What do you do all day?

I posted last week about how Jeremy is home all the time and how we are all together day in and day out.

As itinerating missionaries with no office to go to… what do we do all day?

Someone, after watching us at work together, recently said, “I didn’t realize you were working. Well, I knew you were working, but I didn’t realize what you have to do all day. You’re not on vacation.”

Nope.

Not on vacation.

Oh, our schedule is pretty flexible. We can stay up late or sleep in a little later if we don’t have an appointment to go to that day. We can set our own appointment times and structure our days.

But there is SO much to do.

So much to do it is overwhelming at times.

Most of it happens online and over the phone.

We are mastering our phone calling, letter writing, accounting, record keeping, travel making and other secretarial skills.

We are constantly evaluating what we say and what we do when we talk to people about missions.

We are preparing services and writing notes and studying.

{sometimes even planning events for Ranger Rick – pictured above…}

We are studying our calendar and praying it fills with enough services and meetings to hit our goals.

For example, to just make one phone call to a pastor, we first:

– look at their church website
– find out who the pastors are and their names
– find out what their service times are and what kinds of ministries they have
– study a map to see where the church is
– study the calendar to see when the best time would be to be in that area
– pray that our calendar matches up with the church’s calendar
– pray that someone is in the church office to answer the phone
– finally call and talk to someone
– usually leave a message
– make a note to follow up

I go through the same process when I email a pastor to set up a service or a coffee appointment.

Jeremy and I work well together and we long ago learned our strengths and weaknesses.

Part of this journey is that we both need to be ready and available to step in to any part of this process whether we are good at it or not.

Part of this journey is putting ourselves out there and praying that God opens doors.

In the midst of all that, we are homeschooling our girls.

So our days are busy.

Usually, having 2-3 days at home working. A day or 2 out meeting with pastors or driving around to churches. And, lately, 1-2 days traveling to get where we need to be for our next service.

Last night, Jeremy asked, “What is on the agenda for tomorrow?”

I said, “Phone calls. Lots of phone calls.”

With that Goodwin smile, he said, “Nice.”

Notes upon notes, piles upon piles, lists and calendars and ideas and…

Yeah…

That’s what we do all day.