Faith, Family, and the Unreached

I was just old enough to understand my mom reading the classic Adventist mission stories, eyes wide, imagination buzzing. I was sure there could be no greater calling than to share Jesus where He wasn’t known. I would be a nurse among the headhunters of Papua New Guinea! Later I imagined a huge globe covered with pinpoints of light representing believers. I would find the darkest place on that planet and strike a new light!

After nursing school I met Jacob, a ministerial student. In 2006 we married, planning to serve overseas as soon as possible. By now I had tasted frontline work in Eastern Europe and Asia, and I was as sure as ever—if the gospel was to go to every nation before the coming of Christ, and there were places it hadn’t gone—I was meant to be in the trenches of reaching the unreached.

I was in a hurry, but God wasn’t. My husband took a small church district, and later we moved to Michigan to attend the seminary. Just before graduation we had a long, inspiring visit with a frontline visionary and recruiter, and suddenly we were on track to find our dark place to shine. 

I was sure there could be no greater calling than to share Jesus where He wasn’t known.

Three more years passed as we raised support, counseled, trained, and prayed for direction. A friend who had served in the Middle East visited with us. “I think your talents would fit in well in Hijabistan,”* he encouraged, so we added that to our prayer list. And as we prayed, this country with its millions of people, 99 percent Muslim and less than 1 percent Christian, filled our vision and our hearts. 

In 2017, with our three rambunctious little boys and 10 bulging suitcases, we finally boarded our flight for our epic journey. We were told that as parents of three boys, we would be highly esteemed by our new Muslim friends. Our oldest was 7, and our youngest had just turned 2.

Fourteen hours later, deliriously tired, we joined our teammates who had been in the country learning the language for 18 months already. The wife had nuts and raisins and local fruits, but it was all we could do to keep our eyes open as the rented van swayed through the deep darkness to our city of nearly 3 million precious souls.

Our friends provided generous hospitality for the first month as we navigated jet lag, repeated illnesses, and our first forays into this new world. Jacob began the bewildering process of applying for residency permits. When we found an apartment, the owner said we had to have a bank account before we could rent—unfortunately, the bank wouldn’t allow us to open an account without our own address! Thus we faced the first of many apparently impossible obstacles the Lord would solve before we finally became legal residents of our new country. 

*Not a real name