Six UM graduates head to missions field

While many college graduates are making plans for their first jobs, starting families and finding new places to call home, six University of Mobile (UM) graduates are making plans of a different sort. These students have taken the Great Commission to heart and will embark on journeys this fall that will forever change their lives and the lives of many of the people they encounter.

April Brock of Prattville, Courtney Cassady of Tallassee, Tara Greene of Satsuma, David Kizziah of Tuscaloosa, Mark Stone of Frankville and Benjamin Turner of Semmes, will join approximately 270 college graduates who will enter the missions field as journeymen with the International Mission Board (IMB). These graduates’ degrees are in religion, art, elementary education, business and music.

Greene, a member of First Baptist Church, North Mobile, in Saraland, said she felt the calling into missions during her church’s missions awareness month. “While singing the words, ‘Here am I send me,’ the meaning really hit home for me. I had sung those words many times but that night they meant so much more.”

Greene will travel to Japan in September where she will work as a volunteer coordinator and media producer for missionaries already serving in Tokyo.

Brock, a member of Camellia Baptist Church, Prattville, will travel to Africa in December where she hopes to work in an orphanage setting. “I feel a genuine passion for those precious children to know the Lord. God has commanded us to go and tell.” she said.

“I just want to see God exalted,” said Cassady, a member of First Baptist Church, Tallassee, who will be teaching English to college students in Costa Rica.

Kizziah, a member of Circlewood Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa, will travel to Zambia in August where he will work in youth evangelism and discipleship. 

Stone, a member of Frankville Baptist Church, will travel to Germany in October. “I know our time as journeymen will be successful,” he said.

Turner, a member of West Mobile Baptist Church who will be working in Spain, said, “I have a great desire to learn about and minister to those in other cultures.”