When Mike boarded a plane for Colombia in 2003, he was 61 years old and heading out on his very first short-term mission trip.
He had enjoyed a successful business career, retired early, and built a life that looked good from the outside. Missions had never been part of the plan. But God had other ideas.
“I was laying up the savings on earth, not laying up the savings in heaven,” Mike said. “And the only thing we can send to heaven is the impact we have on people. I was 61 years old and I hadn’t been on a short-term mission trip. And so I committed to God that I would go.”
What started as one act of obedience became a calling that would shape the rest of his life. Since that first trip, Mike has gone on 64 mission trips, 57 of them to Colombia. Now 83, he still goes on multiple trips a year and speaks about the work with the same wonder, gratitude, and conviction.
His story is about much more than travel. It is a story of repentance, surrender, eternal perspective, and the joy of watching God change lives – both his own and others’.
“I Remember Being Absolutely Petrified”
Mike does not romanticize his first experience on the mission field.
“I remember being absolutely petrified,” he said.
He had prepared. He had memorized the Gospel presentation. He had a good translator. But he was still stepping into unfamiliar territory, far outside his comfort zone.
On the first day, he and his translator went to a refugee area where many families had fled violence in other parts of the country. They shared the Gospel with 13 people.
All 13 accepted Christ.
Instead of feeling only excitement, Mike was wary.
“My skepticism arose and I said, ‘That’s too easy. Is this for real?’”
The next day, God answered his question. The first person they approached brushed them off. The second family listened carefully but did not respond. Looking back, he said those two experiences amounted to one of the best lessons he’s ever learned in ministry.
“Nothing happens unless the Holy Spirit’s there,” Mike said. “If the Holy Spirit hasn’t gone beforehand, it’s not working.”
That realization reshaped the way he sees everything that happens on a mission trip. It’s not about his words, his performance, or his confidence.
“I can’t do anything,” Mike said. “The Holy Spirit does everything.”
He still carries that lesson today.
Watching God Change Eternal Destinations
For Mike, one of the most powerful parts of missions is not simply sharing the Gospel. It is watching God do what only He can do.
“I get the privilege, even though I don’t deserve it, of representing God and watching the Holy Spirit,” he said. “When you have the privilege of seeing the Holy Spirit changing eternal destinations right before your eyes, what’s more meaningful than that?”
That sense of awe has never left him, regardless of how many lives he sees God change.
On one trip, Mike and his translator were sharing the Gospel with a young woman who seemed only half-interested in the conversation. But then Mike felt the Holy Spirit nudge him to offer his hand to her as a picture of Christ offering eternal life. When she took his hand, something shifted.
“She was so distracted, so I didn’t think we were going to have any real results,” Mike said. “But when I offered her my hand as if Jesus was offering her the opportunity to have eternal life with God, she wouldn’t let go of my hand. And tears were just running down her cheeks.”
The woman accepted Christ right then and there. Mike’s translator asked the woman what had changed.
“She said, ‘I had a dream … the most beautiful dream,’” Mike said. “‘This beautiful light was drawing me, and I was walking towards it and walking towards it and walking towards it. And all of a sudden I fell into a pit and I was falling and falling and falling. And right before I hit the bottom, a hand reached down and pulled me out.”
Another story that has stayed with Mike involves a woman whose response to the Gospel was also deeply tied to a dream she had experienced before their conversation.
Mike and a translator visited a home where a nonbelieving woman welcomed them in and even invited her neighbor to join the conversation. Mike expected resistance. Instead, she was eager to respond to the Gospel.
Afterward, he asked her why.
“She told us, ‘I had a dream a couple of weeks ago that the two of you were going to come to my door to tell me about God,’” Mike said. “The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.”
He later double-checked the translation because the story was so striking. But the translator had heard her correctly.
For Mike, moments like that are reminders that God is always at work long before a team arrives.
Not a “Hit-and-Run” Ministry
One reason Mike has gone on so many e3 mission trips is the ministry model itself. He cares deeply about follow-up and long-term discipleship, not just momentary decisions.
“What I like is that it is not a hit-and-run ministry,” Mike said.
He explained how e3 identifies and partners with local churches that are committed to following up with those who accept Christ and discipling them after short-term teams leave.
“We only go with churches that are going to be responsible for follow up,” he said.
That matters deeply to him. He wants to know that the people responding to the Gospel are being welcomed into a church body, discipled by local believers, and given the support they need to grow.
“It is that kind of follow-up that makes me comfortable that this is not temporary,” he said. “These professions of faith, we do everything in our power through the churches to see that it is an eternal destination change.”
“The Greatest Privilege I’ve Ever Had”
Mike speaks often about privilege – not in the worldly sense, but in the eternal one.
That eternal perspective is now central to the way he sees his life.
When asked what he would say to someone considering going on an e3 trip, he did not hesitate.
“I would tell them that, for me, it is the greatest privilege I’ve ever had in my life,” Mike said. “It is the single most distinct privilege I’ve ever had that I know that God has used me to make a difference.”
That conviction has not faded with age. If anything, it has grown stronger.
Still Going at 83
Mike is now 83 years old. He still travels on four mission trips a year. And he doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon.
“I ask God to let me continue going as long as I live,” Mike said.
Even when he’s not on a mission trip, Mike is still on mission. He talks to people about Jesus wherever he goes – at the grocery store, at local meetings, and in everyday conversations that seem ordinary at first.
For example, Mike struck up a conversation with a man at the grocery store who he learned had walked away from the church. Mike shared his story with him, and the interaction ended with the man saying, “I think God meant for us to talk today. I’m going back to church.”
One Final Lesson
Looking back at his decades of ministry, Mike shared one of the clearest lessons he has learned over the years.
“You cannot outgive God.”
He meant that financially, yes. But he meant it much more broadly too – with time, obedience, comfort, energy, and trust.
“Be generous with God,” Mike said, “because you can’t outgive Him … in action, in money, in anything. He will give you infinitely more.”
That sentence may summarize Mike’s life as well as any other.
He gave God a simple yes at age 61.
God turned it into decades of Gospel conversations, changed lives, lifelong friendships, strengthened churches, and a deeper understanding of grace than Mike ever thought possible.
And after all these years, Mike is still convinced there is no better way to spend his life.
“How can you have a better way to close out your life than being able to tell people about the greatest love story ever written?” he said. “And that’s what the Gospel is. It is the greatest love story ever written.”