It was May of 1986 in a small church in a village called Barrio Virginia on the outskirts of San Jose, Costa Rica. For the previous ten months, I had been learning Spanish in preparation for my time in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I offered to teach a children’s class; this particular Sunday, I presented the Gospel. After asking if anyone wanted to receive the gift Jesus offered, I told them to stay behind so we could talk. At least, I think that is what I said; remember, I was just learning Spanish. Most left, but I was surprised to look up and see a boy named Steven had stayed. Steven and I sat there, and, in my bumbling Spanish, I led him in a prayer to receive Jesus into his life. I left there wondering if Steven had understood anything I said, trusting God, who knew all languages, to make it clear.
So, how did I end up in a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of San Jose talking to a seven-year-old boy named Steven?
The Early Years
It started in the small northern city of Grande Prairie, Alberta, where I was born into a Christian home on June 6, 1956. My parents attended Grande Prairie Alliance Church (GPAC), and I grew up going to Sunday school, church, and evening service. I loved it. My father was a mechanic, and my mother stayed at home until we were in school, then she went to work in a doctor’s office. Both of my parents were quite involved in the church. We always attended the missionary conferences at our church and at the local Bible school, Peace River Bible Institute.
Though I grew up hearing about Jesus and asked Him into my heart several times, I somehow knew it was a done deal at the age of eight. I was “born again,” and Jesus lived inside of me. Later in the year, I remember attending a Friday night youth service at GPAC where at the end, the speaker gave an invitation for whoever was willing to become a missionary to come forward. I sat on the end of the bench and said, ”God, I will be a missionary if You want me to be, but I am not going forward because they will think I am too young and don’t know what I am doing.” Even still, I knew in my heart the commitment I had made. I am not sure why, but even at an earlier age, I can remember telling people I wanted to be a missionary nurse when I grew up.
My parents provided well for me. Life was good with school, church, Pioneer Girls, friends, and family. Every year GPAC held a week-long missionary conference which I loved attending. One night as the missionary showed slides of faraway places, tears ran down my cheeks; at that moment, I believe the Spirit moved in me as I thought about people who did not know Jesus. At twelve years old, I heard a message of Abraham at GPAC where we were challenged at the end of the service to put our most prized possession on the altar. Right then, I put my family on the altar. I told God I was willing to be single if He wanted. Looking back, I wonder how at the age of twelve, I saw having a family as my most prized desire and put it on the altar. I loved babies and children even then, so I know God was working in me.
Junior and senior high school brought their typical adolescent identity and self-acceptance issues, but God was always a part of my life, as was church. Growing up involved Sunday school, youth group, camp, youth retreats at Peace River Bible Institute, and even a long bus trip to Regina for the Canadian Bible College (CBC) retreat. God had put a strong purpose in my heart, and through all of those adolescent struggles, I knew I wanted to work internationally. The church continued to affirm my call; at fifteen, I remember going forward to be prayed over for filling of the Spirit. At GPAC, I was discipled, taught the Bible, given community, baptized at twelve, learned about missions and the work of The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) worldwide, and was given the opportunity to respond to the call.
The goal of being a missionary nurse still stood in the forefront of my mind, so after finishing high school and one year of Bible school at Prairie Bible Institute, I entered nursing at Red Deer College. Upon entering my first year, I took an interest test which showed medicine as seventh on the list and kindergarten teaching as number one. These results would be significant in God’s plan for me and His desire for winning children to Himself. Not one to quit, I continued forward and received my registered nurse designation. Then on to Canadian Bible College, where I graduated with a Bachelor of Religious Education.
After graduation, I found myself travelling to Grande Prairie to candidate for a part-time position in Christian Education in the church where I was born and raised. It was a great experience, and it was there I met Stan and Carol Nilsson.
Stan was an elder on the church board, and Carol became the administrative assistant at the church and we became good friends. Little did I know how this friendship would affect my life later on.
August of 1985 found me in San Jose, Costa Rica, facing my fear of lacking the ability to learn another language.
One God moment in San Jose was after lunch, in a lovely restaurant in the middle of the city. I admitted to God I was pretty upset over Psalm 37:4. “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” The conversation went something like this:
Me: “Well, God, I don’t think You have kept Your part of the bargain. Here I have done all I thought You were asking of me, and here I am a single missionary, something I never wanted to be.”
