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You're Not Enough to Rescue People · The Ethnos360 Podcast

• speaker-0: I really wanted like a master over the material, but that's a really low speaker-1: View of the living speaking word God. speaker-0: I had to settle with man, if you're asking me to enter back into this, I don't know how to face what else might happen to people that I might be called to take care of. It's just gray and it's hard and there's pain. We want to do all that we can. speaker-1: Again it was a fee. speaker-0: For someone that there's a limit to how much we can help. Welcome friends to the Ethnos 360 podcast, where we talk about vital topics, have honest conversations, and unpack the Great Commission. This episode is part of the series we call Real People, Real Stories. We hope you can see and hear your own story in today's conversation and be reminded that God is going to be as faithful with you as He has been with our guests. Hey, welcome back. Thanks for joining us here. ⁓ today on our podcast we have Sharon as our awesome Today. So let's get to it. Becca, thank you for being here. Thank you for inviting me. Yes. Yes. ⁓ okay, I'd love to start off by you just introducing yourself and what your ministry right now is. Okay. ⁓ I'm Becca Burns. I'm married to Cody, and he and I are both Ethnos 360 MKs and missionaries with Ethnos 360. And our ministry is in the member care team. So we provide missionary care or pastoral care to our missionaries and ministry workers. Okay, awesome. Okay, and MK, can you define what MK is? A missionary kid. Okay. So both of us actually grew up within Ethno 360. Our parents both serve in organization as role. Okay, awesome. Okay, so with that being said, that then brings us back to can you tell us a little bit more about like you and how your childhood and your family origin like start from the very beginning. Let's start with the day you were born. I'm just kidding. Just it was 1990 the summer. This is perfect. I was a week late. My mother was unhappy about so my my parents were at the time serving in Baker City, Oregon, where we had one of our training centers. speaker-1: Yes. Anyway. speaker-0: My dad used to teach foundational Bible teaching. And ⁓ my parents had ⁓ two daughters already. I was number three. And after that we had two boys as well. So family of five kids. Awesome. I like to call myself the center child. and all the personality that comes with that. So ⁓ yeah, I was born out there in Oregon and grew up up until I was 13 at that training center. ⁓ ⁓ and then when I was thirteen my parents transferred here to the home office. Okay. And they have worked in the personnel department since then. Okay. So that's a little about my growing of yours. Okay, yeah. ⁓ so you grew up in a missionary family. Yeah. So I'm assuming you, you know, developed a relationship with the Lord pretty early on. Yeah. ⁓ can you tell us like about like maybe more of when like Jesus became real to you and it became more of a relationship than like religion? yeah, I feel like it was stages, like it is for all of us. ⁓ I did have parents that were really faithful to ⁓ teach us and they're just passionate about teaching the word of God. ⁓ that was always a part of our morning routine. And then we we were the guinea pigs for the students. Going through foundational Bible teaching, they would come in and teach the preschoolers. So in my years of preschool at the at the campus, they would rotate who was caring for the kids, and then they would practice the lesson they'd been assigned. So I went through the chronological Bible teaching three times by the time I'd reached first grade. Wow. and I I just did have a lot of exposure to the word of God, to the gospel. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And I was not a compliant child. I had two sisters that were just such respectful, obedient, write a parent's book about them kids. And then me it was not ⁓ lost on me that they just seem to be able to obey and I just am not mailing. So I don't really remember this happening, but my my parents Talk about when I was three is when I sort of grasped like, this is not going well for me, guys. I think I'm doomed. And ⁓ they just talked me through the gospel and I grasped, ⁓ Jesus forgives that. And whether or not I can successfully, consistently obey, he paid for my consequences. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ speaker-0: And I get to have his glory, his reward, his righteousness. I get to go to heaven when I die, not because I could ever figure out this obedience thing, but because he had grace on me. And I I was just awestruck by that. ⁓ and then I went out to the campus and went to all of the missionary students and I was like, Did you know did you you believe he'll forgive yourself? speaker-1: Yeah. And speaker-0: It was like to my disappointment, everybody seemed to already be aware. So that was the beginning of for me. How old were you? Three. and ⁓ then I would say when we when we when I was twelve, ⁓ my parents were running ⁓ the youth group at our church ⁓ while we were there in Oregon. And there's an organization called Dare to Share. speaker-1: Be a woman. Well that was very important. speaker-0: ⁓ that holds conferences for high schoolers ⁓ to train them how to share the gospel. And my dad was the youth leader, so he was like, you know what? I'm gonna let you come along with us. You can come with the high school group, and we'll go to Dare to Share together. So I went to Dare to Share in in Colorado, got to go to that conference, and I feel like I had a lot of confidence sharing my faith from the get-go, because That was a a huge value in my family. But what I did start doing at that conference was taking notes because it I recognized it was a privilege to be in that setting with the high schoolers and that something important was being talked about. But I was easily distracted and yet I was put with this mature group. And so I was trying to guess kind of get myself to focus and like be mature. And then like through the rest of like our move the following year and started going to various other youth groups, I started writing what was going on instead of just doodling to keep myself quiet. And I feel like that's where I started really growing in my walk with the Lord was just that that focused time really processing out what he was sharing with me through whoever was speaking or through the word. ⁓ the other thing that happened that really just kind of jumpstarted my walk with the Lord was ⁓ my sister and I, my sister