SR

Country: Worldwide

Project #: C0614

Biography: SR is preparing for long-term service as a church planting missionary. The vision of her team is to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ through planting churches and mobilizing long and short-term missions. Their first term will be spent learning the language and culture, planning mission activity, and developing team relationships and roles.

Background: SR was born and raised in Ontario. She grew up in a Christian family with parents who were independent church planters. SR received her first call to long term missions through a Perspectives class that she took in her first year of university. God used this class to open her eyes to what He was doing around the world. SR had never considered being a missionary before, but after this class she was certain that God was calling her to serve Him overseas.

During the next four years, SR attended school with the thought that she was headed towards becoming a missionary. Her university was very mission-focused so there were many conferences and chapel speakers that spoke about missions, and she had many friends who were planning to go overseas as long term missionaries. She was living in a world that was saturated with missions.

After she graduated, SR went home to Ontario with the plan to pay off her school debt and then take the next step in missions. But her call to missions dwindled as she found herself out of a mission-focused environment. Over the next three years, SR was very involved in her church and was really enjoying ministry. She was no longer thinking about going overseas, but felt that she should get more Bible training so that she could possibly teach in a Bible school.

So SR moved to British Columbia and began attending ACTS Seminary. She loved her classes and found a part-time job as a transcriber in an office. They started to test her out to see how she fit in with different areas of the business. During the summer, SR worked full-time at this job and was then asked to continue in a full-time position in the fall. SR began working for this company full-time as a trader and studying part-time. When she completed seminary, she decided to continue working at this job for a while before making any big decisions about the future.

But during seminary, God had started to bring missions back to her mind as she studied His word and started to understand God’s heart for the lost in a new way. She felt God nudging her heart so she took time to pray about it. SR had a great job, great friends and a great church, but she felt lost inside.

One Sunday, as her church was praying for a couple that were going out as missionaries to Nepal, SR heard God say to her, “It’s time. It’s time to make that phone call.” She had been exploring MB Mission’s website and knew that this meant that she needed to call MB Mission. After the church service, a friend approached her and told her that he had been talking to MB Mission’s General Director Randy Friesen earlier that week and felt that he was supposed to tell SR to call him. God had reminded him again that morning to go to SR and tell her to call Randy.

This was an amazing confirmation for SR so she called Randy Friesen and met with him later that week. When she told Randy that she was thinking about going out as a missionary in a few years, he asked her, “What’s stopping you from doing it now?” MB Mission’s Spring Adventure was starting that same weekend, so Randy invited SR to take the one spot that was left.

SR took a few days off of work the next week to attend Spring Adventure and was then accepted into MB Mission’s Missionary Training and Equiping (MTE) for that fall. As SR moved where God was leading her, she finally felt at peace.

Now SR is preparing to serve on a church planting team in a restricted access country. She is excited to see how God will provide for her needs as she learns to depend on Him more and more in each day.

Prayer Requests:

• Pray that God will raise up a support network for my teammates and me
• Pray that our team will be unified in love and purpose
• Pray that God will continue to grow in me a heart to serve others
• Pray that God will heal the broken and set captives free in this nation