I grew up at Hatton Baptist Church near Leighton. I went to church with my family multiple times a week from birth until I moved to go to college. God saved me when I was a child but my most significant spiritual development happened at Baptist Campus Ministries (BCM) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).
I began attending Celebration, the weekly worship gathering at BCM, my first week of school. Though I wasn’t going there for the holiest of reasons — in all honesty I went to meet girls — God had other plans in mind. It was there that I first met other guys my age who were committed to growing in their relationships with Christ. It was there that I was first challenged to really understand why I believed what I believed. It was there that I was encouraged to consider what my faith meant for the way I was going to live my life.
Gifts and talents
Through my involvement in BCM I served as a summer missionary with the North American Mission Board (NAMB) for three summers. I spent my first summer in California working at various Vacation Bible Schools (VBS), kids’ camps and event ministries. My second and third summers I served in Kansas at a youth camp with a team of other college students.
During each of these summers I learned some things about how God had gifted me and equipped me for service to Him. I learned there is such a thing as too much VBS and discovered I would not make a good youth leader. However, in spite of my deficiencies, I learned God could use me in the lives of people in other ways I had never considered.
During my junior year of college the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions promoted opportunities for college students to go to the northeastern United States to serve for two years on college campuses and start campus ministries on campuses with no evangelical presence. A video promoting those opportunities was shown at my weekly BCM worship service and I immediately knew this was what God was preparing me to do. During the next few weeks I received confirmation of this from other students without my mentioning to them my interest.
Two years later after graduating from UAH I moved to Wichita, Kan., for a two-year position with NAMB to start a BCM at Wichita State University. Since then I have planted a church for international students at Wichita State and am now a career missionary with NAMB serving as a church-planting catalyst.
Each step along the way God has used the experiences and the people whose paths I have crossed to move me along in my journey of serving Him. I am thankful for the investment people made in me and the gifts of others who made their investment possible.
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