Our adventure in missions really began over 18 years ago. As we studied the Scriptures, we became convinced that healthy local churches are to be involved with missions—reaching lost people across the street and around the world with the Gospel of Christ. At first, hosting a Missions Conference was simply a normal function of local church ministry where God’s people were challenged with the needs of various fields of the world. Most American Christians tend to view a missionary and his work in an idealistic way. A foreign field seems so exotic and adventurous, yet unreachable except by an “elite class” of servants called missionaries.
In 2002, our home church, Calvary Baptist Bible Church, sent us on our first missions trip to Cambodia and Thailand. Our eyes were opened to the realities of missionary work and our hearts were deeply touched. We asked, “God do you want us here?” That persistent question followed us to Puerto Rico, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Jamaica, and Antigua. Our annual Missions Conferences challenged us repeatedly: “God do you want us to be missionaries?”
During 35 years of pastoral ministry, Randy often declared that missions requires a pastor with a “missions mindset” to lead churches in their important supporting role in sustaining the needs of missionaries—so obviously that was our place in world-wide missions. Yet, we continued to ask, “Is that all we can do?”
In 2006 and 2007, the Lord led us on Missions Trips to Jamaica, Antigua, and Grenada to work with deaf people. It was during this time that God clearly led us to a new avenue of ministry. We have been involved in various aspects of deaf work and ministry for many years. Sue is a certified sign language interpreter and Randy’s training in sign language has also prepared him to communicate God’s Word effectively to deaf people.
Pastoral experience, theological training, sign language skills and a missions mindset have prepared us both for this challenging ministry. We are now joyfully engaged in the work that He has called us to do through On To Victory! Ministries.
