While most people who are retiring dream about afternoons on the golf course or undisturbed strolls through the park, Alabamians Jerry and Sandy Cole are learning what it’s like to live in the United States again.
After serving 25 years as career missionaries through the International Mission Board (IMB) in Taiwan, the Coles have moved home to Cullman and First Baptist Church, Cullman, for one year of stateside assignment before officially retiring in July 2006.
“Just because we left, the work is not done.” Jerry Cole said. “There are literally millions that still need to hear.”
The couple served as strategy coordinators for Hakka Ministries, working with “all Great Commission partners.” God didn’t call them to a certain location, Jerry Cole said, but to the Hakka people, a Chinese minority group. When the Coles began praying in 1979 about where God would lead them, they read a Billy Graham publication identifying the Hakka as an unreached people group, with less than 1 percent considered evangelized. The Coles’ hearts were drawn toward them.
The Michigan church Jerry Cole was then serving as pastor, hosted two missions conferences during his seven years on staff, ultimately leading the couple to east Asia.
“From then on, God brought small forms of affirmation all along the way,” Jerry Cole said. “God, through the process, affirmed His calling.”
He recalled preaching once in a rural Alabama church near the couple’s hometown of Cullman, prior to their orientation for missionary service. A Taiwanese member of the congregation invited them to her home for lunch after the service.
“We got our first genuine Chinese meal right here in rural Alabama before we ever left the country,” Jerry Cole said. “It was little signs like this that served as our affirmation.”
And they would need that affirmation when they got to their destination. They studied the Hakka language five days a week for two years before their work as church planters began.
“You eat until you’re old and learn until you’re old. We were always learning new things,” he said.
Aileen Chang, a journeyman who serves on the Hakka team in Taiwan, said the people there “are always so touched when they hear Jerry and Sandy share in the Hakka language because it shows their heart and commitment to this people group.”
“The way they minister to others is with an overflow of love that comes from their walk and relationships with the Lord,” Chang said. “The Coles have lived among the Hakka people and are involved in their lives. They are an example to me of what it means to obey God’s calling.”
During their last four-year term on the field, Jerry Cole was asked to film five televised sermons in the Hakka language, as well as six more taped ones for future use. Although he acknowledged that the project was rather draining, “it was an opportunity that God gave.”
The Coles agreed that their last term was the most difficult. Having moved to a new area to strengthen an existing church, they said they experienced spiritual oppression like never before.
“It was God’s grace that kept us there,” Sandy Cole said. “We had some very traumatic experiences, but I wouldn’t take anything for them. We experienced who God says He is.”
Sandy Cole, who is confident her call to missions was an individual calling, established a relationship with a young woman in 1988 who wanted to learn English. She was able to lead her to the Lord, and over the next 17 years, she not only became a partner in the ministry but Sandy Cole’s “soul mate” as well.
“I can’t explain the depth of our relationship through another language,” Sandy Cole said through tears. “If it was the only thing that brought fruit out of our ministry, 25 years was worth it.”
Since that relationship began, this Taiwanese friend has led five of her family members to the Lord and has an ongoing ministry in the first church the Coles started.
“We left our work in good hands,” Sandy Cole said.
Jerry Cole agreed. “You will never regret following where He leads. If you’re confident He’s leading, approach it with boldness but guard your own spiritual development as you go.”
When questioned about choosing to raise their two children overseas, Sandy Cole said she has no regrets. “God provided educationally for us beyond our wildest dreams,” she said. “Fears were [scattered] as God provided.”
Now that the Coles are back “home” as grandparents in Cullman, they are learning to adjust to life in America.
“We spent 30 minutes in the cereal aisle this week just looking at all the choices,” Jerry Cole said. “The materialistic lifestyle and mind-set that exists here is unbelievable. I believe we had it easy in Taiwan.”
Whether serving in east Asia or right here in Alabama, he said he uses Deuteronomy 7:9 as his challenge: “Let God be God. He will keep his covenant of love.”
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