“How was your calling confirmed this last year?” This was the question we were given 3 minutes to answer during our annual late-October retreat of PAOC Global Workers, gathered together this year in Spain, from across Eurasia.

Forming a reply brought to mind not only our initial calling to international ministry when we were young teens but to a specific call as young adults during our 1^st assignment in Mexico. After taking language classes in Guadalajara we travelled with our truck and a 5^th wheel trailer – our home on wheels – spending time with graduates and pastors connected to the Bible School in Monterrey, directed by Bill and Gerda Brown.

After 2 years of ministry – many in remote areas of the country where blue eyes, for example, had never been seen before – Pastor Marco Polo Núñez asked if we would return to Guadalajara to work with him in the church plant that he was establishing. “We need young couples like yourselves to work with the emerging middle class in the city – those who can influence society both up and down the social spectrum.”

Over the years our ministry has unfolded along that directive as we have served alongside pastors, leaders, young adults and families in urban settings. Even this last month, here in Romania, that calling was affirmed as we facilitated a workshop with the university students and young professionals of our Bucharest International Church community. We savoured the ‘’buzz’’ around the tables as they discussed: “Your Identity in Christ… Own It!” It has been an honour and privilege to invest in the lives of dozens and dozens of these bright, young adults, to be considered “spiritual parents’ to many, to see how they have grown in Christian maturity and are now men and women of influence in their sphere of life both in this city and nation and around the world.