My Brother Jeff

Tonight as I reflect on the last few weeks one thing keeps coming to mind.  My brother Jeff.  Jeff is 14 months younger than I am.  Did you ever have a sibling that whenever your mom and dad would ask any one of the kids in your family "who did that" you would answer "so and so did it!"  Well in our house it was always "Jeff did it!"  While sometimes it was Jeff who did it, he was usually our scapegoat and after a while I think our parents knew that the answer they were going to get is "Jeff did it!".  Did they know that the first person to say "Jeff did it!" usually was the culprit?  I'm not too sure but I can place dollars to donuts that they did.  We weren't pulling the wool over their eyes at all!

To say that Jeff had a rough life is an understatement.  He soon fell into a life of drugs and alcohol that would continue until just a few years ago.  At that time Jeff had met some people at work that invited him to church.  They loved him for who he was, embraced him for who he was and led him to a spirit filled life with Jesus Christ.  The change in Jeff has been like watching a caterpillar morph into a butterfly.  The love and light of Jesus shines through him.

So many people hear about Jackie and Rob's travels and Jackie and Rob's road to the mission field.  I learned recently that many people even from our family don't know that Jeff has made a huge move in his life also!  On Memorial Weekend Jeff came over for dinner and told us all that he had applied for a medical missions training program in the Philippines and if accepted he would be selling everything he owned, giving his dog to friends and moving to the Philippines for training this July.  Imagine our surprise!  But also our overwhelming sense of God's goodness and mercy.

Well, Jeff was accepted into the training program and on July 6 he left for the Philippines.  He is working each morning doing some building, gardening and other things to help build character and then in the afternoons they are doing training for a medical mission.  Jeff is the embodiment of a missions minded servant of God.  He has sold everything he owned and moved to the other side of the world to do the work that God called him to do. 

I love my brother Jeff so deeply.  I admire him and what he is doing.  And I give all the glory to God for Jeff and the miracle he is.  Amen to that!