Our Calling
We never planned to become missionaries. In fact, for much of my life, I was opposed to the idea.
My wife, Rebekah, grew up in a Mennonite community where foreign missions were a familiar part of life. She knew people who had devoted their lives to missionary service, including some who had lost their lives in the Congo. Those stories troubled me deeply. I struggled to understand why Christians would travel halfway around the world, sometimes placing themselves and their families in tremendous danger, when there were people in our own communities who needed to hear the gospel. I believed Christians should faithfully serve God wherever they were. Why go somewhere else to do something we could be doing right where God had already placed us?
My understanding of fatherhood also influenced my thinking. Before becoming a Christian, I viewed my primary responsibility as providing physical safety and financial security for my family. As I grew in my faith, however, I began to recognize that my children's spiritual well-being and discipleship were responsibilities I could not neglect (Ephesians 6:4). I still wanted to provide a safe and stable home, but I was learning that there were things more important than financial security and personal comfort. Through studying Scripture and being discipled by our church, my understanding of missions also began to change. I came to recognize that Christ's command to make disciples of all nations was not an alternative to reaching our own neighbors. Both were part of the work He had entrusted to His church (Matthew 28:18–20; Acts 1:8). Still, I couldn't imagine that this would lead our family overseas.
When I thought of foreign missions, I pictured someone traveling to a remote, unreached village, living in a hut with a dirt floor, far from the comforts and protections we take for granted. I certainly didn't think of Europe as a mission field. That began to change during a visit to a church in northern Indiana, where we heard from a missionary couple preparing to serve in Catania, Sicily. Their ministry involved something remarkably simple: providing bicycles to migrants arriving in Italy and using those encounters as opportunities to share the gospel. The idea fascinated me, not merely because it was practical, but because of who they were reaching.
Many of these migrants were arriving from regions within the 10/40 Window, an area stretching across North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia that contains many of the world's least-reached people groups. Some came from communities with so few Christians that an individual might live an entire lifetime without hearing the biblical gospel clearly explained. In certain countries, openly leaving one's inherited religion to follow Christ can also carry severe social or legal consequences. Yet people from these very communities were arriving in Europe, where some would have greater freedom to hear, question, and consider the gospel. A missionary could meet a practical need, show kindness, and share Christ in an ordinary encounter. Many of these migrants weren't necessarily going to remain in Sicily. They might travel elsewhere in Europe, eventually return home, or settle somewhere entirely unexpected.
That's when the larger opportunity began to capture my imagination. Traditionally, reaching an isolated community might require missionaries to travel to that community, learn its language, and spend years establishing relationships. That work remains vitally important, but international migration was creating another possibility. People from numerous nations and communities, some largely unreached by the gospel, were gathering in the same cities. Rather than traveling separately to each of their countries, Christians could encounter people from many of those places in a single location. Organizations such as Joshua Project identify unreached people groups represented in Italy, including Southern Pashtuns, Somalis, Western Punjabis, and Bengali-speaking South Asians. I began to recognize the extraordinary opportunity this presented.
Modern technology made the possibilities even greater. Today, people can move thousands of miles from home without losing regular contact with the families and communities they leave behind. Someone from Ghana, for example, might hear the gospel during a conversation in Rome and, through a phone call or messaging application, begin discussing that same message with a friend or relative still living in Ghana minutes, hours, or days later. Someone from a largely unreached community might come to faith in Christ here and begin sharing that faith with people in a country where foreign missionaries have little access. If that person eventually returns home, the gospel may travel with them. A single encounter in Europe has the potential to extend across borders through relationships that already exist.
Of course, no conversation guarantees that someone will believe, and no ministry strategy guarantees spiritual fruit. But the combination of global migration and modern communication creates opportunities that earlier generations of missionaries could scarcely have imagined. We see something of this principle in the early church, when believers carried the gospel into new places as they traveled and were scattered (Acts 8:4; 11:19–21). What struck me was that a conversation beginning in a European city might reach people in communities half a world away. This wasn't about finding a more comfortable alternative to living in a remote village. If faithfully serving God required our family to live in difficult conditions, I wanted to be willing to do that. Rather, I was recognizing an approach to reaching the nations that seemed remarkably practical and potentially far-reaching. For the first time, foreign missions began to make sense to me in a way they never had before.
Meanwhile, we were building a life in West Virginia that I had every intention of keeping. I had spent fourteen years working in industrial rope access, a career I loved and had worked hard to develop. I had earned Level 3 certifications through both the Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians (SPRAT) and the Industrial Rope Access Trade Association (IRATA), reaching the highest certification level in my profession. My work had taken me throughout North America, working on bridges, dams, wind turbines, refineries, and other industrial projects. It was challenging, rewarding work, and it provided a very good living for our family.
