I Quit

Sunset at the South Rim – View to the East Northeast from Maricopa Point, on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, Arizona.

A couple years ago, the whole family went with some friends to the Grand Canyon. We took our time getting there from Phoenix, and we arrived late in the day. We had an hour or two to walk around and explore as the day was drawing to a close and the sun began to set. With Miranda’s permission, I wandered off and found my own little outcropping from which to make a few photographs. As I stood there on that precipice, I felt incredibly small against the amazing, God-made, beautiful vastness of that canyon, carved out of rocks over the course of centuries past.

Our family again stands at the precipice of an amazing, God-made, beautiful vastness. This time, though, it’s a bit different. This time, we’re diving into the canyon, trusting God to carry us along as we follow him. At the end of September, I’m quitting the job I’ve had for the majority of the last 11 years. Our family is also permanently abandoning the dependability of a “regular” paycheck. After this date, for the first time in 18 years, I will not receive another regular, dependable, steady paycheck. Period. It’s kinda scary, totally uncharted territory for our family—and we couldn’t be more excited about it.

The first “real” job I had started when I was about 15. I took over the yardwork empire established by my brother, Justin, after he went off to college. I had three or four regular clients in the neighborhood, and the process was pretty simple—I did a certain amount of work (mowing their yards), and they paid me a certain amount of money. It wasn’t much, but it was great cash for a 15-year-old kid—spendin’ money, as my pawpaw would say.

I haven’t really stopped working since then—I worked other regular jobs in high school, worked my way through college, got a job after college, worked throughout graduate school, and have been working since I finished there. Every one of those jobs worked the same way—I did “X” work, and I got paid “Y” money. As long as I did the work, I got paid. It was a predictable, clear, un-messy, regular paycheck. And I’m walking away from it.

As of October 1, our primary employer will be Wycliffe Bible Translators, the mission organization we joined about a year ago. As missionaries with Wycliffe, we’re becoming part of a rich heritage of incredibly godly and faith-filled people who have lived life as part of a “faith mission” organization—basically, we’ll be depending on God to provide our finances through His church and His children

The specific work to which God has called us is humbling and exciting: we get to use the gifts He’s given us to tell the global Church about all the really cool things He’s doing in Bible translation around the world—Dale through photojournalism, and Miranda through administration. It will be challenging, demanding, and completely humbling. And our income each month will be directly dependent on what our financial partners give to the organization on our behalf the month before. We do “X” work, and trust God to provide for our needs, through His Church, in whatever way He decides is best.

We already have a number of friends, family, and fellow believers who have been led by God to become part of what He will do through us at Wycliffe by becoming financial partners in bringing His word to the Bibleless. If this is something you’re interested in, please let us know and we can talk more about what that might look like.