Our Story
How We Came to Christ
Kinsey and I were very blessed to both be raised in Christian homes, and we even attended the same Christian elementary school! Both of our sets of parents worked diligently to teach us about God, and to have us plugged in at church. But we both fell into the same trap of living the faith of our parents rather than having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Thankfully, in middle school I became involved in the youth group at Franklin Heights Baptist (Rocky Mount, Va). It was during that time that the Lord began to reveal to me how I had a knowledge of Him and His Word, but I didn't have true faith in the work that He had accomplished through His Son's sacrifice on the cross. The Lord used a youth event to bring me to full repentance and acceptance of His Son's saving work on the cross and bring me into a personal relationship with Him.
Kinsey also walked a similar path where she lived with a head knowledge of Christ, but lacked a personal relationship with Him. That all changed during her junior year of high school when she participated in a missions trip to Somotillo, Nicaragua. During that trip the Lord revealed to her who He is and how desperately she needed to know Him with her heart and not just her head. That was a new starting point in her life where she pursued Christ out of personal conviction and a desire to be drawn close to Him in a personal relationship.
Our Calling into Ministry
The Lord has blessed our family by providing me with an excellent career as a civil engineer. It is a profession that I thoroughly enjoy and a field that I am passionate about. But after several years of marriage, Kinsey and I found ourselves living our life as if nothing was terribly wrong with the world. A world where people do not have access to the Gospel or the necessities to sustain a healthy physical life. The Lord dramatically changed that when he led me to begin volunteering through a Christian mission organization called Engineering Ministries International (EMI).
My first mission trip through EMI was in 2018 to Gambella, Ethiopia, and since that initial trip I have had the opportunity to participate in other mission trips. Each trip has had a dramatic impact on our lives, and it has been amazing to see how the Lord uses technical professions in a unique way to serve alongside other mission organizations and churches cross-culturally and to share the Gospel.
Our calling came to a climax in Senegal. That trip shattered our perception of life and placed a burden on our hearts to serve in Africa and be involved in God’s continued work there. During that trip I had the opportunity to serve alongside Cheikh Bass who is a Muslim Senegalese Civil Engineer. EMI continues to recruit him as a volunteer as a way to continue sharing the Gospel with him trusting the Lord that one day he will come to a saving faith in Christ. Following that mission trip to Senegal Kinsey and I began to explore joining full-time ministry with EMI.
Six months later I had the opportunity to participate in another mission trip to Mukinge Hospital in Zambia. During that trip I was able to witness how the Lord uses architects (Gerhard), surgeons (Dr. Kent), nurses (Missy), and aircraft pilots (Ian) to advance the Gospel cross-culturally and be used by God for the restoration of His people. I was humbled to see the men and women who walked away from their lucrative careers to pursue their passion for global missions. I was also encouraged at how the Lord can take our faith and professions, combine them, and then use it in such a meaningful and impactful ways.
It has been amazing to see how the Lord continued our discussion to join staff, and how He has opened door after door. He is now moving Kinsey and I as a couple to lay our life out in submission to the Lord and His will rather than our own vision that we had for our lives. We now desire to be a part of the Lord’s restoration work for the world, and we seek His strength and His confidence as we move into full-time ministry with EMI in Cape Town, South Africa.