Debbie, ⁓ who's the next one up for me, we fought often growing up. We just clashed a lot. And I remember I had just been really unkind to her one night and like hadn't apologized, hadn't humbled blank myself, nothing of the sort, just was a brat to her. And I don't know what the conversations were. I know my dad often talked to my sisters about the influence they had on us younger kids. And Debbie was four or five years older than me. ⁓ I was in middle school, seventh grade at the time. She was in high school and had a car. And the next day, she drove to Mike's middle school and picked me up for lunch and took me out to El Heradero and was like, you can order whatever you want. And it was this like stark, like, I hadn't apologized. I had been a brat. And yet she came and like showed me tremendous love and favor. And if you want to look cool at middle school, have a high schooler come pick you up and take you out for lunch. Like I just was like, what is happening right now? And that was a big shift in my relationship with her, but it also just opened this door for her to start pouring into and discipling me. And both my sisters really, Amy and Debbie, took up the charge of like. Providing journals, writing little verses out for me and just encouraging me and like, listen, Jesus is where it's at. Like that walk with him is what is satisfying in our relationship with him is what our hearts are desperate for. Make sure you're pursuing him. Make sure you're learning about him. Make sure you're taking time ⁓ to to read the word for yourself and to grow in your relationship with him. ⁓ so those were big influences. And then when I was 16, I went On a missions trip with Ethnos 360 to the deep jungle region of Brazil because I am an adventurer and I wanted to go. I saw a couple different projects that were happening, and I was like, the gnarliest, most interesting, most remote place. That's where I want to go. ⁓ and my sisters had gone to Brazil a few years before that on a summit trip. That's what they called our mission trip at that time. I'm not sure what the name is now, but. And they went with one of their best friends. And while they were on that trip, their best friend's boyfriend had now husband had written her a letter for every day she would be gone. And so all the girls on the team would open Jen's letter and read his love note for the day while they were in Brazil. And so when I went at at sixteen, uh-huh, ⁓ my sisters got their heads together and they're like, let's write Becca love notes. And so they split up the days and they wrote me a pack of envelopes. But I was like, how amazing. Because that's such a stage of life where you're very like interested in boys and hoping for attention and one like uncomfortable in your own skin. And I just went to this new place where I didn't know anyone. And I was ⁓ really exploring. The idea of missions for myself. Like I've grown up in this, I've seen the posters and the calendars. I know there's great need. I know the things that I like to do. How does that fit together, Lord? What do you have for me? And threaded through my time there was note after note after note from my sisters, just reminding me, like, you're loved. ⁓ take in everything, learn everything you can, and just giving me verses of encouragement and just strengthening and building me up. So that was just. a huge ⁓ a huge deal to me ⁓ and to my teammates. They were encouraging to them as well. ⁓ when I was fourteen, this is going out of order, but I got to go up to Bible school for a weekend. So EBI Earth Bible Institute, my sister Debbie was currently a student there and invited me to come up and spend the weekend. So I got to sit in on some of the classes at EDI. Mm-hmm. for Friday and then we just played all weekend, went for ice cream and took pictures and had fun together. ⁓ she streaked my hair blue with temporary dye. I got home off the plane and my dad was like, Did she pierce your knife? Like you had nothing to be worried about. That that sister of mine cared so deeply about me falling in love with Jesus. And I sat in those classes and got to hear some of the teachers there and just dig into the word of God. And I came home so upset because I had to go back to pre calculus. And I was like, that does not matter. That ⁓ why do I have to waste four years? Before I can go sit under the teaching of the Word of God and spend all my time on that. That's what I need to learn. And Debbie's boyfriend now husband listened to me rant, my 14-year-old rant about why do I need high school? I just want to go to Bible school now. Was so excited about it. And he was like, Well, let me tell you a secret. College students that are showing up, they're getting a first pass of this stuff. Like maybe they've learned a little bit at church or in home. ⁓ and they're gonna learn a lot. But if you already know this is what you wanna learn, what would happen if you spent the next four years brushing up on it and learning everything you could? How much more could you take away if you had built yourself up in the Word of God and then you came to study it? So that's what I would encourage. You can't do anything about being 14. But you can take these next four years alongside what you have to learn, and you can you can learn the word of God. And then you can come here and build on what you've already gotten to gotten to put in place in your in your heart and mind. So that was a really powerful encouragement. ⁓ and then when I graduated high school and did go on, I think. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: That was such a cool. I remember coming in with that zeal, right? That zeal to know the Lord, to serve the Lord, and to be approved of. and just hungering for a mastery of what I grasped was a very, very important topic and skill set. ⁓ and I remember one of our teachers, Jason Weaver, saw this. avid effort in me. And he pulled me aside one day and was like, I just want you to remember like there is a lot of good stuff to learn here. It's good to have your school hat on and to study hard. Make sure that all your time reading the Bible is not studying. Make sure you also go to the Bible to meet with the Lord. And I think There it was a really humbling time actually walking through my years at Bible school and seeing I really wanted like a master over the material, but that's a really low view. speaker-1: ⁓ View of the living speaking word. speaker-0: What human could. but what I what I needed was to get to know the Lord. ⁓ Jason also said ⁓ It's not usually discovering some new and mystical truth