I spent the first 20 years of my life in Niger, French West Africa, the daughter of Baptist missionaries. We sailed on the SS United States in November 1958 for language study in France and then arrived in Africa the following February.

For the next 35 years, my parents served in church planting, discipleship training, education, children’s ministries, medical services, orphan care, and Bible translation. They mostly worked with the Zarma tribe, and primarily with Muslims.

I loved my life as a missionary child. I grew up speaking three languages and with a huge love in my heart for the Lord Jesus, as well as a passion for missionary work. My three brothers and my sister and I were very involved in our parents’ ministry. We received an excellent education (through homeschooling, two-room school houses, and boarding schools). My boarding school experiences were positive ones. I was encouraged by the stories of other Bible characters who were also educated away from home, like Joseph, Moses, Samuel, and Daniel. God used their separations from their families to teach them special lessons and to train them for unique service to Him.

I received valuable international and cultural experiences that most kids aren’t privileged to have. I always felt enriched, never deprived. Bible stories were so vivid to me because I lived in a land where I saw shepherds leading their sheep, women drawing water at the well, wedding celebrations that lasted a whole week, and the horrors of demon possession. Every day we saw the lame, the blind, and even lepers begging in the streets.

By God’s grace and through my parents’ careful instruction, I learned very early in life to be convicted of my sins. I asked my mother to pray with me one evening before bed because I wanted to accept Christ as my Savior and have my sins forgiven. It is special to me that my mother noted the day in her journal, May 5, 1961. I professed faith in Christ at this young age, although I did not have full understanding at that time.

When I was 13, I attended a retreat for missionary kids. We were sitting around a campfire near one of the remote mission stations, singing choruses and having a time of sharing. The sky was full of stars; it was a beautiful night. We had just finished singing a chorus about God’s handiwork in nature and His sovereignty. (“In the stars His handiwork I see.…”) There was silence for a moment and then in the distance we could hear the Muslims’ final call to prayer for the day. Additionally, we could hear the drums summoning people to devil worship.

It suddenly hit me that I was surrounded by people living in spiritual darkness. Lost. Hopeless, without Christ. But I had this glorious hope, this wonderful Savior. It was offered to all those Africans around me, but they needed someone to tell them. I had been called to salvation. And I must share that good news with others. At that moment, I felt the Holy Spirit whisper these verses from 1 Peter 2 into my heart: “But you are a chosen race, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (vv. 9-10). I suddenly understood that I had been chosen, predestined, and elected to my salvation. I believed in faith at that moment. I almost wanted to leave the retreat and start evangelizing in the neighboring villages right then and there! But I knew it didn’t work that way.

Working in a Muslim country is very difficult. It takes a long time to break down the barriers in a Muslim person’s heart. My heart was broken for the dear unsaved African brothers and sisters around me that night. But I was only 13, and I had a lot of growing up to do. However, from that moment, I determined to live for Him completely. This was when the process of sanctification had a more serious effect on my life. God, in His mercy and grace, drew me ever closer to Him in the years that followed.

In 1974, I graduated from boarding school in the Ivory Coast and came home to the United States for Bible college. During one of my summer vacations, I participated in a missionary apprenticeship program back in Niger and was able to help in the Bible translation work. I typed many of the psalms in the Zarma language for the translation committee to edit. That was a big job, back in the days of manual typewriters and carbon copies. If you made a mistake you had to erase it on all 4 pages!

At this point, I was taking my life firmly in my own hands, determined that I was bound for the mission field like my parents. I figured I knew the language, I knew the culture, I had a gift for teaching, I could homeschool my own children; certainly, it must be God’s will for me to return to Africa. I was so adamant about my plans that I would not even date young men that were not in the missions program at my college. But by my senior year, the Lord made clear to me that He had another path in mind. Being homesick for Africa was not a good enough reason to be a missionary!

In God’s providence, later that year, a really brave young man unexpectedly sent me flowers and asked me out to dinner. As it turned out, God led me to marry this wonderful man, have three children, and be a wife, mother, and grandma in Indiana. And that was God’s perfect plan for me. God has used me to minister in a different kind of mission field: in my own home, in other occupations I have had, as a teacher, a paralegal, and a receptionist, and in different ministries in my local church. During this time, I also became involved with Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), an international, interdenominational, worldwide training center encouraging Christians to study the Bible in depth. It was through BSF that I was first introduced to Reformed theology. I was a discussion leader, substitute teaching leader, and seminar trainer. I really enjoy teaching women how to understand God’s Word and to apply it to their lives in practical ways.

Recently I was reading Isaiah and was encouraged in a special way. Many of us know Isaiah 6:8, “Here am I! Send me!” Isaiah responded to God with these words after he heard the Lord ask for someone to spread His message. Preaching God’s Word became his life’s work, involving not only himself but also his wife and children. I am sure his family found themselves in situations that were not easy to endure. His children were public figures by God’s design and never quite fit in with those around them (just like missionary kids). Yet after all his hardships, Isaiah repeated his prayer in chapter 8 when he said, “I will hope in Him. Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me” (vv. 17–18). He realized that being right where God wanted them was the best place for his family and would bring the most honor to God. He was not afraid to bring his children along as he served the Lord. He knew God’s call of ministry and promise of protection naturally included his whole family.

I am so thankful to have parents who made the same choice. I would not trade my multi-cultured, transient, goodbye/hello-filled childhood for anything. I watched God save people from other tribes and nations and then mature them into godly leaders. I learned what the gospel truly was. I realized that ministry sometimes is not something big, but that it is a life made up of little decisions to honor God and love people.

This passage from Colossians 1 has been important in my life: “That I may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God…who qualified me to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light, and rescued me from the dominion of darkness, and brought me into the kingdom of the Son, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins” (vv. 10–14). I am so thankful that God called me to Himself those many years ago and that He continues to provide me with a different kind of mission field here in the United States.