by Angie Miller

“But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth;  for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you declares the Lord.””  Jeremiah 1:7-8

Our daughter Ema just turned 12 years old.  She accepted Jesus at 7 years old and by the grace of God has run full steam ahead in her faith!  She told me shortly after that day “Sorry Mom, but I’m not going to live here when I’m older.  I want to go to another country to tell people about Jesus!”  Deep breaths…God has her!  So when Rick Fulton came back from Guatemala last summer I talked to him about Ema and if it would be a good trip for her.  He shared with me that it was a great trip for her and he’d love to share more when the next trip came up.  In March, Rick approached my husband Chuck and said they had two more spots on their team and would he think about going along.  We had just put an addition on our home and had a lot of work to do in the spring and summer to finish it up.  The expenses of that and the time it would take was overwhelming.  Chuck sadly told him not this year, but to keep us in mind.  We were on our way home from church that Sunday and were talking about it.  We talked about how there are always excuses (not enough vacation time, finances, timing).  By the time we got home we had decided to call Rick and let him know we were going to send Chuck and Ema.  We weren’t sure how it would work, but we had decided that if God wants her in the mission field, we CAN’T hinder her with our weak excuses!

On March 7th, we took the first steps to sending Ema on her first missions trip.  We did whatever we could think of to raise funds.  We reached out to our friends, family and community via Facebook and told them about what Ema and Chuck would be doing.  We did a can drive and Ema did some babysitting.  The donations came pouring in!  It was absolutely incredible to see what God was doing to make this happen!  People we would have never guessed donated cans and money.  People we had NEVER met brought cans to our house.  We would come home from somewhere and there would be bags of cans outside of our garage!!

Long distance family members and close friends donated.  On April 5th, (29 DAYS!!!) God brought in the last dollar to make them BOTH fully funded!  We were blown away!  We humbly thanked God for providing and asked forgiveness for our doubt.

Since then Ema has continued with her can drive.  She wanted to see how many wheel chairs she could collect for!  We’ve brought multiple loads of cans to the redemption center.  On one of our trips, my sweet girl turned to me and apologized for picking at her finger (she does that when she’s nervous or anxious).  I asked her what was going on and she shared with me that she was nervous about her part of a GROUP presentation at school.  Ema struggles with the kids at school and often feels very lonely.  The last thing she wanted to do is let anyone down, so I understood the anxiousness.  About 20 minutes later she began telling me about her second presentation of the day…her SOLO Guatemala presentation.  I asked her if she was nervous about this presentation and she looked at me like I was crazy!  She said “No.  Not at all!”  I asked her why she thought that was?  She simply stated “Because I felt like God was telling me to not be scared and to just tell them!”  Needless to say, I was humbled again.  The faith she has is absolutely, 100% from God!  We are so blessed to have her as our daughter and amazed often at how she handles herself.  Don’t get me wrong, she still picks on her brother!

In less than 2 weeks, Ema and her daddy, get the privilege to go to Guatemala.  They are beyond excited to go and be a part of something way bigger than us and I’m excited to see what God is going to do with them!  God provided what we thought was impossible in 29 days!!  Sometimes the hardest part is just saying YES!

Angie Miller

(Chuck Miller’s wife and Ema Miller’s mother)