and we finally reached and grasped it that creates so much change and transformation in our walk with the Lord, but coming to understand the important importance and significance of the basic things we already know. And ⁓ I think that was another challenge that like man, I it was the seeds. There were many years of humbling to come. speaker-1: Many many. speaker-0: But the seeds of man, you came in here with one goal, but it's really not about you and your effort and your skill, but like this is a time to behold him. And the more you sit with who the Lord is and what he has done for you, you will change. That's beautiful. Thank you for listening. Mm-hmm. This has been my TED talk. Did did you find like your zeal for ⁓ having shared the gospel with other people when you were first a little tiny believer? Did you have you continued did you continue to see that through your teen years of wanting to share the gospel with your friends and other people that were around you? Yeah. Or did that kind of wane? It has been a journey. ⁓ I feel like speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: It was something very important to me as a young kid and all through my teens. ⁓ but I carried I carried some fear and some pressure in in light of if you don't accept this, I know what your future holds. And I'm just like shaking your shoulders, trying to get you to see like you need you need to trust in Jesus. You need to learn this. And I had I went to public school my whole life. I was constantly. Surrounded by people who did not know the Lord and did not have a walk with Him and who came from very different belief or faith backgrounds. ⁓ I feel like going through high school, also very passionate about people's need, very ⁓ very stressed about being faithful and following through on my responsibility to them. ⁓ It was always important to me. I feel like only recently am I really sitting with the difference between a harvest and a forest fire. ⁓ We I think often in missionary organizations or really just walking as believers, it weighs on us that people do need the Lord. There's a book ⁓ I'm reading, and I I think it's called Tender Care. And one of the quotes that really sat with me was, It feels nice to be needed, but people need Christ. And I don't know how much we'll get into what my story has looked like since Bible school, but I've walked through some very hard things that have been really disorienting. And It's been a time for me to get quiet and and really listen to Lord. What are you asking here? What is my job and what is your job? And I think I've been challenged that when we look at the verse where it says, Behold, like the fields are white for the harvest, but the workers are fruit are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he might send more workers. ⁓ Culturally, I think it's easy for us to take that and think much of our role. And it's good to, it's good to respond to a need. It's good to line up with that purpose, but it's not good to carry a weight that is too big for human shoulders. And it does not say the workers are few, so burn yourself out, work around the clock. speaker-1: Hurry, hurry the fields are on fire Save them speaker-0: It says the fields are white with harvest. It is framed in abundance. Like, look, there's too much to even carry in. And this is a good thing. So ask the Lord of the harvest. He can get more workers. He has the riches to hire them. He talks about hiring workers in the 11th hour. And I think just that's something that is shifting in me is to be passionate about this. in accordance with my excitement for what is possible with God and not to carry responsibility for other people's where they're at in their ability or willingness to respond to the gospel. And I think just coming from a place of peace and rest. Okay, Lord, like work peace in my heart. Help me to listen to your spirit. And When you have something for me to say, prompt me. Right. If they're putting up walls, like help me get quiet. Help me listen to what's happening there. But I do not have to carry the football across the touchdown line in every conversation I have. And nor is it good or helpful for me to bulldoze people, which is I think my bet. I'm I can be a really passionate, strong-willed. Driven person and God created me that way for good reason. But what it looks like for that to be yielded to the spirit means that I speak the truth in love. And he, when he talks about the world and his timing of you say, Don't don't think the Lord's slack in keeping his promises, he's patient with people. He's waiting for them to turn. That means I have permission to be patient with people and to wait for them to be ready. That's a little bit of I don't know if that's answered your question. Very awesome. Okay, so you graduate Bible school. Yeah. What happens after you graduate Bible school? So I went to paramedic school. Okay. ⁓ in between semesters at Bible school, I flew down to Florida and took EMT training in the summer. on my mission trip, many, many people got hurt. And we were eight hours by dugout canoe from the nearest town. So I carried with me a little bit of that stress of like, man, we didn't know what to do. We didn't know how to treat it. We didn't, the generator broke while we were there. So there was no ice to even put on someone's broken foot. So we're like trying to keep it cold in the river, like just constantly thinking on our feet and trying to handle people in need when the resources are not available. And I thought to myself, I do like. I do care deeply about people groups who do not have the word of God in their language being able to hear who he is and what he's done for them. Like nothing moves me more. I want to be a part of that. And I cannot go back there unless I know what to do when people break their leg or have a wall collapse on them. Like I have to know what to do. So I sat down with my anatomy and physiology teacher in high school. And I'm like, give it to me straight. Nobody's got time for eight years of med school. How do I know what I need to know for this context? And he was like, you just need to go to med school. And I was like, it's not happening. Tell me. If I go to med school, I'm going to be stuck out of the tribe. I want to work with the people in the village. So what's the middle ground? And he was like, well, he could do EMT training. It's it's more than first aid. It's going to give you a little bit of background for entering into a scenario without all the tools of the hospital and making a decision on what is like a, we got to ship this