An Alabama Baptist missionary couple’s recent trip stateside did much more than bring them home for Christmas — it brought a new daughter into their family.
Although Paul and Lisa Pierce are serving full time with the International Mission Board (IMB) in East Asia, they returned to Montgomery for a six-month stint so that Lisa could have her first baby in the United States.
Baby Elizabeth arrived in November 2006. The Pierces, whose home church is Eastern Hills Baptist, Montgomery, in Montgomery Baptist Association, will spend the next four months speaking in churches, making contacts and building up a prayer network before going back to the missions field.
When they return to East Asia in April, the couple will continue with the work they have been doing over the past three years. As a strategy coordinator, Paul determines ways to reach their unreached people group of about 1.6 million for Christ.
Paul said that only 1 percent of the people are Christian and that the vast majority have never heard of Jesus.
"Our job is to tell people about Jesus in ways that are culturally appropriate," he said.
The Pierces first goal is to establish a good name within the community by setting up medical teams and implementing building projects.
"The more respect we have in the community, the more open doors we will have," Paul explained. "Relationship building is the key. It gives us access into the area."
Once they gain this access, church members from the states also begin to come for one- to two-week missions trips in which they go on prayer walks, distribute Bibles and assist in ongoing projects.
Lisa works with community and home development, establishing relationships in town by visiting and inviting neighbors over for dinner and getting to know the shop owners and people in the market.
Since the couple has been back in the United States, they have kept up with several of their new friends via e-mail. "They are anxiously waiting for our return," Lisa said.
Though both Paul and Lisa recognized even before they were married that they were called to full-time ministry, neither expected to be serving full time in East Asia.
Lisa, who has a degree in interior design, thought her background might be used somewhere in Europe. When Paul graduated from seminary, he started serving as pastor of a small Baptist church in southern Mississippi.
"We knew we were called to the missions field already. When God led us to the church, we were really surprised," Lisa said.
But God wasn’t finished with them yet.
After an event during which 30 missionaries came to their church and shared about life on the missions field, Paul and Lisa began to investigate international missions.
Not long after, they went on a monthlong missions trip to teach English to professors at a university in East Asia. They were also asked to teach American culture.
"Even in the country where you can’t be a missionary officially, the government was asking us to teach about culture, which opened up doors for us to tell the good news," Paul said.
While there, the couple realized God was calling them there full time.
"We were looking into other locations but felt compelled there," Lisa said. "There is a spiritual void you can feel. They are exceedingly wonderful people. They are very open and hospitable, but they have no concept of how great our God is and His love for them. For many of these people, we are the first people to share Jesus with them."
EDITOR’S NOTE — Names have been changed due to security concerns.
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