Melissa, Isaac, & Ryan (left to right) July 4th, 2009
In short, we’re missionaries and we strive each day to love God, love others, and spread His Word. Hill Thread was created to spread the Truth of the Gospel, to encourage discipleship and spiritual growth, and to raise excitement, awareness, and financial support for missions. We did not start this company to make a little extra cash, get rich, or buy more stuff. We started this company so that we could take whatever profit we are blessed with and give it back to God by donating to mission organizations and missionaries so He can bless others in any and every way possible. - In addition to our financial contributions, for every screen printed tee sold, Hill Thread will donate one t-shirt to a child in need.
A quick story about us; my name is Ryan and I am married to the most remarkable woman EVER: Melissa. We have just added to the family our son Isaac, who was born in January of 2009. He is truly amazing! We are renting a house in the old part of Frisco, TX just down the road from my grandparents, and we live each day excited about the opportunities God puts before us.
Missions Journey – Episode 1: Melissa and I have been involved in short-term mission projects over the past few years. In May 2008, we made the decision to be obedient to God’s call in our lives and serve as full-time missionaries wherever He would have us go. Currently, the full-time service opportunity God has presented us with is working with an organization called Caribbean Ministries Association. The vision of CMA is to empower the churches of the Caribbean by providing an interdenominational Bible training ministry, and establishing and equipping God’s people in God’s Word. Melissa and I both love teaching and are very excited to see God’s plan develop before us.
Since our decision to serve, God has been transforming the way we think about and see our world. It is strange to know that we only have a limited time left here in the states before our world is completely changed. This thought of our “time left” prompted a crazy sounding, but very meaningful prayer in my life. Here it is . . .
. . . . . I want to to explode with excitement and love and knowledge for Honduras and for missions so the pieces of me will be scattered everywhere and hit everyone. Hopefully after people are hit with my excitement and love and knowledge debris, they will catch the excitement and love and knowledge, God will light their fuse, and they will explode themselves. Then there will be an atomic chain reaction of excitement and love and knowledge about serving God that cannot be stopped. Not only for Honduras, but there will be a chain reaction of interest, love, and excitement for missions in general. This will result in prayer support, community support (meaning people will want to be a part of mission opportunities, and want to know how they can be involved in every aspect), mentoring, long-term relationships with people who share this passion for missions, and financial support.
So that brings us up to date. We are always praying that God will use us to His maximum benefit while we are still here. We believe that starting Hill Thread and taking God at His word by giving to Him all that we have is just one way He can use us.
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So What’s With the Name?
The word “hill” comes from Matthew 5:14 -16. Specifically in verse 14, Jesus tells His followers that “you are the light of the world” and that “a city on a hill cannot be hidden”. Jesus is the light of the world, He says so in John 8:12 and John 9:5. We are the light of the world (Matt. 5:14) only through Jesus, because we died with Christ and no longer live, but Jesus lives in us. (see Galatians 2:20) THIS IS HEAVY STUFF. NOT LIKE “WEIGHT” HEAVY, BUT LIKE “BACK TO THE FUTURE” HEAVY. DON’T WORRY, THERE’S PLENTY OF ROAD TO GET UP TO 88 MPH.
As He goes on in Matthew chapter 5 verse 15, Jesus tells His followers that a person doesn’t light a lamp and then hide it under a bowl, which would stop it from lighting the room. That would be plain nonsense. Instead, a person lights a lamp and puts it on a stand out in the open so that it has a maximum impact on the darkness of the room.
Jesus then makes this connection in verse 16, “in the same way, let your light shine before men.” We are the light because we have the light (Jesus) so go spread the light. A+B=C
During my personal Bible study time reading over these verses, an idea came to mind. Reside in the city Jesus is speaking of. Set up residence on the hill. Now, this hill and this city are both figures of speech. What God has revealed to me through these passages is that I need to take the light of the world, I need to take Jesus, I need to take the truth that Jesus died for the sins of the world and rose again, I need to take all of this and position myself in the city on the hill. Get on top of the hill, move into the city and SHINE. I need to position myself in the best possible location at any given moment to share Jesus, to tell others about victory over death through Jesus as their Savior!
Whatever moment you find yourself in, there is a hill that you can climb to the top of and illuminate the darkness around you with the Light of the world (Jesus). Finding a way to make an impact for Jesus is what being on the top of the hill is all about.
