“And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them, and confirmed the word by the signs that followed.” Mark 16:20 NAS

Just before Josiah was born, the Lord spoke a guiding word over our lives through Bro. Costa Dier. In an altar call, we knelt together. I opened my heart wide to receive whatever the Lord had to say. Our plan then, was to move to Scotland to pastor young people, working with Joe Ewen. When Costa laid his hands on our heads, he prophesied that we were ‘Divine Hoppers.’ He saw us hopping, hopping, at the beckoning and direction of the Lord all over the earth, free to move wherever the Lord directed us and that we had obedient hearts to do whatever the Lord showed us.

Unknown to Costa, Dan and I had already lived that life for 4 years. We had traveled the globe, serving wherever the Lord showed us, often taking only our bibles and our guitar. Very little money, certainly, and sometimes we left the US without the wherewithal to get home. When it was time for us to circle home, He would provide those means. We had just agreed to go and work in Scotland for five years. That did not feel like ‘hopping’ nor, in my heavily pregnant state, did I feel like much of a hopper anymore. But, “Divine Hoppers’ is what He said. We looked at each other and wondered what on earth the Lord could be thinking?

We DID go to Scotland and stayed five glorious years. We loved countless young people who turned up at our door. We were known and loved in that church, and in that community. Dan took two teams to Croatia during the Balkan conflict, and also led 2 teams to China. I trained 2 teams to be able to do worship for outreach, one for Germany, another to Croatia.

Then. The Divine Hopper call came back knocking on the door of our hearts. We heard. And we “hopped’ back to Asia.

26 years have past since that word. Last month in Malaysia we found ourselves in meetings with a large group of other hoppers. ‘Friends’ we call each other. In that room were many faces of our past and present meeting up together. From Hong Kong, and China, and Burma, and Laos, and Cambodia, and Thailand. Some we had not seen in decades. Some in a decade, some in years, some in months. Family, all. These were the ones we had laid our lives down together with to reach the lost and to see this gospel of the kingdom reach the furthest corners of the globe till the King comes back. Till Jesus says: Enough. It is time.

Divine hoppers. I might feel daunted at the task the Lord has called us to; still, I know: it is He who has called us. He will also do it. Amen.

~ Debbie Ecker