God: “Yes, Ruth, you have done the “right things;” I just haven’t seen much delight in Me in the process.”
That was a “light bulb moment.” Thus began my journey in trying to discover what it meant to delight myself in God. My journey continues today, and it has been such a rich experience demonstrating the reality of the song by Jason Ingram, Elle Limebear, and Ran Jackson: “And all my life You have been faithful And all my life You have been so, so good...” As I sought to serve God, He was changing and blessing me.
Meanwhile, people back at GPAC were praying and giving. I was learning Spanish and many spiritual lessons; together, we were seeking to bless the nations.
Reaching My Mission Field
In August 1986, I was met in the Buenos Aires International Airport by the family of Alliance missionaries who became lifelong friends, mentors, and coworkers.
If I had to describe my first term in Buenos Aires, I would say it was humiliating as I stumbled through mistake after mistake, trying to speak Spanish. I didn’t know how to fit into this team of strong, gifted leaders, and I struggled to navigate the culture. The whole time I felt inadequate as it seemed my time was more about learning than contributing anything.
There was also the absolutely delightful aspect of loving the food unbelievably well done on their asados, including delicious freshly made pasta with Italian influence, fresh fruits and vegetables found on stands just a block away, and fresh European bread from the many bakeries scattered throughout the city.
Another exciting challenge was living and driving in a city of over twelve million people! I remember driving through the maze of traffic and thinking, “if only my friends from my small hometown with possibly twenty-five thousand people could see me driving now!” Then there were the many rich relationships formed both with Argentines and North Americans.
When I arrived in 1986, Argentina was in the midst of a massive change. They had lost the war of 1982 against Britain over the Falkland Islands. People were disillusioned with their government and began responding to the Gospel in surprising ways.
The so-called Dirty War of the late 1970s, which resulted in thousands of the political ‘left’ being tortured and killed, culminated in the brief but deadly Falkland’s War with England in 1982. The national economy was in serious crisis and the nation was transitioning from military rule to a democratic form of government.
At the same time, a movement of God was gaining momentum... Thousands of lives were transformed, many sick and crippled people gave testimony of being healed, and many who were demonized were delivered through the aggressive prayer ministry. (The God Made Known, pgs. 98-99)
This movement of God was affecting all churches. I became part of a church-planting team working with a strategy known as Buenos Aires Encounter with God. We never seemed to grow like the stories we heard from other churches, and I ended my first term feeling like God was doing more in me than through me. Meanwhile, back in Canada, people were praying and giving.
I spent another term in Buenos Aires, where God was beginning to grow a heart in me for children’s ministry, even though I resisted it. I mistakenly thought, “the important people work with adults.” Despite my resistance, I spent four years helping other children’s workers to teach both children and adults more effectively in the local Alliance churches in Buenos Aries and the surrounding area.
Three of us developed a teacher training course during my first term, which I modified to use in several churches in Argentina. I then went on and taught in Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico, and Serbia. Many children’s ministries leaders came, representing hundreds of churches and a great many more children. Remember my interest exam showing a desire to be a kindergarten teacher? Well, God took my desire, used nursing to pay the college bills, and allowed me to influence others who influenced way more children than I could have ever reached.
The Local Church and Mission
The year 1994 found me employed at Sherwood Park Alliance Church (SPAC) as the missionary-in-residence. A year later, I became the director of children’s ministries. My commitment to international missions had not ended, and my heart for reaching the children of the world was growing. SPAC supported me by allowing me to help lead mission projects, including a short-term youth trip back to Argentina.
There were also several “mission” events for children, exposing them to what God was doing worldwide. I also accompanied another short-term youth mission trip to Ecuador, taking another children’s pastor with me who had never been on a missions trip. Later, she led several other trips to Latin America and Serbia to come alongside churches in their children’s ministries. SPAC was also blessing the nations through their going, giving, and praying.
In 2004, after returning from a short-term trip to Ecuador, God opened the door for involvement in a mission I had never dreamed of. SPAC allowed me to work with them for seven months of the year; then, I was on loan to the mission for the other five months. During those five months, I came alongside smaller, younger, first-generation churches and assisted them with their children’s ministry. I travelled to Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela, where first-generation Christians were planting churches. The C&MA was relatively new in these places, and children’s ministry, in particular, was underdeveloped. There was the opportunity to reach children at an early age, disciple them, and see them know God all their lives, unlike many of their parents who had not heard about a relationship with Jesus Christ until adulthood.
