I was privileged to grow up in a Christian home. After my salvation at the age of four, the Lord called my father to preach. He left his career and moved our family to North Carolina to attend Ambassador Baptist College. His example of faith and obedience continually challenges me.
Growing up at a Bible college afforded me many privileges. At an early age, I encountered the idea of serving the Lord with my life in ministry. When I was twelve, I gave my life to God at a summer camp. I did not know anything about ministry, but it made sense that if Jesus was willing to die for me, I should be willing to live for Him. My mother did all she could to encourage this decision, and men and women of God from yesteryear were often the assigned topics of reading assignments and school reports. Missionaries became my heroes. Two years later, I told the Lord that I would do anything and go anywhere for Him, including following him to the foreign field as a missionary.
Being around a Bible college, however, was not always positive. My father was a deacon at a church whose pastor was a college staff member. The pastor disqualified himself and split the church. The spiritual damage caused by this scandal led me to turn my back on God and the ministry. I renounced my surrender and charted my own course.
After high school, my parents pressured me into taking a one-year Bible course at Ambassador. I was bitter, miserable, and under constant conviction, knowing that I was running from the Lord, but He continued working in my heart. That semester, God put me through a series of events that brought me back to the place where I realized that a life outside of God’s will was not a life I wanted to live. I rededicated my life to the Lord, changed my major to Missions, and began to seek and follow God’s leading.
When the time came for my missions internship, I chose to pursue several opportunities that piqued my interest and prayed for the Lord to give me guidance. He closed the doors on all of them. Then, through a series of Divinely orchestrated circumstances, he steered me to a unique opportunity in West Africa to minister in Ghana, Liberia, and the Ivory Coast. On this trip, the Lord burdened my heart for Liberia. Afterwards, he confirmed this calling to my wife and me through answered prayers and further opportunities. We are excitedly anticipating our first term in Liberia next year.
Winter 2024-25