out quickly and what can we sort of treat here. I think that might be a good fit. So went to Bible school, did EMT school during the summer, tested early, flew back up, started my next thing in Bible school. I didn't know how to pace myself. But ⁓ during my EMT training, I got to do some ride alongs patient care on fire truck, on the ambulance, and in the hospital. And I got a glimpse of some of the extra skills and tools paramedics get if they do that extra chunk of training. speaker-1: Ha ha. speaker-0: So I came back so excited to do paramedic training. ⁓ I thought that would be just a really good fit for working in a remote environment. Yeah. ⁓ and kind of adapting and overcoming with what you have on hand, but having that clinical judgment for what needs to go out via helicopter or boat. Yeah. So then ⁓ I did just school, which was really such a privilege too. ⁓ I got a scholarship to help me pay for it. And so I was able to focus on just the academics that first year. And then or that first semester and then second semester, I actually got a job working as an EMT on the ambulance part-time while doing paramedic school. So had again a very busy schedule and lots of lots of practice in emergency medical services. ⁓ so three semesters of paramedic school. I graduated. ⁓ so I started working ⁓ on the ambulance with the goal of I'm gonna do one year and then I'm gonna move on to missionary training. And then that is when Cody and I started dating. Okay. So that ⁓ is that interesting yeah. All right. No that's great. You should keep keep going, man. Me and whatever you want. Cody you can go before the ages. speaker-1: So Ha ha ha speaker-0: All right. So Cody and I do not remember meeting. ⁓ I love that. People ask how we met and we don't know. We do remember first impressions. I was 14, he was 15, my parents were here working at the home office, and ⁓ I had been here one year when his parents returned from Bolivia. Okay. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: to serve here at the home office as well and to take care of his grandmother. ⁓ so we were part of this Pastel of Sanford missionary kids. and we would at that time our building had a pool. We would go to the pool and hang out. We would all once we got our licenses drive out to the beach and play guitar and go to the dollar theater. And we all went to like various schools, but ⁓ it can be difficult to connect with Yes. People who do not live our hard and good life of often transition and cross-cultural experiences. The the missionary kids here at the home office, man, did they get me and I got them and we forged some close friendships. His ⁓ first impression of me was I was doing a one-arm push-up contest with the guys by the pool, and he was like, How deep could that person possibly? speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ speaker-0: So he was not interested for many years. Which worked in my favor because he became one of those safe guy friends. I just didn't really have to double double guess, double think second guess. I didn't have to second guess what he was thinking. He was someone I could laugh and play music with and when we actually overlapped a year at Bible school and Cody and I both write music. So we would meet in the stairwell and show each other our songs because we're both away from our families. And he was someone that just would He would listen to what I'd written. And someone that just developed a lot of trust and confidence with me ⁓ over the years. So we knew each other for seven years before we started dating. And he was just one of those close people. We dated other people in Bible school and after Bible school. but one day, and we were both single, ⁓ he I was working, he was up in Jacksonville doing aircraft mechanic school. He drew we both wanted to do church planting. And Cody grew up in a village in Bolivia. ⁓ and where I experienced, man, out here in the village, everything like everyone gets sick and everyone gets hurt. And we're you're far away from the things to take care of those everyday needs. Cody's experience was everything breaks and there's no hardware store. Okay. So he was like, if I'm going back, I wanna know how to fix things. But he also would take a plane back and forth to his location growing up. And he so he was like, I love planes. I'd sort of love to be a pilot. But ⁓ since I should like go teach the Bible, and that's really, really important, what I'll do is I'll be an aircraft mechanic. So I can be around planes. And if you can fix planes, then you can probably fix a lot of other things too. And during that time he just kept showing up at my house and That didn't really surprise me because my younger brother David and Cody were very close and they had a band and they hung out. So it didn't really like flip on my radar. ⁓ and in fact, it took a few conversations to convince me that he was legitimately, authentically interested in me romantically, because that was just so not a possibility. This person has known me since I was 14 and gone through Bible school with me and watched me get dumped and like. This has not been a pretty you've been right there to see it. And so it's not computing that you would want a relationship with that person. So he always when he tells the story, he asked me to date him. And I was like, we can try. And he feels all hurt, but it wasn't him. Like I knew he was gold. I just didn't think he would really last with me. But ⁓ you know, we he. speaker-1: Ha ha ha ha. speaker-0: He defied the odds and he just kept he just kept somehow enjoying me. And that was that was truly like grace to have someone who did know me so well hang in there for the ups and downs and I think just enjoy the way God put me together in a way that is baffling to me sometimes. So that's Cody. we dated for a bit while he finished up aircraft mechanic school. I kept working. and then speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: We got married two years later. we were gonna go right to missionary training because we were like, well, you wanna do what I want to do. Yeah. And you've gone and gotten this training, I've got this training, we'd make a great team. Yeah. Let's let's very romantic. ⁓ but we we got married and we were encouraged, like, take a year and just serve in your home church. Get to know them, let them get to know you. figure out not that you can figure out marriage in here, but work on marriage. And then, you know, you'll be in a good place to move toward missionary training. So we chose to do that. It was a really, a really sweet year. ⁓ especially with our church. And during that year, our medical helicopter in our county lost the staffing to continue operating. I had in one of my like continuing education classes opted to go do flight paramedic training. ⁓ because I thought if we are leaving the tribe and the sorry, if we are leaving a remote location and going out to a medical facility, we're gonna have to go we're gonna have to go to altitude. Yeah. And I wanna know how that affects my patients. So it was just a very pragmatic training to take. I knew of flight paramedics. I thought they were incredible, but I was like, that's something that it takes your whole career to build up to. That's right. That's not what I'm doing. I just wanna know the information. So then we moved to into missionary training mode and got all ready to go and choose where where would we be serving, both excited about teaching and Bible translation. And we started classes up in Missouri at our training center. It's called the ETC now, I hear I did the ETC. The ETC, the etc. Just kidding. ⁓ Ethnos Training Center, Ethnos 360 Training Center. So ⁓ we went up there speaker-1: And speaker-0: And started training. It was incredible. ⁓ especially loved our mentors, Jim and Carol Darcy, Gordon and Janet Walgamet. Walgam or Janet has since passed away, but man, did we have the privilege to sit under those people, be discipled by them. ⁓ and during that year, we were always wondering what country white might we ⁓ might we choose to serve in. They had a field fair also that same weekend, and a field fair is just where It's a conference where representatives from all of the countries we work in and many of the different teams we work in come and represent. Here are some of the options and needs within Ethnos 360. Where might you be a fit? Yeah. ⁓ so we were really thinking which country at that point. And same weekend, there was an air show and Cody and and Plains, they just they go together. So we went to this air show for fun. And he just was blown away by the Kodiak. ⁓ then we come back to field fair and Ethnos 360 Aviation was not actually scheduled to be there, but they were in town for the air show. So they just showed and they're like, well, we'll just set up a table. Right. And we just kept gravitating to that table, praying, like, okay, Lord, is it Colombia? Is it Bolivia? Is it Brazil? And then we just kept ending up back at this aviation table. We're like, no, which Country. Which ⁓ just speak to us, Lord. And ⁓ anyway, Cody walked up to me in our kitchen, I think a day or so afterward and was like, I am trying to ignore this because I know this is not our plan. But I just feel this desire to go and train to be a pilot. And I was like, that is not what you said you wanted to do. And he's like, I've always wanted to. I'm like, this is a great time to tell me. speaker-1: What? speaker-0: I was like, I turned down two pilots because I'm going to the village. But this is my destiny. So we we had some teary prayers just searching through, Lord, what are you doing here? ⁓ we've we've really had one thing in mind. And now it seems like you're leading us to another. And that was a whole, a whole process. But speaker-1: Ha ha. speaker-0: We asked for a few specific things and ⁓ that was that was a cool experience where we just felt like I don't know which way is the right way to step and we need you to lead us, Lord. ⁓ and so we did a we did a couple Gideon's places. And in that time, like the Lord really did just Answer. There were three different kind of litmus tests for me because I felt like flight school is very expensive. It's a dumb financial decision. And so if you want me to go against my wisdom for some version of like better wisdom, you gotta show me you got us. ⁓ and he he did that. ⁓ we had a really large donation that month. We had ⁓ my dad had initially had some reservations about it. He knew how important it was to me to To go after what I'd been training for. And I was like, well, Lord, if you could put my dad's heart at ease. ⁓ I know that we as a couple are making our own decisions, but he's always weighed in trying to look out for me. ⁓ so it's a little scary to to do something that isn't clicking with him and he has concerns about. And then Dwight and Diana Brown, who had been at the table in Missouri, came on down to the home office and wandered by and visited with my dad. And he called me the next day and was like, you know who I just visited? Man, I could get excited about you being a part of that team. Wow. And he the Lord just put him at ease with that un unexpected conversation. ⁓ and then the other one was like, where would we train? And Moody Aviation ⁓ specializes in the type of flying that we do in our organization. But it's it's a long program. It's a five-year program where you do Bible, aircraft mechanic, and flight. And ⁓ Cody had already done Bible school at at Ethnos. He had done the aircraft mechanic, and they're like, their aviation students are finishing year three, going into year four. They have ground school starting like within a week or two of when we're juggling this decision. And so we called them and kind of laid out what our situation was and. I didn't really see a way for him to enter into that easily. But we're we prayed about it. And we're like, okay, Lord, like if you want us to go fly, make a way for us to go fly. And Moody Aviation called us back and they're like, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna invent distance learning for Cody. So finish out the semester at Ethnos, but at the same time, we're gonna be taping the ground school classes. Okay. So you can do that while you're finishing up. You'll finish with this class. And then you can come when you graduate from MT you're from ETC, ⁓ come up to Spokane, Washington, and you can join fourth year with them because you already have aircraft mechanic, we'll accept that. You already have Bible, we'll accept that. Do ground school through Mar March through May remote. And they like just came up with this like perfectly crazy way. Yes. The timing was incredible. So that brings us up to flight training at Moody Aviation. So ⁓ one of my big hesitations going into this was flight school is super expensive. I am probably gonna have to work if we ⁓ if we go this route. And I have nothing against work, love to work, but I felt like I had kind of ducked out before I was scarred forever after doing two years on the ambulance and a year on the helicopter. I saw some very hard things. I I didn't really know how to work through some of those things. And