'Every Christian should have a passport'
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___HENDERSON--For years, Bill and Melba Wilkerson thought they would put off becoming mission volunteers until he retired from his work as a family practice physician.
___"One day Melba said to me, 'We don't know you're going to live to retire.' And she was right, and we've given at least three or four weeks to missions each year since then," Wilkerson recalled.
___He now has a limited practice and works only three days a week, so it's easier to get away. But before he retired, he combined a thriving medical practice with regular volunteer missions work. His commitment to missions never hampered his service to the community, he said.
___"We were very busy then," Mrs. Wilkerson explained. "You have to make some arrangements and you make less money, because he wasn't there seeing patients, but you do it because the Lord tells you to."
___Wilkerson added that he doesn't actually remember ever earning less money at the end of the year because of time spent in missions. "Yes, we were gone three weeks, but I don't remember the money adding up to us having less."
___"All these things are just excuses people use," Mrs. Wilkerson said.
___Christians in the primes of their business careers shouldn't avoid God's call to missions, the East Texas couple asserted.
___"We've seen a lot of churches send youth, and then you see older people, but not a lot of people in between, and I've often wondered why," Wilkerson said.
___"I would encourage people not to put it off until they get old," Mrs. Wilkerson added. "We live in an affluent society, and that gives us more opportunity to do missions at a younger age. But that affluence gets in some people's way."
___Some people also might see aplastic anemia as a reason to curtail mission efforts, but Wilkerson continues his work despite having the disease. His bone marrow no longer manufactures blood cells, and every three weeks he must return for treatment.
___The main limitation that puts on him is not being able to commit to projects lasting more than three weeks.
___But it's certainly not enough to keep him from going at all.
___"It has to be considered, and there are places I would have to think seriously about before going," he said. "That doesn't mean I wouldn't go, I'd just have to be more sure that it was God's place for me. ... If it wasn't for having this problem, I'd probably go six months or more at a time."
___When the Wilkersons first decided in 1986 that they weren't going to wait for retirement to become missions volunteers, they made their first trip to Belize.
___There they felt a confirmation from God that they were doing the right thing. "We felt like it was what the Lord wanted us to do, and we enjoyed it too," she said.
___"Our lives have been truly enriched--not only by the people we have met who were also doing missions, but especially the local people in the countries where we've gone to minister," Wilkerson agreed.
___"In 1987, we went back to Belize and we stopped at a church, and this lady came out and said she had accepted the Lord when I was there the year before and had joined the church. Things like that sort of make you want to go back."
___Many of their missions efforts have been medical in nature. Mrs. Wilkerson is a former nurse in addition to her husband being a physician.
___"We'd just set up a shade tree clinic," he said. "Just find a tree and start seeing people. People would line up as far as you could see. You don't really do a great deal for them medically, but you do what you can, and we've really been able to help some folks. But the main thing is to tell them about Jesus."
___Mrs. Wilkerson said she is certain missions should be a part of every Christian's life.
___"It's not really our option if God calls us," she said. "Some feel it's their option to say, 'I don't do that,' but I don't believe that. When Jesus gave the Great Commission, he didn't put anybody's name on it.
___"I believe every Christian ought to have a passport."
___In addition to Belize, the Wilkersons have served in England, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Poland, Slovenia and the Ukraine.
___"When we get old and can't get out of our chairs, we'll have a lot to talk about," Mrs. Wilkerson said.
___"And when we get to heaven, we'll have a lot of people to see again," her husband said, completing the thought.
___One of the stories they'll talk about and one of the people they will see again is Serge, a man they met in the Ukraine and watched grow over their eight trips to the country.
___Serge became a Christian in 1992. When his son turned 2, his wife left him and became a prostitute. She would come back from time to time wanting money or a place to stay for a couple of days, but she never stayed.
___The Wilkersons and other American Christians told Serge he needed to get a divorce and get on with his life. But Serge always said, "No, she's my wife and I love her. She'll come back one day."
___Indeed, one day his wife, Vika, did come back. And this time it wasn't money or a place to stay that she wanted.
___"If I don't get the Jesus you have, I'm going to die," she told him. She has now been a Christian four years.
___"Now she's the sweetest Christian woman," Mrs. Wilkerson said. "If you met her, you would think we were making this story up."
___Wilkerson also will recall the Ukrainian pastor who had led his church for 37 years. His father also was a pastor and had been imprisoned for his beliefs.
___He died before his prison sentence was completed, however, so the police came and got his wife to serve his sentence for him.
___That woman, the younger pastor's mother, was later released, but her son and his family had known persecution for many years.
___Wilkerson was part of a team that had been asked to come to the pastor's village to hold evangelistic meetings. On Sunday morning, however, the pastor told the team, "These people depend on their gardens to survive, and it hasn't rained in a long time."
___"So we began to pray," Wilkerson said, "and it began to rain. When we got through, we couldn't even get to our cars it was raining so hard."
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The Baptist Standard