The following is an excerpt from the newsletter of Christopher Wade and family, newly appointed Assemblies of God World Missions personnel for Croatia.

"It is time to go. The long awaited day has come. We have watched as the neighbors seemingly drew lots for the kids' trampoline and jungle gym. Garage sale hunters carelessly and emotionlessly rummaged through our most precious belongings without regard to our many memories. With a heavy heart and many tears, Renee and I watched as our dining room table and its many family meals and discussions, laughter and tears, was loaded onto someone else's trailer. The couch on which many a child was rocked to sleep now reduced to just a piece of furniture.

I look around our empty home with a heavy heart. As Amy Grant once sang, 'if these walls could speak.' If this house could speak...you would hear the children laughing, the door opening and closing, countless bedtime stories and hurried school-time mornings. It would tell of restless nights and doctor's care, a house full of life and prayer; now a house quiet and bare. Pictures have come off the walls but fingerprints remain. Toys have been picked up for the last time. The order has been sent: stop the water, turn out the lights, give our phone number to someone else. The Wades are no longer here.

In my transparency, tears now stream down my face, not because I love this home so much but because it is who we are and that is about to change. Soon a foreign tongue will confuse our thoughts, strange places and strange faces will be all around us. Our friends will be far away from us. We shall look upon our elderly parents perhaps for the last time on this earth.

Kelsey, our daughter, asked, 'Will they remember us, Dad?' It is a good question. Jesus said, 'Let not your hearts be troubled for I am with you wherever you go, even to the ends of the earth.' Croatia is the end of the earth for us. As I have shared our calling into missions, I have asked many of you to count the cost of following the Master. Now I am counting the cost. I leave with no regrets. I have given encouragement to all who would listen, and now it is I who needs the encouragement as we prepare for our future service in Croatia."

Will you pray for our missionaries who have left all to share the love of Jesus, even to the ends of the earth?