Jadine Fritzler, a member of our LifeNet Writing Team, originally published this story in 2020 on Holly J. Clemente's blog Why We Said Yes. LifeNet Blog is grateful for their permission to share it with our readers.
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“So, are you going to be a missionary in Africa someday?” my friend asked me one day in the bathroom of our high school. I was 17 years old, and I was that Christian girl—the one who carried her Bible, a great, big one, on top of all her books. The one who wore a two-inch-high cross on a chain around her neck. The one everyone knew was a Christian. Even so, my reply was immediate and left no room for doubt. “Me? No way!”
I had lived a very insulated life. I grew up in farm country, in southeastern Wisconsin, and was the oldest of six children. Our family never traveled anywhere except 4 hours north to my grandparents every summer. Traveling to and living on another continent thousands of miles away was the farthest thing from my mind. I rarely went to other people’s houses, except for a couple of cousins’ homes. When I was in fourth grade, I was assigned to work on a science fair project with a new student named Klaus. Klaus’ parents had come from Germany and I knew they spoke German in their home. When his mother called my mom to ask if I could go to their house to work on the project, I begged my mom not to make me go.
No, I was definitely not missionary material. At least not the way I saw it.
However, about five years after that conversation with my friend, things started to change for me. I was now in my junior year of Bible school, pursuing a degree in Christian education, and beginning to date a fellow student. His name was Craig, and he was a missions major. To his credit, he told me immediately that he was called to be a missionary, and specifically felt called to Liberia, West Africa, where he had spent five months after high school. If our relationship was to continue, he needed to know that I was open to missions.
I prayed for guidance. I felt no check, heard no warning bells. I thought, God called Abram, and his wife went along. I can do that. So, I told Craig I was good with his call to missions. I would join him. But I still thought of it as “his” call to missions, not my own.
We were married between our junior and senior years. My activities and my friendships became more missions-focused. I read missionary books and listened carefully to missionary speakers on campus. Craig and I hung out with other missions majors. After graduation, the next step would be serving in ministry in the United States before going to the foreign mission field.
We moved to a tiny town in Nebraska to serve as youth pastors for a year. Our first daughter was born there. When she was six weeks old, we headed to northern Minnesota, where Craig was associate pastor. I became pregnant with our second daughter there…and Craig began talking about making plans to go to Liberia when we completed two years at the church.
I’ll confess, during these years after Bible college, I had been hoping Craig had forgotten about his call to Liberia—or that God had changed his mind. Obviously, that had not happened. I never told Craig I didn’t want to go. I just tuned out whenever he talked about preparations we needed to make. If I ignored it, maybe it would just go away. But it wasn’t going away.
One of my ministries at the church was a Bible study for young moms. We were studying Myrna Alexander’s Behold Your God: Studies on the Attributes of God. One day I was preparing the lesson and at the same time, thinking of how much I did not want to go to Africa. Why couldn’t we stay where we were? I thought. The people in the church liked us and we liked them. There were lots of young families and many little ones for our girls to grow up with.
And Africa was so far away. There were too many dangers there. How could I take my babies to Africa?
Suddenly, I “heard” God’s voice through these words which were instantly imprinted on my mind: “If you really believe I am the God who is present everywhere, can’t you believe that I will be with you in Africa? If I am all-powerful here, I am all-powerful there. You can trust me to be the same there as I am here.” With these words, I broke. I finally surrendered, and I gave God my yes. “Yes, God, I will go to Africa. We will be missionaries in Liberia. I will do this for you.” I said it and I meant it with my whole heart. But I was sure I would hate it. My surrender fully included the certainty that I would be miserable for Jesus.
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