Serving in LaGrange , Wyoming
Terry and Helen serve TBM's missionaries from the home office, coordinating short-term missions and keeping the mission's books.
Our Ministry
Our goals with TBM look a little different from most TBM missionaries. We are not planting churches ourselves. We are serving the church-planting missionaries through the home office. Helen serves as the TBM bookkeeper, processing and distributing donations for all our missionaries and maintaining financial records to the standards required for mission organizations, under the direction of the home office administrator. She also assists with missionary care.
Terry's Testimony
I was raised in a good, religious home, but I did not clearly hear the gospel until I was in college. But God loved me, and on October 5, 1969, at the age of 19, He sent a guy named Jim to lead me to Christ in my dorm room.
The next summer, Jim and a group of about thirty of us left Colorado Springs for college campuses across the southern states, handing out literature and sharing the gospel with anyone who would listen. One night in Tucson I was talking with a man about Christ. He kidnapped me and drove me to the desert north of the city. He threatened to kill me, but the Lord kept him from it. At sunrise he started the car and headed back toward town. Then he suddenly stopped, said he could see I had not been afraid to die, hit me hard in the side of the head, drove me back to the church where our group was staying, let me out, and drove off into the morning sun.
But God chose not to let me die that night, because He had other plans for my life. That night was critical to my spiritual growth. I went from knowing that God loved me to KNOWING that God loved me.
I met Helen soon after, and we married about a year later. We moved to Grand Junction, Colorado, where we raised our four children. We were very active in our church. I served as chairman of the elder board for several years, as AWANA commander and leader, as mission board chairman, and in many other roles. Our church had a strong mission program, and we often housed missionaries who came through. I grew to love missions, but I had little personal outlet for that passion.
For me, this was the backside of the desert. The Lord taught me much about both my spiritual gifting and my natural gifting. It was a time of intense activity, and eventually it led to burnout. We were in Grand Junction for over twenty years.
But God had other plans. He used that burnout to move us to Fort Collins, Colorado, where I gained more organizational skills. Even in a large church, it was a spiritually dry season. Near the end of our time there we opened a flower shop. The local economy fell shortly after, and we had to close it after eighteen months.
But God used that dark stretch to point us in a new direction. Our two sons had already graduated from Frontier School of the Bible (FSB) in LaGrange, Wyoming, and with missions still on my heart, the Lord led us to enroll there as full-time students. We both graduated in 2007 and 2008 with bachelor's degrees and a missions emphasis.
After graduation my plan was to go to Europe as a missionary. But God opened a different door: we became missionaries as food service managers at FSB. The organizational skills the Lord had built in me over the years served the Bible school students well as they trained for the mission field, the pastorate, youth ministry, and church work. It was fruitful, rewarding ministry.
But God knew this body of mine would only last so long in the demands of food service. After six years at FSB, He opened the door for me to move to Tentmakers Bible Mission and was able to use my gifts and training as coordinator of short-term missions.
It has been a joy to serve the Lord through these years. My prayer is that the next 'But God' in our lives begins at the Rapture!
Helen's Testimony
Helen
Like Terry, I grew up in a good home. My mom made sure my brother and I were at church every Sunday. My father had little interest in church but did not mind the rest of us going. I was a good person, and I grew up assuming that if my good deeds outweighed my bad ones on some heavenly scale, I would be welcomed into heaven. I saw God as distant, with little personal interest in me. I never learned the truth of the gospel at church, though I know I heard it. I sometimes watched Billy Graham's crusades with family, and as a teen I was occasionally invited to youth rallies where the gospel was preached.
At seventeen, the summer after I graduated from high school, a friend and I visited the University of New Mexico, where we planned to enroll that fall. There we met some college-age women traveling to campuses around the Southwest to share the gospel with whomever they met. They told us a person could have a personal relationship with Christ. The idea of a close, personal God was new to me and deeply attractive. Soon my friend trusted Christ as her Savior, and I saw a change and an inner peace in her that I wanted for myself. After reading part of the Gospel of John one evening in August 1970, I trusted Christ as my Savior.
My life and priorities began to change, and God brought Terry into my life. We soon knew God wanted us together as husband and wife, and the adventure began.
The one thing I would add to Terry's story is that it took God many years to make me willing to live as a missionary. He taught me much about His faithfulness through His daily provision and protection. He deepened that lesson by placing me in a stressful situation beyond my control, where I had no choice but to trust Him. Then He brought us to Frontier, first as students and later as staff, where He has kept proving Himself faithful.
It has been a blessing to serve Tentmakers in the business office these past few years. As the TBM bookkeeper, God has placed me where I can use the talents and gifts He gave me, and I am grateful. I look forward to focusing on this ministry as my primary work.
We are excited about where God has led and to see what this next part of the adventure holds. The bottom line: we are here to glorify God in whatever way He chooses to use us.