Choosing between Opportunities

---

Josh Hallahan, Missionary, Uganda
October-December 2015

As Kelly and I began our term as missionary disciples serving in Uganda, we were ready to come in, receive our clearly laid-out job description, and begin serving with new friends. That’s when our plan and the reality on the ground collided.

Our missionary experience started by allowing us to “try out” two new ministries. I began serving as the first-ever chaplain at Heritage International School in Kampala. Meanwhile, Kelly and I were also beginning to minister with United Faith Chapel, which is now part of the University Discipleship Movement. Because these ministry roles were new to both established ministries, finding the right balance of involvement was tricky.

Outside of missionary work, there are not many other opportunities that allow you to create your own job description and sometimes even allow you to choose between two really attractive opportunities, but that was where we found ourselves.

I spent the first year at Heritage finding out who had been doing “chaplaincy duties” in the past and what expectations there were for a school chaplain. While at UFC, Kelly and I spent time getting to know the students and national staff and asking lots of questions. We wanted to see what the needs were, where our skill sets could best be used, and pray about our roles.

It was definitely an exciting and difficult first year. We did not do everything right. We wanted to walk away many times. One day it felt like Heritage was the place for us to focus and the next we were sure it was UFC.

During our second year, we began really seeking the Lord as to where He wanted us to focus our ministry upon returning as career missionaries. We truly felt as if God would be honored with either choice. Students at HIS were becoming followers of Jesus, and developing student leaders at UFC became a clear need that we could fill. How do you choose between two really great opportunities? That kind of answer can only come through prayer.

Eventually, a peace settled that for the next season we were to focus our efforts with UFC and the University Discipleship Movement and help develop leaders who will change their communities for the kingdom of Jesus. We love Heritage and are still involved there, but for now God has asked us to concentrate on UDM.

What started as two possibilities with no job descriptions has become two passions of ours where we are excited to see God continue to work in great ways. We thank God for journeying with us. Will you pray with us that we will continue to honor Him in the years ahead?

ACT: Pray for Josh and Kelly as they serve in Uganda. Join their prayer team by signing up on their blog at http://thehallahans.blogspot.com/p/join-our-team.

Prognosis: A Change in Plans

---

Dan Jacobs, Missionary, Kenya
October-December 2015

We had been at the Africa Gospel Church Baby Centre in Kenya for almost one year, and June 24, 2013, started out like a normal day. Dana and I attended a goodbye celebration for one of our babies that had been adopted. As we left that event, Dana noticed some tingling in her feet. As the week progressed, her symptoms became increasingly worse; and five days later, she was completely paralyzed from the mid-chest down.

I rushed her to Nairobi Hospital where we met Dr. Musau, a neurosurgeon. Over the next 48 hours, Dana was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, which had grown tumors in her spinal column and had compressed her spinal cord to the point that it could not be seen. The prognosis was very grim. Our well-laid plans for the next year had now been drastically altered. This was not in our plan when we came to Kenya to take care of babies at the baby center, but God knew we needed this detour.

Dana’s and my perspectives were very different, but I believe our course ahead was the same. God had brought us to Kenya, and if He chose to, He could heal Dana in Kenya. He did exactly that! At each stage we found ourselves in, we were thankful for all He had done and gave Him the glory.

The path has not been easy, but it has been filled with countless opportunities to share about Dana’s struggle and how God has seen us through. It’s also a wonderful launch into telling about our ministry at the baby center. Through this new plan, God opened up an entirely new mission field that we were not aware of.

Even though both of us are planners and organizers and like lists and schedules, God has taught us to follow Him each day as it comes. He has given us all the strength, peace, courage, and joy to make it through each day. He has shown us firsthand that He will never leave us nor forsake us even though He may drastically alter our path.

We praise Him for blessing us with this new path that has made our end goal even clearer. To Him be all the glory forever!

MORE: Learn more about the AGC Baby Centre, and find ways you can partner with this ministry at www.agcbabycenter.org.

Prayer Calendar: November 15-21, 2015

World Gospel Mission partnered with Africa Gospel Church to build the Africa Gospel Church Baby Centre. The center opened its doors to the first two babies in April 2006, and April 2007, 24 babies were dedicated. As of July 2014, a total of 267 children have called the center home, and 109 children been adopted into their forever families. This ministry is the focus of our missions prayer point this week:


PRAY for Dan and Dana Jacobs and the staff of the Africa Gospel Church Baby Centre.

