NTM

Background History: 

 Born  of Italian immigrants, my mother came to know the Lord through the testimony of neighbors.  She sang missionary songs as she rocked me and prayed that I would grow up to be a missionary.

I trusted Christ as my savior at age nine, but turned away from Him as a teen. God used the shock of watching a friend die in my arms to drive home the fact that, although I was going to heaven, most of my friends were not. And I was in no position to help them.

I turned back to God and headed for Bible college to get prepared for whatever He had in mind for the rest of my life. Naturally, since my parents wanted me to be a missionary, that was the last thing I wanted. I was willing to serve God, but not in that capacity!

In Bible college, the student sitting next to me just happened to be a missionary kid from Venezuela. His stories of life on the mission field intrigued me and I accepted his invitation to visit the field with him.

Flying over the jungle, looking at village after village still waiting for its first contact with the Gospel, God used the unfairness of their situation to capture my heart. The following summer I returned to help open a new tribal station and from then on, I was hooked!

My parents became Christians through the heartbreak of having a severely handicapped child, my youngest sister. Our family started attending church and by age nine I trusted Christ as my savior.

That same year, after hearing a missionary speak at our church, I made a commitment to serve as a missionary when I became an adult.

My parents joined New Tribes Mission while I was a teen and I traveled with them to Colombia, S.A., where I lived for a year before returning to the United States for further schooling. 

Mission field experience had the opposite effect on me that it had on David. Although I had planned to be a missionary since I was nine, seeing the realities of missionary life produced second thoughts.

I started telling myself that childish commitments do not need to determine adult career choices. The plight of tribal people still waiting for their first opportunity to hear the gospel still bothered me, but I didn’t want to be the one to go.

I joked with a missionary friend, “I don’t know what God wants me to do after I graduate. I haven’t asked Him. That way He can’t say.”

Seeing the seriousness behind the joke, she replied, “ You’ve seen what life is like on the mission field, so you know that it is 90% sweat and hard work and only about 10 % inspiration. But if that is what God wants you to do, you will not be satisfied anywhere else. If I had another life to live, I would do the same thing I have done.”

I went home and told the Lord that I wanted to serve Him in whatever way He chose for me. He gave me a settled peace in my heart and renewed my desire serve Him in the area of tribal missions.