“How does it feel to be married and be a missionary?”
“What? You are only 21 and you are married, that’s crazy.”
These are two common things we hear a lot when we are on the mission field. We met each other at church when we were 16 and found out both of our hearts were aimed at missions. At a young age, God opened our eyes to the need to share the Gospel to everyone and even though we didn’t know exactly what that looked like, we knew that we wanted to share the love of Jesus with everyone. This our story of how we came to know and love missions together.
Troy:
After graduating high school in 2017, I found myself wondering what was next for me. I felt God calling me to do a DTS at YWAM Louisville, so that’s what I did. I was excited to go but also scared to leave friends and family. Through my DTS God showed me so much about Himself and His character. During a teaching on identity, Jesus opened my eyes to the lies I was believing about myself. God showed me that I didn’t have to live up to an impossible standard but that He accepted me the way I was. It was through my DTS that I encountered God as a Father and a friend.
After my DTS, I felt I was supposed to do a School of Ministry Development (SOMD) but that I was to wait a while longer before returning. I went home and worked while waiting to hear from God on when to return to YWAM.
Hannah:
Throughout my life I have been on multiple mission trips to Kenya and that’s when I realized God was calling me into missions, but I didn’t know where to go from there. It wasn’t until my friend told me about a ministry called YWAM that I knew DTS was my next step. So, in September of 2018, DTS is exactly what I did. DTS was extremely good for me! I learned so many things about the nature and character of God and that my relationship with God wasn’t all about works. It’s about the intimate connection between me and God. The Lord wants to walk with me through all the hard and good areas in my life! He’s a father who wants the broken me not the perfect me.
When I graduated DTS I wasn’t sure what was next for me. I began to pray and ask God what he wanted me to do. I knew He wanted me to do SOMD but not right away. It made sense why He wanted me to wait when in March of 2019, Troy proposed to me, and in August, we were married.
Together:
After getting married we wanted to go to SOMD right away, but God had different plans. We sought the Lord in prayer and He led us to wait a year to focus on our marriage and get to know each other deeper before going into ministry together.
That year was hard and very lonely, but through that God taught us so much about ourselves and each other. It showed us to depend on the Lord and each other before going to other things first. Exactly a year after we were married, we went back to YWAM for our second school, but we had to raise the funds first. We had to really rely on God to bring our support in, and that He did! It was amazing everything He did for us in that time. It was so scary to leave our jobs and not know how the money would come in but through lots of hard work and prayer God provided.
SOMD showed us how to be leaders to others and to ourselves in ministry. It really pulled us out of our comfort zones. One thing that we learned throughout this school was that God might take us out of our comfort zones to show us new ways to grow deeper with Him. If we would always stay where we are comfortable we would never learn or grow. When we finished our SOMD, we asked God what was next and felt we were to join staff with YWAM.
Here we are now, full-time missionaries on staff with YWAM Louisville!