can you stretch your smile across the globe?

I started thinking globally when I was ...oh, born, I think. My dad's worn-to-the-backing, avocado green LaZboy was my economy ticket to Germany many, many times as I studied my parents old textbooks on the subject. I used to practice writing words I couldn't begin to pronounce and practice pronouncing words I had absolutely no training to read.

Maybe that was the beginning. Or maybe that was just my global-ness overflowing the boundaries of my imagination and taking root in function. Who knows? In any case, as long as I can remember, my dream has been to travel and be a foreign missionary. During college, for reasons completely unknown, I sidestepped my dream and started down a different road. As if awakening from a slumber a few, short years later, I grieved some of those choices and wondered for the life of me what had happened.

My lifelong dreams of foreign missions always included raising kids on the side of some mountain in a hut with dirt floors, washing in a nearby stream. Seriously. My American life of fluffy comforters and WalMart has taken some getting used to...as if I weren't raised that way! It's funny, really. When I get on a plane, it feels as though I'm going home. Returning feels foreign.

Throughout my career, I have labored to function as a domestic missionary. For years, I served the elderly, ill and disabled in nursing facilities. What a place to serve! When I transitioned into pediatrics, I again reviewed my purpose in this field. What service could I provide? Would I ever be launched into a foreign field? This enlightening book helped me to see that every single business can be a vehicle for sharing Christ. (Insert 'duh' moment, here.)

Beyond preaching on a street corner or initiating a religious dialogue with clients, what's the most effective way to use the business I have now to advance the kingdom of God? Right now, my answer is: serve God in every business decision. Sounds simple and it is. It just took me a long time to get there.

So how am I stretching the beautiful smiles of my clients all around the world? By using at least ten percent of all business related income to support community development, humanitarian efforts and kingdom building activities in countries on several continents. Right now, every client who invests in their child's smile with orofacial myofunctional therapy in my clinic is also supporting work in Tibet-the 'rooftop of the world', Albania, Indonesia, North Korea, Thailand, China and Honduras. I imagine after this trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, some of those smiles will stretch there as well.