We had originally come to West Virginia because my company flew me into the area to serve as the Level 3 technician on a project. I enjoyed the people and the community so much that I asked Rebekah whether she would consider moving there. Rather than continuing to travel from project to project, I wanted to settle into a regular forty-hour workweek at a local refinery along the Kentucky–West Virginia border. We found a church we loved, developed close friendships, and began putting down roots. Professionally, I had reached a place that many people in my line of work spend their careers striving toward. We could afford a comfortable home and provide well for our children. Missions offered no obvious financial or professional advancement. We were grateful for the life we had, and we had no intention of leaving it.
But our plans to settle permanently in West Virginia began encountering unexpected setbacks. We had sold our home and were preparing to purchase another, a beautiful house where we imagined putting down roots and raising our children. Just before closing, however, I moved a cabinet and discovered a serious crack in the foundation hidden behind it, with a black snake curled up below. It was a strange and unsettling discovery, particularly in what otherwise appeared to be such a nice home. Naturally, we withdrew from the purchase. But I had been so certain we would buy that house that I had already removed the contingency protecting the sale of our existing home if the new purchase fell through. That sale went through, leaving our family with nowhere to live.
A wonderful family from our church welcomed us into their home, where we spent approximately three months. They had previously served as missionaries in Kosovo, and during our time living with them, we had many conversations about serving God and the work of missions. What initially seemed like an unfortunate disruption became an unexpected season of Christian fellowship and encouragement. Those friends remain very dear to us today.
Other plans encountered setbacks as well. Attempts to advance professionally didn't work out as I had hoped, but we simply took these difficulties in stride. We loved our church, our community, and our life in America. We weren't trying to leave; we were trying to settle down. We assumed that, sooner or later, things would fall into place. Meanwhile, conversations about missions continued to arise, often involving Italy. We found them interesting, but we weren't connecting them to our housing situation, my career, or any larger pattern. As far as we were concerned, we were simply experiencing the ordinary ups and downs of life and moving forward with our plans.
Eventually, another missionary couple, this time serving in Rome, visited our church to share about their ministry. By that point, Italy had come to our attention so many times that, as I sat listening, I became convinced God was leading our family toward missionary service there. I didn't have a particular burden for the Italian people, a carefully developed ministry strategy, or an ambition to live overseas. I simply believed God was directing us and that I needed to respond. I turned to Rebekah in the pew and said, "Okay, we're doing this." What I didn't fully realize was that she had already been praying about the same possibility, quietly wondering whether I was recognizing what she had been sensing herself. For both of us, that moment marked the beginning of an entirely unexpected chapter.
It was only after that decision that we began looking back over the events that had brought us there. How had we gotten here? We had been so determined to settle down in West Virginia, yet so many things had unfolded differently than we expected. We remembered the house we thought would be our forever home, the extraordinary discovery of a serpent beneath a crack in its foundation, and how that incident had left us temporarily without a home. We remembered that the family who welcomed us in had themselves been missionaries, and how much of our time with them had been spent talking about serving God. We thought about our changing understanding of Scripture, the repeated encounters with missions in Italy, and all the conversations and circumstances that had brought us to a decision we never would have imagined making.
None of those events had seemed especially meaningful while we were living through them. The house was simply a bad purchase we had fortunately discovered in time. Our temporary living arrangement was an act of generosity by Christian friends. Career disappointments were ordinary setbacks. We hadn't been looking for signs or trying to piece together some hidden message. But now, with our decision to pursue missions in Italy behind us, we began to see those experiences differently. What had seemed like unrelated circumstances now appeared to be part of a larger story. We came to believe that God had been providentially arranging circumstances and preparing our hearts long before we recognized where He might be leading us. We still wouldn't claim to understand precisely why every event occurred, but looking back strengthened our conviction that God had been at work in ways we hadn't recognized at the time.
One of the more uncomfortable parts of our decision was telling people that we believed God was leading us to Rome, Italy—a place much of the world considers a dream vacation destination. I worried about how that would sound. Would people think we simply wanted an excuse to move somewhere beautiful? Would they question whether there was any legitimate reason to send missionaries to a place with such a long Christian history? I understood those questions because I had asked similar ones myself. The truth is, I loved our life in America and had never dreamed of living in Italy. Had it not been for what we believed was God's leading, I doubt Italy would ever have become a vacation destination for our family, much less a place to live. Yet as we began explaining the opportunities created by migration, even people who initially questioned the idea began to recognize why Rome could be a meaningful place for missionary work. We were discovering that the nations were coming to Europe, and the opportunity to make Christ known extended both to those arriving from around the world and to Italians themselves.