So that’s where the word “hill” came from. “Thread” is simple, it refers to the clothes. That’s how we do things, something deep paired with something super easy!
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A Testimony
When we made the decision to be obedient to God and follow Him into the mission field, God began a change in us. Or maybe, that’s when we realized the change God had already begun in us. We began to view our lives as though we had just returned from a mission trip. You know, that feeling you get when you go out to eat just after you get back from serving in the mission field for a week or two. You’ve just spent the previous 7-14 days in a place where money was almost non-existent. The majority of people were poor, like really poor, not just what we think of as United States poor. You have seen first hand the hardships and sufferings people experience. You no longer have to rely on hearing about this stuff from someone else, because you’ve been there. All you have to do is close your eyes and you will see those faces, those tears, those joyous smiles from kids at their first Backyard Bible School. You’ve seen it face to face, you’ve smelled it, you’ve got sore feet and aching muscles that scream out “Don’t Forget!”
You take all of this experience you just had and you sit down at a restaurant to pay $9.95 + tip for a decent meal with friends. Then it hits you. Your drinking your second refill on soda and remember how hard it was for those people to get clean water to drink. You start to wonder if the waiter will bring more chips before your meal gets to you, and you remember how little food there was for the family of 7 sharing a one room “house”. You think of the $13.00 that you’re paying for your meal and realize how far that money could be stretched back in the place you just returned from. THEN, you look at your 6 other friends at the table and do some quick math. 7×13=91. $91 could buy so many of those New Testament Bibles that you were passing out. It could help buy medicine for 30 newborn babies, or food for an entire family for weeks. You go home and multiply that amount by the number of times you and your friends go out to eat each month, and your minds starts cranking out ideas.
You realize that you don’t have to wait to go on a mission trip to serve God. BINGO! He starts changing the way you think. You start finding ways to live here at home like you were living while serving on the mission trip. (Now, in no way am I saying that going out to eat is a bad thing, but these are the thoughts that sometimes go through our heads when we return from a mission trip. The above examples come from my own experience. We just start thinking of ways to save money or time and how to use all of our resources to glorify God and make an impact for Him.) Sometimes this feeling lasts for a couple of weeks, sometimes longer.
Well, Melissa and I were taken to a spot in our lives where we began to think like this all of the time. God began to transform our minds, like in Romans 12:2. He began to use Bible studies we were a part of, sermons, our personal Bible study time, and Christian books we were reading to make us more Kingdom minded. We got to a point where we began to ask what and how much we could give to God so that He could use it to bless others. Our time, money, resources, everything. (Seriously, go read Crazy Love by Francis Chan)
God had us primed to be looking for ways to be used by Him. Then, He blessed us with a little extra money. We had been saving up as much as possible over the 9 months that Melissa was pregnant so we could pay for the hospital bills without going into debt. We were able to save a substantial amount (in our minds), especially considering my hours were being cut during those 9 months from 55/week to 40/week, to 32/week. So Isaac was born, and the hospital bills came. Well, the insurance covered more than we expected! Quite a bit more. We were left with this sum of money that was totally unexpected. Such a blessing from God in the face of hospital bills and shorter and shorter work hours! Out first thought was, we can use it to pay for the week-long Honduras mission trip this summer, and then buy a mattress. Nothing wrong with either of those.
THEN God puts this idea in my head. Why not use all of the money left over from the hospital bills and start this Christian t-shirt business? The shirts would point people toward Jesus, we could include Bible studies to encourage people get into God’s Word, and the money made from the t-shirts could pay for other people’s mission trips, if not in full, at least help with the fund raising. Who knows, this could help us fund Honduras. God put on our hearts the idea that we could take what we were going to use for ourselves, give it all to Him, and ask Him to multiply it so that He may bless and provide for others.
Understand that the moment that we blurted out, “let’s use all of the money we have left over from the hospital bills” we were dazed and a little apprehensive about the idea. But because of prayer and guidance from the Lord, we have felt a sense of peace about giving Him something that we thought we could never let go of.
This story is far from over. It’s only at the beginning. We hope that it encourages you exactly in the way that you need it most. Offer everything in your life to God, even the stuff you think you must control yourself.
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