so the Lord and I had to do some some heavy work where I had to settle with man, if you're asking me to enter back into this, I don't know how to face what else might happen to people that I might be called to take care of. ⁓ so that was a whole I think one thing he met me with in that was ⁓ He just started to show me his heartbeat of rescue. ⁓ I often I think took on pressure to be able to help in ways that I could not help. Some people are really sick and they're really hurt. And it is important to be side by side and present with someone who's in pain, even in situations we cannot fix or make better. And I think that was one side of his character the Lord showed me that I am the type of God that is with in your suffering and in other people's suffering. And I wasn't asking you to be able to make anybody get better. I was just asking you to be with them, ⁓ to enter in. And it's a privilege to enter into people's hard situations and just take care of them and hold their hand. Even if you can't make it better, even if you can't save their lives. ⁓ so I think that was a very grounding truth to sit with as I anticipated, okay, going back into emergency medical services, what's that gonna look like? There was a waiting period when we first got up there where I had applications in the ER, at the local like ambulance, and also at a air ambulance company. And nobody was getting back to me. I was really worried. and I remember I had saved up as I was working, I had built up some savings, and we got all the way to the end of my savings. And then another month of flight bills were coming. And that's when I heard back from all three. And so the Lord took us right to the end of our resources. And then he was like, here you go. So I did end up turning down one. I took the other two. I worked part-time in the ER at the hospital. And I worked full time ⁓ for an aeromedical company that transported both scene calls and ⁓ interfacility transfers for ICU patients. Okay. This was such a cool experience because working on the helicopter in Florida, it was a two-man crew, it was a pilot and me. Wow. And I could take a firefighter or a paramedic along as a passenger if I needed more hands than I had for those very critical patients. But I didn't have anybody with me that was medical to bounce ideas off of other than getting on the radio, talking with the doctors at the hospital. But these were typically very time sensitive. Like if they're calling me, especially in an area that's as congested with hospitals as Central Florida is. You're calling the helicopter, the patient's in rough shape and they really need the fastest transport possible. So ⁓ I just there was a lot of loneliness and struggle, making really hard judgment calls and trying to take good care of scenarios where there's not always a good answer. ⁓ is a lot of pressure. Yeah. And going into working in Spokane, Washington, the crew was a pilot. An ICU nurse and a paramedic. Or what I trained with was a crew that was a pilot, an ICU nurse, and a respiratory therapist. And they, the team I ended up working with and training under was just the gentlest, most gracious group of people. They really helped me come to grips with the patient has to do their half. And sometimes their body can only do so much. So we can make really good decisions taking care of them and still. They we might not be able to get good numbers on the monitor. We just have to give what we can and sort of be at ease with them being in rough shape. ⁓ doesn't mean you're not providing good medical care. So it took again some of that performance, some of that feeling like I'm being graded, pressure off. And it was like, man, the doctors who were in charge of our company and handled medical direction for it sat us down and they were like, We have a book that you of protocols that you follow. If you do if this happens, do this. If this happens, do this. But the reason you've been hired into this position is because we do trust your clinical judgment, you're gonna have situations that don't follow the book. And you're just gonna have to use your best judgment. We want you to know we trust you to do that. And these these don't have to be pretty situations. We just have to do our best with what we got. So again, it was a theme of the war. Taking someone who struggles with perfectionism and being thrown into situation after situation where there is no right answer. It's just gray and it's hard and there's pain. And we want to do all that we can for someone that there's a limit to how much we can help. So I was there for two years while Cody went through flight training. He did a great job through that. ⁓ and then during that time we were really hoping to start a family. struggled there for a while. ⁓ the day that Cody graduated and finished, or not graduated, but he tested out. He got his ⁓ instrument, his commercial rating, and like his pilot licensing was complete. He wanted to go on to become a flight instructor, but like flight school was finished. That was the day I found out I was pregnant. Okay. ⁓ and that was just a really We look back at that and think, wow, that was incredible timing. ⁓ because Cody's load was very, very heavy up until that point. ⁓ and then shortly after getting pregnant, I became very ill. ⁓ and he had to pull out of everything he was doing to care for me. Yeah. So it was in and out of hospitals and a lot of involved medical care. Yeah. To get through my first pregnancy. ⁓ we transferred down here to Florida to be near family to get me through the end of that. And so I could be here for ⁓ my one of my best friends' weddings. And then after we had my first son Avisai, ⁓ we I rallied. I was able to recover little by little from that and ⁓ come off of all the medications and ⁓ it was it was a journey with him. as a young baby as well to figure out taking care of I th as it is to like have a new baby. It's yeah it's the sleep deprival and ⁓ we had some other difficulties ⁓ that we needed some extra care and support to take care of him. ⁓ and then I think about three, four months ⁓ when he was two weeks old we flew to Arizona to to do our interview. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: with asthmos 360 eight patients. Okay. So ⁓ while we were there, we got the flu. ⁓ my god. So we got through like our face-to-face interviews and then when everyone was flying ⁓ everybody in our house had a fever and we were just like sick in bed and trying to take care of an infant. ⁓ And I was like I don't know Lord like is this a no? And I think like this was a really important conversation because Cody and I sat there speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: Kind of under our blankets and we were like, what do we do? Like this is the time they have the interview. They have one next year, but this is it, and we're sick. We just can't I can't show up for it. So does this mean that we're supposed to do something else? And we prayed about it. And Cody sort of came to this, this is what I think. We don't stop because something gets hard. We stop when it's a no or we have direction to go a different way. Right now it's not yet a no, and I don't have direction to go somewhere different. So let's wait. And it turns out that Though they bring Pilots and mechanics from all over the world in to do these candidate evaluations in Arizona. There happened to be the flexibility for them to stay an extra three days. And they chose to do that. ⁓ we got Cody to urgent care and on antibiotics. He recovered. A few days later he was fit to fly. And so they took him through his rounds. And I was like, I just don't know how this is gonna go. Guy's been dehydrated for days. And ⁓ by God's grace, like he passed and they invited us to join. Okay. I remember laughing because ⁓ he was sick when they did the like everybody come up and share your testimony and introduce us to you. So I was like nursing a baby and they're like, You're up. And I was like, hold this. And then like my hair was everywhere and I was like, hold on. I just stuffed it behind the podium and like put my hair back. And then I was like, I am Cody and Becca Burns. We just I I feel like it was such a sweet thing because that team saw us in such a like an a raw stage of life. Yeah. And they still just loved us and welcomed us in. And that was really sweet. So we were invited to take membership with Ethnos 360, to join the Ethnos 360 aviation team. ⁓ Cody was gonna get to do it. He was gonna get to fly, and that was that was enormous because it had been a like holding your breath thing, going through flight training. ⁓ The Lord had provided through these amazing jobs. My job gave us like bonuses and raises and like just uncalled for favor. And we were able to pay all but 10,000 off by the time we finished flight school. And then a forgivable loan actually took care of the rest. So I could not, I could not believe what the Lord had done for us in getting through flight school. And now we were free and clear to go to the mission field. So when Abi was six months old, ⁓ we moved over to Arizona for Cody to do his orientation, which is a nine month training doing specializing in mountain flying, short field landings. The wives got to learn how to do flight following. ⁓ so a little bit on the technical side, more on discipleship side, and nine months to just get to know the team and decide where would we be a good fit to serve in our worldwide team. And so during that time Cody and I were slotted for Papua New Guinea because they needed fixed wing pilots. And so we decided to do that. ⁓ we had formed some amazing friendships there at Arizona and ⁓ two of those good, good friends were also going to Papua New Guinea at the same time. So that was really neat. We'd spent nine months with our babies, like playing together and doing mom life together and the the guys had all gotten gotten close in the shop and I know they they got a helicopter they had to do ⁓ a ⁓ full inspection on and it involved like the whole thing was taken apart in parts on all these shelves. Okay. And then the guys put it back together and they took us on a flight to look at the cows. And I remember being like, this is a new confidence level I have in you that like you did just build this from parts and now I'm up five hundred feet in it. Wow. ⁓ so it was just it was really cool to see their growth and all that they learned. And I I was so excited for them to get to serve our many our many coworkers who were working in Papua New Guinea and needed That that field especially is really dependent on aviation because the terrain, the mountains and the water systems, they make travel between locations really challenging. There's not a good road system to get to many of our locations. So Cody was gonna get to do a lot of the type of flying he loved. And ⁓ we were gonna get to go with our best friends and man, what better. Yeah. So we did a year of partnership development to prepare for going overseas and ⁓ That was a really cool year of watching the Lord build a team for us. ⁓ we had taken a week before we began and just asked, okay, you know what we're gonna need, and we don't. ⁓ we also don't see a way to get to our goal. But could you build for us a team and not just a team of like donors or financial supporters, but would you build relationships for us? With people we can lean on the way Paul leaned on his coworkers and churches, the people that not only supported him, but he could say, bring the jacket, get the room ready. I'm really excited to spend time with you, and I'm happy to be helped by you on my way to Rome or Spain. Just the relate we studied the relationship Paul had with his churches. We also studied the way he wrote to them. And I think we're really moved by how when Paul wrote, he addressed them, he told them what was going on. But he always baked in time to encourage and build them up with what the Lord was teaching him. And so that sort of became our model for newsletters as well. As we just would love not to have this be a, this is why it's worth sending money our way, but just to like, man, we are gonna share the ups and the downs of what's going on. We're gonna try to make much of the Lord. Not that it takes much effort to do that, but we're going to. of just our lens and our focus to be seeing what is good about him, not what is worthy about us. And we're gonna be writing down the good, the bad and the ugly of what he's teaching us. We'll just share that with you. What is he challenging us and growing us? What verses are standing out to us? ⁓ so those were sort of two values we took on as a family going into ministry partnership development. And man, the The churches and the individuals the Lord brought onto our team have been such a gift to us. They have prayed on their knees night and day for us. They have written to us. They have showed up at our door with meals. And we are so, so close with this community of believers that has decided to jump in and be a part of our journey during that year. So that was just, it was precious to see it come together. I remember at the outset, some of our mentors from Bible school, Rick and Joanelle