Our History – Mission Key Tags

It was 2003 and I had never been on any type of short-term mission trip. As I look back, I wonder what took me so long. Many of you know, when you take that step of faith, and get out of the boat, God changes your life forever.

The church I was attending announced a short-term mission vision trip for Honduras. If you would have asked me where Honduras was on a map, I would have had no clue. But that didn’t keep the Holy Spirit from pushing me across the room to inquire about the trip. After being interviewed and being accepted, I started to prepare. I wanted to help change the people of Honduras. I began to contact several organizations and kept asking how I could change their culture for the better. It seemed everyone that I talked to kept saying the same thing: “it is you that is going to change the most, not them”. I brushed it off, because I’m a businessman and businessmen are about making change. The vision team consisted of one pastor and 7 team members. We had an amazing trip that year. And you know everyone was right, I was the one that changed. That is when I caught the fire for missions.

Okay, this is where the key tags come on the scene. I believe it was our third trip going to Honduras. I received a call from Aimee in the missions department. She began to inform me that all of the pastors were committed to other trips and we would have to go alone. I explained that this was unacceptable and there must be a pastor to lead the team. I am not a pastor and I don’t do that sort of thing. So, I called George, a close friend that had been with me from the beginning trip. He emphatically agreed and we scheduled a meeting to demand a pastor. Well as you might have guessed they looked at both of us and said there is no other choice – lead or cancel. After we finished making several excuses, we agreed to co-lead and hope we didn’t do to much damage to the teams spiritual health. After that meeting, we realized that neither of us felt qualified to lead the team spiritually. We both agreed that we need to try our best to make God the focal point of the trip. We knew from previous mission trips how you can get lost in the tasks of the trip. We thought that daily devotions would help us toward that goal. We wanted something that was simple to use, didn’t take much time to deliver to the team, and have a lasting impact. As we searched the Internet and other resources, there was nothing that satisfied all of our requests.

It is from that trip the Mission Key Tags were born. Our response from other teams has been great. These lay-leaders have enjoyed the simplicity and the tangible aspect. Our goal is to keep the cost low and the quality high to make it affordable for every church that sends out mission trips. It is our prayer to see these keys traveling around the world spreading the love of Jesus.

Tim Robbins