We often say that God called our family to Rome, but we want to be honest about what that means. We did not hear an audible voice from God. We did not receive a vision or a supernatural message instructing us to move to Italy. Rather, through Scripture, prayer, conversations, unexpected circumstances, and a growing conviction shared between us, we came to believe that God was directing our family here. We cannot claim to understand all of God's purposes, nor do we believe our interpretation of His guidance is beyond question. What we can say is that this conviction grew strong enough that we were willing to leave the life we knew and follow where we believed He was leading. We weren't pursuing an adventure or fulfilling a lifelong ambition. We believed God was calling us, and we wanted to obey.
For Those Who Feel Unqualified
There is another part of our story that I hope will encourage Christians who feel called to serve but hesitate because they don't believe they're ready.
When we first decided to move to Rome, one of my greatest concerns was whether I was qualified to be a missionary. I wasn't a Bible scholar. I hadn't attended seminary. I wasn't an experienced evangelist or a natural leader. I knew how much I still needed to learn, and I worried that my limitations would make me ineffective. These insecurities were significant enough that I found comfort in knowing we would be serving under the leadership of experienced missionaries. They already had a ministry established, and I could simply come alongside them, learn from their experience, and follow their direction.
Looking back, I can recognize how much of that comfort came from my reluctance to take responsibility for something I didn't feel equipped to do. I had spent fourteen years becoming proficient in a highly specialized profession. I knew my work, understood my responsibilities, and had earned the credentials to demonstrate my competence. But when it came to missionary service, I felt like a beginner. I was leaving a profession in which I had achieved a great deal of confidence to enter a field in which I felt almost entirely inadequate.
Our first year in Rome unfolded differently than we expected. Eventually, our path separated from the ministry through which we originally came. Suddenly, the security I had found in following someone else's leadership was no longer there. We were faced with questions about our future that I had hoped someone else would be able to answer for us.
Yet through those uncertainties, the conviction that had brought us to Rome remained. In fact, it became one of the things that sustained us. I began to recognize that our confidence in serving God could not ultimately rest on another missionary, an organization, or an established ministry strategy. We needed to follow Christ, seek the wisdom and accountability of His church, and faithfully use the opportunities before us, even when we didn't feel entirely prepared.
This experience has brought new meaning to passages of Scripture that remind us how God works through ordinary people. When Jesus called Peter and Andrew, they were fishermen (Matthew 4:18–20). Later, when Peter and John stood before the religious authorities, those authorities were astonished by their boldness because they were men without formal religious training. What they recognized was that these men had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13). Paul likewise reminds believers that God often works through those the world considers weak or insignificant so that no one may boast before Him (1 Corinthians 1:26–29).
Of course, this doesn't mean biblical knowledge, preparation, and sound teaching are unimportant. Jesus didn't leave His disciples as He found them. He taught them, corrected them, and prepared them for the work ahead. We should diligently study Scripture, learn from mature believers, and continually grow in our understanding of the faith (2 Timothy 2:15). But there is an important difference between recognizing our need to grow and believing that we cannot serve God until we've reached some imagined level of qualification.
The gospel itself is a message that ordinary Christians can understand and communicate: Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again, according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). We can spend our entire lives deepening our understanding of that truth, but we don't have to understand everything before we begin sharing it.
I've also come to recognize that there is no universal formula guaranteeing success in missions. Different people, cultures, and circumstances require wisdom and thoughtful approaches, but spiritual growth cannot be manufactured through a particular method. Paul explained that he planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6–7). That doesn't excuse us from working diligently or evaluating how faithfully we're serving. It reminds us that our responsibility is to communicate the gospel faithfully, while trusting God with the results.
More than a year after arriving in Italy, I still have much to learn. We're continuing to learn the language, build relationships, and develop a clearer understanding of how best to serve here. We are deeply grateful for the church in West Virginia that discipled us and helped prepare us for this journey. Although we now live thousands of miles away, God's work of shaping and teaching us hasn't stopped. In many ways, the challenges we've experienced have made us more aware of how much we still need to grow.
If there is one encouragement I would offer to Christians who recognize opportunities to serve but feel unqualified, it is this: don't allow the awareness of your limitations to become a permanent excuse for inaction.
Keep studying. Keep learning. Seek wise counsel and remain accountable to the church. Take your responsibilities seriously, and be willing to admit what you don't know. But don't assume you must first become someone extraordinary before God can use you.
I once thought I needed to know how to be a missionary before I could become one. I'm learning that much of the growth I needed would only come through stepping forward in faith and doing the work.
We don't have to be sufficient in ourselves to serve Christ. Our sufficiency comes from God (2 Corinthians 3:5).