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A Better Future {Saint Bryce Missions}

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St. Bryce's - A Better Future

When my husband and I founded St. Bryce Missions in 2010, this is what we knew: that God was asking us to open the door for Him to use our pain for the good of others. You see, the foundation is named for our sixth son, Bryce, our sweet baby boy who flew home to heaven in his sleep at three months old. It was a small “yes” to offer in our grief, a surrender to the fact that our pain could perhaps do some good in this world if we were willing to be generous with it.

We had no idea where it would lead and how our lives would look five short years later. But that small “yes” was big in that it was the first step out of our grief and into a life of purposeful, intentional “yes” living—where we began a discipline of saying the small “yes” to the thing that God was asking right now and leaving the growing impact of that “yes” to His doing.

By 2011, we were saying “yes” to moving our family to the rural mountains of Costa Rica to bring the Good News to an indigenous population living in isolated reserve lands there. And then “yes” to growing the vision of our work to reach other periphery communities around the world. And “yes” to helping mothers generate income for their families by starting a social enterprise initiative. And “yes” to helping local churches build the infrastructure they need to impact their communities.

And then one day in 2013, as we drove along the mountain paths, we found an indigenous mother walking with a small baby. We stopped to ask if she needed help, and she told us she was walking out to wait for an ambulance to bring her baby to the hospital. Looking at her worried face and the lethargic little one in her arms, I knew we could not leave her there. We waited with her until the ambulance arrived. And then I gave her my phone number and told her to call if she needed help. She did.

That night, we opened the doors to our home to her and her child, and she stayed with us for three days while her little one recovered. It opened our eyes to a very real need of the people we had come to serve. We found out that the indigenous population suffered infant mortality rates 5 times higher than the rest of Costa Rica because of lack of access to medical care, and the mothers’ inability to navigate the system without some kind of support. So the St Francis Emmaus Center, our outreach to indigenous mothers, was born with a single, small “yes”.

Nearly two years later, more than 170 mothers have been served at the center, which we run out of our home. This year, in the Costa Rican medical system’s official publication on their efforts to lower the infant mortality rate in the indigenous population, St. Bryce Missions’ efforts were cited as contributing to a 50% reduction in infant mortality in 2014.

Today, our days are filled with advocacy meetings with the Child Welfare Department and social workers, communications with medical staff, guiding moms through labor and early lactation, providing care for sick children. It is high impact, world-changing work and we are passionate about it.

But we never set out to change the world. We simply desired to move forward from our grief by embracing a life of “yes”, a life in which obedience to God’s promptings in small but faithful ways built the Kingdom here on earth.

We are firm believers in the fact that He wants to use all our stories in a similar way- He demands we be world-changers because this world needs more of Him. But that change doesn’t always look like a single high-impact, life-changing “yes”. More often, it is a series of small, obedient “yeses” offered one at a time. Our impact builds as our faithfulness becomes more consistent. The small “yeses” offered to the need right in front of us, over and over, becomes the building block God uses to change the world.

What “yes” can you give today that may seem small, but is building your impact for the Kingdom?

Share with us in the comments below and St. Bryce Missions will send three lucky commenters a special Costa Rican care package of locally produced coffee and other goodies, straight from our home to yours.

Greg
St. Bryce Missions

 

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Comments

  1. I love this so much and I love what God is up to with every one of your small “Yeses”! You and Colleen amaze me at how gracious and hospitable you are – not just with your home, but with your hearts and lives as well!

    A small yes that we are saying right now is in planting this new church and saying yes, and opening our door at home a little wider each week inviting new people in to our small group. We had this group in our home before we started the church, but we haven’t yet officially started a small group ministry… as we run out of chairs and floor space, we see how the time is now to find others to say yes as well and get more homes and leaders ready! (I mean, how big can a ‘small group’ get and still be small, right?)

    You had me at the beginning, but then you went and ended it all with Costa Rican coffee…
    Colleen is right. You ARE a smart man! 😉

  2. Experiencing a major changes the last 18 months has me saying yes to whatever is next and I have no idea what that is. I am saying yes to having an open mind, an open heart and open hands…waiting to see what He puts in them.

