We prayed a simple prayer, “Lord where do you want us?” We never expected Him to say “Tahiti” but He did. We are going because He called us.
Our story, so far…
When I think about our family I remember God’s love, faithfulness and redemption.
Since Carly and I married in October of 2017 we have seen God do miracles in our family. Not only has God provided for us in countless ways, He has also been faithful to guide us. One of the greatest miracles we’ve seen in our family is the way that he opened a way for me to adopt Christian and Zoey on December 23, 2020.
Before we felt called to French Polynesia, the Lord began to stir our hearts with what we call a “holy discontent”. We loved our place in life: I was working in my dream job as a full-time worship leader and Carly was enjoying homeschooling the kids and making our house into a home. However, we were feeling stirred more and more to share the gospel and wanted people everywhere to have an opportunity to know Jesus and experience His love like we have.
So after praying about this for some time Carly sat down one evening and asked the Lord where He wanted us. What the Lord said to her blindsided both of us, “Tahiti and Sydney”. After Carly shared that with me we both kept that in mind and after a series of confirmations (including calling the Youth Pastors at our church at the same time, to go to the same area of the world), we began to realize that this really was His will.
We applied to be missionaries with Assemblies of God World Missions (AGWM) and after sitting nervously through interviews we found out that we would be going to French Polynesia as a team with our friends the Molans (the Youth Pastors we’d worked together with for 5 years) and another family, the Suttons. The Suttons felt God’s calling to French Polynesia as well and after receiving appointment with AGWM, resigned from the church they’d been Pastoring in southern Missouri for the last 9 years.
We are very excited about what God is doing in this area of the world. French Polynesia has not had any Assembly of God missionaries for over 15 years and the President of French Polynesia asked our area director, Brian Webb, “What can the Assemblies of God do for our youth?” 40 percent of the population is under the age of 25 and many young people are struggling with addictions and there has also been an epidemic of suicide.
We know that God has raised up a team for such a time as this. As a team we have seen God’s power at work in our lives and we know that He is able to bring freedom through Jesus Christ to all who turn to Him.
As a family we are going to French Polynesia with the assignment of Evangelism and potentially church planting. The Assemblies of God of French Polynesia has also plowed ground for a Bible school and some of our team will be helping in that project. We are very much wanting to get to language school (which is supposed to take place in France for 1 year) and then to French Polynesia.