Willing to Be Made Willing

---

Mary Hermiz, Retiree
October-December 2015

I’ve wanted to be a missionary nurse from the age of 4 years old. Myra Martin, a WGM missionary nurse to India, spoke at my father’s church in New York. She was dressed in her nurses’ white uniform, cap, and all. I sat spellbound on the front seat and knew that that was what I wanted to be: a missionary nurse.

During junior high, I realized if I was going to be a nurse, I needed to make some money for nurses’ training. I began babysitting and cleaning houses and finally landed the job of my life: janitor at my father’s church. I made $6 a week! On Monday after school, I’d take my check to the local bank. I’d put $5 in the bank, take 60 cents to put in the church offering, and bought candy with the rest!

By the time I finished high school, I’d saved enough to put me through nurses’ training. It was a diploma program where I got credit for the work I did in the hospital. So, this was my plan: go to nurses’ training, work my way through Bible college by being a nurse, find my husband, and go to the mission field.

During the summer of my junior year of high school, I went to camp meeting in Circleville, Ohio. One evening, a few girls from Circleville Bible College (now Ohio Christian University) came to our dorm and talked to us about attending CBC. When they started on me, I told them they should talk to the other girls. I already had my plans and, yes, I would come to CBC but not until I’d finished nurses’ training.

They left me alone, but God didn’t! I tried to go to sleep, tossing and turning for hours. Finally around 2:00 a.m., I told God how logical my plan was. Financially, I knew I couldn’t afford to go to CBC first: why, in one year all the money I’d saved would be gone! My parents didn’t have any extra money to help me.

Finally, the only thing I knew to pray so I could go to sleep was, “I’m willing to be made willing.” And with that, I went right to sleep. It was all I could honestly say because in myself, I wasn’t willing. At 6:00 a.m., the rising bell rang and I sat straight up in bed. Something had happened: all my desires had been changed! I now wanted to go to Bible college first! The change in me was the most dramatic I’d ever had, more so than my conversion.

After graduating from CBC, I went to nurses’ training, followed by midwifery courses, and finally in 1974 went to Papua New Guinea. I had every intention of staying in PNG to work until I retired.

After working about six years in PNG, the government asked me if I’d open another health center for them. After getting permission from my leaders in the USA, I told the government I’d be willing to do so.

One afternoon after returning from a government meeting in which I told them I would open another center, I decided to do my laundry. As I was washing my clothes, I was weighing in my mind the best way to open the new center. Should I move to the new center and just oversee this larger center or oversee the new center and remain at the larger center? As I was weighing the pros and cons, this thought came to me clearly: “Mary, your work here is finished.” My immediate response was, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” There was no way that could be God.

It took six months of struggle before I came to the conclusion it was God. I wrote to the missionary board and told them I would be resigning. Word got to Dr. Ernie Steury in Kenya, and in a few weeks I received a letter from him inviting me to come to Kenya and start a school of nursing for Tenwek Hospital. I quickly told him I was a “bush nurse” not a hospital nurse. I said I didn’t think I had the skills to do such a job, but I would pray.

When my term was over, I returned to the USA, not knowing what I would do. I investigated many universities to see the different types of master’s programs they offered. When I called Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, they said they had a course in community health nursing based on the World Health Organization model. Out of the many universities that I contacted, IUPUI was the only one that had a program that appealed to me. I applied and was thrilled to be accepted.

I was halfway through my program when God spoke to me through His Word. In my morning devotions, I had read the words in John 10:27: “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” Nothing jumped out at me at the time, but that evening as I was driving home from the university, those words came alive in my car—I knew exactly what God was saying! I rushed into my apartment, ran up the stairs, found the Scripture and re-read it. What a thrill that I was hearing God and He wanted me at Tenwek!

After finishing my degree (a master’s in nursing with a major in community health and a minor in nursing education), I went to Tenwek Hospital in Kenya in 1986. While God was preparing me for the task, He was also calling Barbara Pinkley from Burundi and Sylvia Finlay from England to join in the work. I didn’t need to worry about knowing everything about hospital nursing. He called others to come and fill the gap. That’s just like Him to work out the details!

GO: Are you willing to be made willing? Several ministry opportunities are available through World Gospel Mission. See a complete list of these ministries at www.wgm.org/go.

PRAY: Pray that the students and staff at Tenwek School of Nursing will continue to grow in their knowledge of nursing care as well as their walks with the Lord. Pray also that they will accurately reflect Jesus as they “Care in Christ’s Name.”

Prayer Calendar: November 8-14, 2015

For many, retirement opens the doors for ministry in new and exciting ways. Mary Hermiz shares her journey into missions in "Willing to Be Made Willing." God called her into nursing and now she continues to serve in new capacities in her retirement.

PRAY for Mary Hermiz as she continues to be active in missionary service in retirement.