Colin Christensen was the youngest of three sons growing up in a small farming community of Walnut Grove, Minnesota. After graduating from Walnut Grove High School in 1964, and in response to a challenge by his pastor Rodney Benson, he attended Pillsbury Baptist College in Owatonna, Minnesota. Colin sensed something was wrong after his first year of college. Colin talked with his pastor that summer and realized he was not truly saved. He accepted Christ the same day he spoke with Pastor Benson and returned to Bible college a changed man. During his second year at Pillsbury Baptist College, Colin felt the call to preach. Colin had heard that Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan was a great school for preachers and transferred to Midwestern. Upon graduating in 1968 Charles Keen, Pastor of First Baptist Church in Milford, Ohio (FBCM) asked him to join the ministry as an assistant pastor and song leader. Colin was thankful for the opportunity and later said that of all the training he received, the training from Pastor Keen had the greatest impact on his life's ministry.

Moving to the mission field was one of the most exhilarating, exciting, and terrifying things I have ever done. In October of 2015, my family and I packed up several storage tubs and carry-on suitcases and arrived at the airport with our one-way tickets to Honduras. After two years of praying and planning, including 18 months on the road visiting churches and sharing our vision, we were finally ready. “This is it,” I thought. “I am ready. We are moving to Honduras and soon we will be settled in for the long haul. I am 100% certain that this is God’s will for my life.” Many times while we were preparing to move to Honduras, and even after moving, I encountered people who asked this question: “How long are you planning to stay?” I would give them a quizzical look and say: “I’m moving there. I have no plans to do anything else. This is it. Forever!” And then one Wednesday afternoon, sixteen months after leaving home and planting my wife and children in a foreign country, we found that we had to move our work. I was suddenly faced with a question I had thought was already answered: “Where do you want me to go, Lord?” The setting, the scene, the backdrop that I pictured playing out in real life was seemingly all gone. I had to ask myself if the vision God gave me was gone too. Even more difficult questions had to be answered. “What am I doing here? Is this my work, or is this God’s work? Can this vision be transplanted, or was this a one-time shot? Where did this vision come from? If I truly believe it came from God—and I do—what is the purpose? If I knew then what I know now, would I still have come to Honduras in the first place?”

“Perhaps my sun shines not as yours,” wrote Helen Keller. “The colours that glorify my world, the blue of the sky, the green of the fields, may not correspond exactly with those you delight in; but they are none the less colour to me.”¹ Helen Keller was blind. Her heightened sensory perception caused her to see the world differently than most others. In a similar manner Christians would do well to allow their heightened spiritual perception to cause them to see the world differently than most others.

A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. John 16:16

The Lord is surely coming back in my life-time! I just turned sixty and realize that if I should die or the Lord would come for all of us, whatever I will do for Christ I had better do now! I do not have time to feel sorry for myself, or to lose a single day mired in self-pity over missing Connie, though I do miss her so much!

When my husband Charles and I were dating, Pastor Duttry was preaching through the book of Ruth. It was a terrific series and we listened with great excitement. God was preparing us for our journey together. As a missionary wife, it is my role to love and support my husband so he can have confidence that I will follow him wherever God leads him.

“...Intreat me not to leave thee, [or] to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgeth, I will lodge:” RUTH 1:16

FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS God used the nation of Israel to effect His will for mankind. Through a covenant made with man and later through His dealings with this man’s ancestors, God reveals Himself to all who will attend. God paints a picture as He deals with the people of Israel. This painting reveals that man has a problem that only God can remedy. The problem is sin and God’s remedy is Jesus. Jesus came, lived, died, and overcame the grave. Jesus ascended and is coming again. The command of Jesus until His return is to be used of Him to bring others into the fold. The vehicle God uses to accomplish this command; to complete His will now for all mankind is the New Testament Church. Born again, regenerated believers are positioned in Christ and have a new identity. This identity is corporately referred to as the Church. The objectives of the lives of every Christian must not contradict this new identity as we are used of God to fulfill His will.

Missionary strategies differ but missionaries always face a conditioning process that includes a variety of factors. The goal of this article is to share a few factors that God used to improve and influence our ministry in Uganda.

The Envy Factor & The Prosperous Slave!

When my wife Madelon and I arrived on the mission field of Uganda in 2003, we knew Africans would want a Bible Saviour who could deliver them from sin. Early on, we dealt with emotional struggles that began to reveal important realities behind missionary ministry. After nine months of learning, we started our first Bible study in a ten feet by ten feet shop on the back of a hillside. Our first Sunday brought rumors from our African prospects. I knew we were in trouble upon fielding their first two questions. First, we were asked where the Coca-Cola was that they had been promised. Next, they wanted to know where the flushing toilet would be placed.

"And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." II Timothy 2:2

After resigning as a teacher from the public school system, I surrendered to preach and enrolled in the School of the Scriptures at First Baptist Church in Milford. In 1989, Melissa and I began our missionary journey in Alberta, Canada where we established the Vision Baptist Church in Leduc. Following the installment of a Canadian pastor and becoming Canadians ourselves, we answered the Lord’s call to go to the unlikely island nation of Communist Cuba.