    And I’m saying YES! to Costa Rican coffee!!

  3. Thank you for this reminder. It is easy for those of us on the outside of a ministry like yours to think you got there with one big “yes” rather than lots of small ones. Isn’t it kind of our God to lead us somewhere remarkable with lots of small surrenders that are easier for us to understand?!
    I have had two babies in two and a half years and two battles with postpartum depression. I have focused on all the big “yeses” I can’t do rather than the small yeses I can do. A small yes for me right now is to start writing again. My blog has remained silent for the past year as the words dried up in the soul-drought of depression. God led me to create that space. He has given me to grace to take a break. And now I believe it is time to start tapping out words again. Thank you for the encouragement!!

    • Oh, Heather, as a mom who had five babies in eleven years, I know how easy it can be to only see what you can’t do every day. I pray that finding your way back to your writing breathes life and encouragement into your heart. The trenches of mommy-hood are hard and holy work, and never think that it is not enough!

  4. Randomly found this blog today & it brought so much encouragement to my heart. The Lord reminded me of the beautiful gift of saying “yes” in the small things-& right now I am saying yes to loving my 2 babies well, embracing the moments of my day & stewarding them well, & a biggie: starting an online magazine with my husband all about family (a huge dream!). Thank you for this truth you have shared! So so good!

  5. I love so much the concept of small “yeses” that lead to the very thing God has for us–in both loud and quiet moments. So glad I came back to the Allume blog tonight, on the day I committed weeks ago to begin a shift in focus and intention in my daily life. Right now, I am saying yes to trusting God when my inclination would be to fear something instead. I am saying yes to “Mommy, watch this!” instead of my to do list, and yes to being ok with things left undone. And I am saying yes to writing, and allowing God to move in my heart through words and prayer regarding those words. The small yeses add up to one big one in my heart–better stewardship of what I’ve been given and intentionality with the blessings at hand.

  6. This is just what God wanted me to hear today. I’ve been struggling with feeling like I don’t have a specific purpose, a specific calling or a specific area in which I am to devote my life to. I want so badly to hear God tell me “do this” or “go there” or “this is the cause I want you to defend”, when in reality I wonder if He is waiting for me to say yes to the small things. He can’t trust me with the big things until I am consistently faithful in the small things. So glad to read this blog post today… it refreshes my spirit and helps me to approach my prayers in a different way now.

  7. I met Colleen and the St Bryce Mission via the 31 Days Write project in 2014. We are in a “survivors” group and have become online friends. The heart Colleen and her husband have for these women and babies reflects the same heart Mother Teresa had for her people – the hands and feet of Christ. It is a beautiful thing to watch. I am going to get to meet Colleen this October at Allume and I cannot wait to hug her neck and kiss that sweet servant cheek of hers!

  8. Colleen is an unbelievable woman. I am so glad that we have met through the Write 31 Days challenge. The mission Colleen and her husband started remind so much of Psalm 30:verse 5 “Weeping may come for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” They took their grief and turned it into an intentional yes…into joy!

  10. Sometimes, the “yes” I have to offer on any given day seems so small that I feel it can hardly matter. “Mama, can you…?” That sentence could end with anything- push me on the swing? get me more juice? put my doll’s pajamas back on? help me make a robot out of this empty milk jug? I’m working hard on seeing these chances to say “yes” as opportunities to serve Jesus, because that’s what they are. It’s so easy to get caught up in wanting to do something big for God. Sometimes, the best way to serve God is to see Him in the faces of those right in front of me.

    Greg and Colleen, I am praying for you and for all the women and babies you serve!

    • Abbey, I know that small “yes”, that exhausted one, that this really makes no difference yes. Let’s both just keep doing the next small thing in front of us? Together. Thank you for your prayers.

  11. I’m saying yes to living in a place I’d rather not live (the AZ desert) to work at a school I didn’t really want to say ‘yes’ to–and my life has been immeasurably blessed. Tonight, I’m having 8 boys over for dinner–another ‘yes’ when I’d rather curl up with a good book instead of prepare a meal–but I know that all of my ‘yeses’ will make a difference–and that’s more important than my own preferences.

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