I was married when I was 19 and never regretted it. After all, I was VERY mature for may age! 14 months later when we had our first child, one of the thoughts I remember having amongst the flood of proud emotions was, “this will be fun, I have a new playmate!” After having three more sons, a daughter, and then two more sons I always had much the same thought after each one was born. After all, I was VERY mature for my age! With all those mouths to feed and bills to pay I did the right thing and worked hard and at times worked long hours but always with the daily, weekly, and even yearly goal of “let’s get to the fun parts!” Because of every moment being busy and full of “important” things our family needed to keep everything simple…so we had/have very simple guidelines in every area of our life that helped us keep moving forward. In the area of “man fun” (fishing, hunting, extreme adventures, etc.) I kept having to remember two things: 1: Serve the family. 2: The fun will come when the kids get older. In the area of ministry remember another two things: 1: Always serve with or connect with my wife in each ministry (if not serving directly together, her ministry is my ministry and my ministry is her ministry) 2: Do ministry as a family or with the kids as often as possible. When our oldest was getting into his teen years we decided to add one guideline to the mix… our kids need to be apart of cross cultural ministry trips so they will be more well rounded servants of God and NOT take all that they have for granted. So, when our oldest, Keith Jr. was 15 I took him to do a 17 day backpacking ministry in the mountains of Argentina where we saw God do so many things. But on the way there this is some of the things that happened: -I lost my passport. -We got deported from Argentina to Bolivia. -Changed our tickets to head home (20 hours after leaving). -Found my passport (where I already looked 5 times) (God hid it!). -Used all of our money to change the tickets back. -Stayed the night in Santa Maria, Bolivia (next flight to Argentina was 36 hours later). -Was detained for questioning by a Santa Maria police officer on the street the next morning (he was a fake!) and were taken to a strange part of the city. -Mugged by the “police officer” who took money, camera, my wedding ring etc. -Stranded and lost in Santa Maria. -Almost got our bearings when we ran into the only person we know in the city of 2 million people (Met her on the flight from Miami the day before). -They housed us until our flight the next day. They were missionaries to people and groups traveling through (That was us), And they got us to the airport. -Someone arranged us to meet a man in Argentina we met on the plane from Miami 2 days earlier. A man we helped with a customs issue. -That man arranged a ride to the city near where the rest of our mountain climbing team was. We couldn’t speak the language of the driver or others in the car we just had to trust we were going the right place. -Finally get to Salta Argentina bus station to find a sea of people with dark complexions, brown eyes and black hair (who are we meeting here? And what now?). -After what seemed like hours of waiting (may have been 20 minutes or so) from a high spot from which we could scan almost the entire crowd, finally, we saw it, something different, all the way across the bus station property up against the wall, a white women with blonde hair. -She was an angel! (Actually, she was the ministry partners wife, who took us to our team!) -It was late afternoon. We went into the mountains early the next morning! THIS was the beginning of our cross cultural experiences we wanted for our children, and what an adventure it was! You’ve only heard about the first two days! Over the years there has been at least a dozen more from the state next to us to Africa! All of them included one or more of our kids and at least one of us parents. And they all had problems to overcome; broken vehicles, constant schedule changes, no electricity where there was supposed to be some, etc. As you can see adventures are very important to me and I don’t even care if it’s at all easy as long as we are learning something and becoming a little more like Jesus. Caleb, our world racer, has benefited from this more than the others, perhaps. He went on his first mission trip when he was 5, one that his mother and I were leading. His second trip was when he was 9. Also leading, and taking most of our kids, and several others, we went to Italy for three months to rehab a flooded youth camp. We did a few more with Caleb as opportunity arose. Through high school and college he did several trips without his parents, without me! WITHOUT ME! I wanted to go be part of the adventure and add more “God sightings” to my list. But he went without me and to make it worse came home almost every time and said “Dad, you would have loved that trip”, or “those people,” or “that place.” The last one was to India and came back with a little “intestinal friend” and it was a trip where he struggled with the leadership and never got close to his team but he still said it! “There is this one guy there you have to meet” Then he’s about to graduate from college and he calls and says “I’m considering going on the World Race” My first thought was “sounds like something he’d do… l’m so jealous”. Later we even compared how many countries we’ve been to and I was barely edging him by a couple at that point! I noticed a pattern in myself. A potential of dissatisfaction deep down. I’ve never been a jealous person but is that what that is? I was always the “goer”unless there was a very good reason for me not to be. I went as often as possible to get new God sighting with my wife and kids and others, of course! But this time I’m the “stayer”. The praying guy, the encourager , the support guy, the money guy if necessary, the dad! I didn’t really like that. I have things to offer! I have experience! God could use me out there! I want to do more for the kingdom!!!! “Stop! Keith, just stop! It’s not always about you!” For crying out loud! It’s my son! He’s not going on vacation, he’s going expecting his heart to be broken deeply and to be changed forever! To get good at listening to the Holy Spirit and proclaiming the name of Jesus! To hear Gods will and do it! Maybe even find his next step in life! Maybe find out that God wants him in one of these 11 countries permanently! Or discover that his career should include being flexible enough to travel often. He’s growing up and doesn’t need me tagging along/dragging him into the next “good” thing! I don’t want good for him…I want great! I want him on the dangerous but marvelous cutting edge of the Masters will! I want him to have so many God sightings that it would take weeks to share even half of them! I want him to know God better than me, be more faithful, listen better and more quickly, and have greater crowns in heaven! I raised him to want all those things and to use foreign missions as a good part of the process. I raised him answering very few of his questions directly (he and his brothers and sister hated that) but by digging out the answers that are already there. The answers that the Heavenly Father is more than willing to give if we ask, seek, and knock. Caleb is getting 11 months, plus, of practicing things that will make him increasingly humble, useful and relevant for the Kingdom! What could be better? That’s what this dad has always really wanted for his kids. I couldn’t be more proud! Keith “Daddio” Callaway
