Doug and Julie Effinger in Nicaragua

Making the decision to follow Jesus was a radical one for me. I continued attending every meeting I could and was reading my bible non-stop. My learning curve was vertical. Along with some single guys from Edwards AFB we would go drive out together to attend church. For about 9 months we did this religiously, to use a pun. It was hard for us to meet people our age because our commitment was to the military which made it difficult to plug in to ministries at the Vineyard. But we would make the services as often as possible. We also would visit other churches for evening services since the Vineyard did not have a Sunday evening service, and we were hungry for teaching. It was October of 1981 that we visited a church in Rosamond called the Wayside Chapel where after a few Sunday evening services I met the woman who 8 months late became my wife and still is today. We were married June 5th of 1982. Shortly after, we moved on to base housing and opened up a home bible study group in our hous...

I have to apologize again about not updating this blog after so many years. Since opening a Facebook account, we have found it much easier to make quick posts to Facebook than to sit down and write a post or story in a blog. Nevertheless, this is a good medium to inform our friends and acquaintances with longer stories or subject matter. In this post I want to share a little about our story which has led us to a life of vocational missions. In this series of posts, I will go back to what initially sparked my interest in missions. And then share a bit about how we put ourselves in a position to do missions the way we do. I'll talk about some of our challenges along the way. And eventually bring the story to where we are now in the present. Why write about this now? After 15 years of involvement in Nicaragua, and over 13 years living as full time missionaries, we have met so many young people and older folks who look at us and ask, "How did you get here?" All the while ...