will hear and obey God’s call for you and then step through the doors to adventure and blessing that He will open for you.
—Haley

The title of this book is Sink or Sit, but we originally considered the title S.O.S., which might have stood for Straight ahead or Sideways for Jesus.

To us, Straight or Sideways means that one should always be striving to move straight ahead toward the arms of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We must know our true north and run toward it. “Straight ahead for Jesus” means having blinders like horses wear and staying focused on what God has called you to do. Wikipedia defines blinders as a piece of horse tack that prevents the horse from seeing to the rear and in some cases to the side. Many racehorse trainers believe these keep the horse focused on what is in front of him, encouraging him to pay attention to the race rather than distractions, such as other horses, crowds, fences, and so on.

Enough about horses—why should we wear blinders for Jesus? To eliminate distractions, right? They are all around us, and they come in the form of people, social media, television, other religions, obsessions, and idols. We know some of you are saying that you cannot see what’s coming next with blinders on. In fact, visionary leaders say you must have peripheral vision to always be ready for what is coming next. While we agree with this, we are talking about having blinders for Jesus. Staying focused on what He has called you to do and running straight ahead into His arms.

Where does SOS originate from? On October 3, 1906, the SOS signal was established as an international distress signal by an agreement made between the British Marconi Society and the German Telefunk organization at the Berlin Radio Conference. The signal was formally introduced on July 1, 1908. In Morse code, SOS is signified by three dots, three dashes, then three dots (…—…). SOS was chosen because it could not be misinterpreted as being a message for anything else. It was sometime later that it was suggested that it might stand for “Save Our Souls.”

So why did we name our book Sink or Sit? We want you to answer the call, say yes to Jesus, and trust that sinking is better than sitting. In his book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Mark Batterson writes about Peter and his choice to answer Jesus’s call to leave the boat. Matthew 14:28 says, “And Peter answered him, ‘Lord , if it is you, command me to come to you on the water’” (ESV). Batterson writes, Peter is the disciple who sinks in the Sea of Galilee, but he was also the only disciple who walked on water. It’s so easy to criticize Peter from the comfortable confines of the boat. I think there are two kinds of people in the world: creators and criticizers. There are people who get out of the boat and walk on water. And there are people who sit in the boat and criticize water walkers.

Batterson also says, “I’d rather get wet than have a numb gluteus maximus. When everything is said and done, I think our greatest regrets will be the God- ordained risks we didn’t take. We won’t regret sinking. We will regret sitting.” As we walk you through our journey in the chapters to follow, we hope you will see we were willing to leave the boat and possibly sink to answer God’s call. Well, don’t just sit there! Read on, and hopefully our story will challenge you to answer whatever God is calling you to do.
—Jason