it's more than i bargained for!

How are we to live our lives? We find the answer to that question in the Gospel of Matthew. When Jesus was asked by a lawyer what is the great commandment in the law, His response was that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. He expanded His answer by adding that we are to love others as ourselves. These two commandments are so significant that the whole law and the prophets depend on them (Matthew 22:37-40).

Dave Allen grew up in Bosque Farms, New Mexico, a village near Albuquerque. He received Jesus as his Savior at age eight. During his high school years, he was exposed to the mission field through church-sponsored summer mission trips to Juarez, Mexico. These trips created in him a desire to become a missionary. Through Campus Crusade for Christ, an organization he joined while attending the University of New Mexico, and later as a missionary intern sent by his home church to Morelia, Mexico, Dave was able to fulfill that desire.

Through the course of Dave’ missionary experiences God taught him what it meant to live life in a sacrificial relationship with God and those around him. This journal chronicles how these relationships were developed in Dave’s life—how they became more than he’d bargained for.