When I was a little girl, my church had a revival every year.One of my favorite speakers, and a good friend of our family, was the Rev. David Burrows.Pastor David immigrated to America in 1951 with his wife Mena and their 14-month old son Alan.After their 10-day voyage across the ocean, they both vividly remember seeing the Statue of Liberty on February 14 as they landed at Ellis Island.

Pastor David is the kind of minister who radiates energy.He would pace the platform, gesturing with his hands, his Irish brogue dripping with the passion of Christ!He had story after story of people meeting Jesus, and being transformed by this encounter.I was transfixed by his sermons time and time again.And only now, some 30 years later, do I realize how much he helped to shape my own style of preaching.

David and I had the opportunity to visit with Pastor David and Mena last week.They retired to Arizona and through what they call "God's Intervention" have been able to settle in a retirement community called Royal Oaks.Both in their early 80s, they see no need to be sedentary.Pastor David said, "We have such a ministry here.These people are on their way out and don't even know the Lord!"

I asked them if they would remind me of how they met.And through the telling of this story, we came to the place where they had been separated for over a year while attending different schools.David had been praying to the Lord, asking if Mena was the one.He prayed, "Give me a sign Lord!"And Mena interjected, "Those were great days . . . when you always asked the Lord for signs!"So David wrote a letter to Mena, and included a verse from Psalms that the Lord had given him.He sent the letter across the English Channel.In the meantime, Mena had written a similar letter to David.Their letters crossed in the mail.When they opened each other's letter, they had both quoted the same verse from the Psalms!David said, "For me, it was God's answer to my prayer."

We had driven to have breakfast with them, and stayed through lunch.As we continued to converse, I would pause now and then and think, "God, what's happening here?I am being so filled by your Spirit!"On the journey home, David and I shared about how inspired and encouraged we felt.Pastor David and Mena are people who are still on fire for the Lord!This is how we want to be at their age!They reignited for me the passion of the Gospel, the urgency to communicate this message, the hope that is ours to give through Christ.They could reminisce about the past, but they definitely weren't stuck there.Oh no, they were marching forward into the future.There were still souls to win for Christ!

Pastor David and Mena are two of the people who instilled in me a love for Jesus, are two of the people who led me on the journey to become a missionary.You never know where a relationship will lead you.For my faith journey, God sent a wee bit of the Irish!