Barth. Challenged us ⁓ not to stop short at like the 75% minimum, which is like you have to have at least this much to go. But here's like we've done the math, what it costs to do ministry. Yeah. And ⁓ they just entered into the confidence issue it can be that we can really ask that much and reach that much. Yeah. and one thing they brought up was if you Are sort of stuck at a number and it doesn't seem like things are moving. Get on your knees and get with the Lord on that because sometimes he uses the timing of your support coming in to time your arrival. And like it may not be that you're doing anything wrong, but continue to wait on the Lord for him to provide every cent of what you need. Don't short circuit and go early and rush. Yes. Like let him put this together for you. And I remember that just being. really challenging and encouraging and that is what he did for us. So then thank you. That's such a cool like what a good piece of advice. That's amazing. Yeah. I have just I've gone back to that and sat with it over and over. What if what if the Lord is orchestrating things exactly in the timing he wants to and you feel like things aren't moving forward, but the thing he is asking of you is to wait on him. at rest that he is carrying out everything he wants to. And my brothers challenged me. Sorry, this is a tangent, but my brothers really challenged me on the the story of Cain and Abel and what it looks like to bring the right sacrifice. That is easy for us to turn to our gardens and to work like crazy and be like, I made this for you. Look how hard I worked. And the Lord's like, but that's not what I asked for. ⁓ I didn't ask you to do that. I asked you to be still Asked you to rest, asked you to trust me. And I don't delight in this striving, pushing, and really for you to put on your shoulders the pressure to carry out a task that is too big for your shoulders. I delight in people who stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, who know they are up against a sea and an army, and that they have no way out except if I come in. Because guess what? I will. I will deliver. For you. Like those who trust in the Lord will not be put to shame. So then we took our then two-year-old and we had a huge garage sale and we packed a bunch of tubs to ship things overseas and we climbed on. Well, there was COVID. Before we climbed on the plane, there was COVID. How close to when you were actually climbing on the plane did things? Yes. Well, so close in fact that we packed everything. Yeah. And we were going to drive I had sold our car. We had sold our car. There were renters coming into the house we were living in. Okay. ⁓ and the next morning we were going to drive to the airport. And then at that time to fly, you had to have evidence of a negative COVID test. And no one felt sick and we'd gotten and then I was printing the papers for hours and I had mine and Obby's, but they hadn't given me Cody's. And then I got a phone call and they're like, Hey, I am so sorry. I don't know ⁓ how this affects your travel plans. But Cody tested positive. And that I don't even have words for what it feels like to have no car, no house, and be preparing to climb on a plane to move your life to the other side of the world. And suddenly someone has COVID and they they're too sick to travel. Not that he was too sick yet, but it came. ⁓ how the Lord provided. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: A family in our church loaned us a car. ⁓ my parents who owned the rental communicated with the incoming customers. Hey, there's been a COVID case. Can you delay or what can we do here? And they were happy to cancel for us. So we had somewhere to stay. Okay. ⁓ Cody Abi and I did not get sick, and that was that was grace and mercy. ⁓ Cody was in bed for quite a while. ⁓ And he was very sick fighting it. ⁓ we were able to rebook our flights for the next month. Okay. And so one month later, we got positive or not, we got negative tests. I remember laying them out and taking a picture and putting them in a newsletter and being like, Well, definitely, let's come. It's happening. ⁓ because of COVID, there were no direct flights into the country of Papua New Guinea. And so we flew on six planes for 60 hours and took a charter flight out of Malaysia to get into Hapua New Guinea. Okay. I was a husk of a human being by that point because my child slept three of those hours. ⁓ And he just loved chatting people up the whole many, many hours of all the flying. So I I have I have been very tired at many times of my life and that's one of them I remember in a different way. I remember being so tired. we arrived at Papua Guinea. They had a beautiful house set up for us to move into and we entered our two-week quarantine where at that time you could not then leave your we could be in our yard and they had like little caution tape just to protect everybody. Just leave me on the caution tape, which is really it's great fun with a two-year-old. Yeah. but speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: I remember collapsing in bed that night. Well, one, our friends, our best friends had gone ahead of us because we were supposed to fly with them the month before. We had actually booked all our flights together so that we would have extra manpower for all the children to get through the flights. So they had to go on without us. ⁓ but they then made these posters and this welcome party and like the way they loved on us. That was so cool to have them just already there. And we lived in the same duplex or next door to each other. So even though ⁓ we couldn't give each other a hug or anything yet, we have some pictures of the three of us ⁓ sitting in lawn chairs in our like separate quarantines chatting across the road. And ⁓ it was just a really sweet time. And I remember Cody and I collapsing in bed and being like, is it real? Is it real? Did we really make it? Did we finally really make it? So that brings us up to writhing in PNG. Thank you for investing the time to listen to today's episode. It's our prayer that what you heard causes you to think more about your next step as a believer who understands the Great Commission. If this was encouraging to you, please take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast. We don't take the privilege of your time lightly, and if we can help answer any questions this episode may have raised in your minds, feel free to reach out to us at podcast at ntm.org or you can contact us via our socials. And finally, this podcast is a production of Ethos 360, All Rights Reserved.