Salt of the Earth?

When Mike and I were deciding to move back to the South after ministering in the Northwest for 12 years, we wrestled with whether as "salt", we were trying to jump back into the salt-shaker of the Bible belt. We knew we were needed in the Northwest, which is considered a pioneer area by our denomination. Did God really want us to move to the South, where there's a church "on every corner"? Mike and I both have a heart for missions...so why would God want, or even allow, us to go "home"?
Mike, especially, was trying to come to grips with what he wanted and what God wanted of him. He was at a convention once and went to his hotel room and cried out in desperation to God, saying, "What do you want me to do?" And he felt God answer, "Love Me; influence people." And Mike said, "Yeah, but where??" Same answer: "Love Me; influence people." We saw that as permission, or freedom, to go where our hearts were yearning to go, where our children could know their family, and where we could be there when our mothers needed us. So we resigned our jobs, packed up our stuff and moved.
That was a year and a half ago, and I still look around me sometimes and wonder how God can use us here. We had forgotten a little how saturated the South really is with the Gospel (but how few truly live it, myself included). We heard it described once as an innoculation--many Southerners grow up exposed to the Gospel, without ever taking it personally, so that when you try to witness or minister to them, they don't think they need it. When they do. And every college campus, which is our main field of ministry, is a mission field--just visit one and see. But with homeschooling, just about everyone the girls and I had met goes to one of the 3 Baptist churches in this town. Until last week, I still hadn't caught a vision of how God could use us--how I could still be a missionary. Until last week...
Thursday night is SAU BCM's weekly worship time, "Source". Typically the students lead a time of worship, Mike speaks, they play Jungle Pong and go home. Since I started home-schooling, the girls and I have been able to go, too. Last Thursday was the day after classes started up for this semester, so Mike just planned a low-key, pizza party & games get-together.
Now our friend Bit, the BCM director at UCA, had run into some Nepalese SAU students at the Little Rock airport who were stranded, and had worked with Mike and the SAU internationals office to get them here to Magnolia, and a few of them had visited Mike at the BCM. That Thursday night, around 12 (I didn't count) of them came to Source! There were 30 or so total students there, and we played "4 on the Couch", and used straws to build things to keep eggs from breaking, and went on a "Bigger and Better" scavenger hunt (and played Jungle Pong), and everyone seemed to have a good time. But when Mike and I got home that night, we had both had the same thoughts, and got so excited we couldn't sleep that night. God brought our mission field to us! Here were these boys, so far from home and everything familiar, feeling comfortable around us and our students. Mike asked if they'd be interested in an English club, like one he participated in on a short-term mission trip to China, and they were all interested in that. Mike and I both said we want to start learning about Nepal, it's customs and religions and traditions, and start praying and preparing ourselves, just as we would if we were physically going to Nepal. Please pray for us and our students, that we will be faithful and bold and reach out with Christ's love to these students. It's good to feel like a missionary again!
[This morning I felt like a missionary in the Northwest again...it was 22 degrees and we were driving through the hills for Mike to preach at a little country church that still uses the "Heavenly Highway" hymnal! Ha! We had a good time...]