Why Did You Decide to Become Missionaries?

Why Did You Decide to Become Missionaries?

Jay: So I actually grew up on the mission field. I was born and raised in South America where my parents worked with an unreached language group in the jungles of the Amazon. And I came away from that experience with one abiding desire, which was never to go to the mission field. And when I was 16 years old, I essentially was a good kid. I desired to walk with the Lord. I wanted to come back to the US and go to a church, but I didn't want to engage in the kind of missionary effort that my parents had been involved in. I saw the challenges firsthand and how difficult that was for them. So I actually was preparing in my mind to just come back to the US, essentially live a good life, serve in a church somewhere, and have a white picket fence and 2.3 children, that sort of thing.

And when I was 16, my best friend and I were preparing for PE class, and we were supposed to run two laps. And while we were in the middle of our laps, he had a heart attack and actually fell over and died instantly. And for a while, I was very angry with God about that. But after I was done being angry and I came back to the Lord, I remember sitting there and having a very vivid experience of thinking to myself, what if I were standing before the Lord the way that my friend Steve is today? And Steve had been given 16 years on this earth. And I thought, well, how would I answer the question if God asked me, "I gave you 16 years—how did you use them for My glory?" And I realized I would not have a very good answer for that question. And so I resolved that day that whatever the Lord gave me on this earth, I wanted to have a good answer for that question. So whether I got 16 years or 60 years or 100 years, I wanted to have 16 or 60 or 100 years worth of life lived for the glory of God.

And that began a process where I began thinking, what has He equipped me to do? How does my sending church feel about me? And what do they think I might be equipped to do for God's glory? And I realized I was going to end up on the mission field. And so from that day forward, I began a process of preparing and training to go to the mission field myself.

Sue: For me, it was kind of the opposite. I grew up in a Christian church and a Christian family, never really being challenged to missions in general. And then when I was 12, the church brought in a missionary lady from Africa to just talk about her work. That was the first time I really heard what a missionary was, what they do. And I remember going home that night and said, "Mom, dad, I want to be a missionary when I grow up." And I don't think they really believed me. But that desire never left my heart. So as I progressed through life and went to college, all my decisions revolved around the fact that I knew I wanted to be on the mission field. So I started making decisions—what do I want to do, what major do I want to pursue to really help the people of whatever country I was going to be sent to? But that's just how I ended up being a missionary, because that desire to be a missionary from the day of hearing that lady just never left my heart.