Telling FPC

Well, tomorrow I am telling the staff at First Presbyterian Church about our missions candidacy. This church has played a significant role in our lives over the past several years. I have worked there for the past five years but I was introduced to the church in 1998. A lot of people don’t know the role it has had in my life. Let me sum up.

Gillian and I met while we were in college on the Friday after Labor Day 1998. Our first date was to the campus ministry, then known as 360. It is here that we began to have renewed growth in our relationship with Christ and growth in our own friendship. Gillian became friends with Mary Beth Gibbes (now Hultstrand) who was a 360 intern. At the end of the fall semester Gillian returned to Minnesota. Even after she returned to MN I would take some of Gillian’s SC friends to 360. Summer of 1999, I moved to MN to meet her family and propose. When we moved back to SC at the end of the summer Mary Beth told her about a position that was available at the Cason Group (a company owned by Louie Cason, a FPC elder). When we made it back to SC, Gillian interviewed and had a job there within a week. I found a job, but it was not a good fit. Gillian asked in staff prayer that I would quickly find a better job. Louie told her to get my resume to him and he would see what he could do. I met with Louie and the next thing I knew I was meeting LeGrand Cooper, administrator of First Presbyterian. During one of my interviews pastor Lance Hudgens asked me, “How long do you intend on working for us?” I told him that the only thing that I could think of that would cause me to leave was missions. I explained that Gillian and I both had a burden for missions in Latin America and we were waiting on God’s timing. I was hired and started in October 1999.

My hiring coincided with the beginning of Hispanic ministries at Ebenezer PHC, my home church. I began teaching Sunday School, translating services and getting involved in my guys’ lives. Gillian helped organize soccer games and outreach efforts. Over the next three years my Spanish improved greatly and our desire to serve in missions grew. During my first three years at FPC Gillian and I had many joys and trials and FPC was always encouraging in the trials and excited with us in our joy. After three and a half years at FPC I had an opportunity to go to Lima, Peru with the college ministry at First Presbyterian, now called RUF. After this trip my heart was burdened for missions. Gillian and I prayed asking God if now was the time to go. He answered, “YES”. Now, one year later we have accepted a call from Food for the Hungry to return to Lima, Peru.

It is great working for First Presbyterian. I have an environment that nurtures me in my spiritual growth and allows me to minister through technology. It is also great to have another extended family at the office. It will be difficult to tell them, but I know that they will be supportive of our obedience to God’s calling.