God turned my resistance to being in children’s ministry into a passion for reaching them early in life. Each time I went into these countries or made a trip, I would take other children’s ministry leaders with me so they too could see what God was doing around the world and be a part, along with their church, of blessing the nations.
Remember Stan and Carol, who I met in Grande Prairie during my home service? After a couple of years of bravely fighting cancer, it took Carol in January 2005. Stan contacted me following her death, and in 2006 we were married. You might be thinking, Wait, you were on a roll; God was doing things. Did He stop? Definitely not.
Stan had been on the board for many years at GPAC, having publicly given his life to Christ at sixteen. After we were married, I learned that when Stan was eighteen, he had a vision of Mexico, which he later forgot about. When we began dating, and I told him what I was doing in Latin America, he was unsure what God was doing.
Because of Stan, I resigned from Sherwood Park and moved back to Grande Prairie. From there, I continued my trips into Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela. Stan joined me in 2007 when we lead our first short-term missions trip with a team from GPAC into Cuba. People in Cuba were so responsive to the Gospel. The government had allowed house churches beginning around 1990, and things were not as hard on Christians as they had been previously, though there was still opposition in subtle ways.
We went in to help a small town clean their beach. Incredible friends were made, and we met Nazarene brothers and sisters in Christ who were able to help us obtain religious visas. GPAC was being exposed to what God was doing in other parts of the world; we were learning from our brothers and sisters abroad what faith really looked like when you have so little in the way of material possessions. They were reaching out in friendship, helping to clean beaches and attract more tourists to villages while also helping them improve living conditions. We went in every year for seven years to clean the beach, to reach out to the couple trying to help their people learn to grow their own food, and to come alongside the little church planted there.
Between our summer trips to clean the beach, we went in with some teams to teach children’s ministry to the Nazarenes and the Alliance. Sherwood Park and Grande Prairie Alliance Church were sending in short-term teams.
Stan’s background was in construction, contracting, and real estate and God used him to help lead a team to finish building a Nazarene church in Cuba. God took a layman who loved the church and used him with the skills He gave him. Stan started doing it at age fifty-eight. Meanwhile, GPAC was still praying, giving, and going.
In 2008, Stan felt God telling him to get out of the real estate business he and a partner owned. Stan was not sure what God would do next, but he knew God was up to something, and by faith, stepped back. In October, on a trip to Cuba, we met the new directors for the Sun Region, who invited Stan to come to Mexico City. It seemed the National Church was reaching both the northern and southern borders of Mexico, but there were not many churches in their mega capital city. There were a few missionaries already there attempting to plant churches.
One of the vision statements at the time was “Establish a ministry centre in the ‘hub of the city,’ Benito Juarez area of Mexico City.” This vision statement coincided with God placing Stan. So in 2010, commissioned by GPAC, Stan and I packed up our car and drove to Mexico City.
While there, we went into Cuba a couple more times, accompanying GPAC and SPAC short-term teams. We turned the beach project over to Stan’s sister, who had come with us several times, and she began to take in short-term teams from another church in Grande Prairie. The last time I was in Cuba to do training in children’s ministries, I turned all my materials over to a Cuban colleague who had been through the course twice and was able to teach in my absence.
In Mexico, I turned my attention to hospitality and loved it. The Alliance bought a building, and Stan was busy renovating it to be used as an operations centre, a guest house and a church. Wherever we lived, we had people in, both Mexican and Canadian. We hosted friends who came down from GPAC to help us in the construction—a plumber, an electrician and his wife, a painter, Stan’s brother and his wife—all from GPAC, all part of blessing the nations.
GPAC contributed financially to the finishing of the ministry centre. After a three-month trip back to Canada in 2012 to raise funds for construction, we were able to return and finish the building in 2013.
One of our goals, at the time, was to start another English-speaking international church in Mexico City. An estimated 125 least-reached people groups in Mexico were represented in this megacity. This number is a rationale for the ongoing investment of Global Ministries resources in the capital of Mexico. The desire was for an international English-speaking church to reach out to some of these unreached people groups.
Since Stan only spoke English, his desire, after finishing the renovation of the ministry centre, was to come alongside and help make this English church a reality.
After some time back in Canada in 2014, we returned in 2015 to officially open and manage the guest house in the ministry centre. We also started an English-speaking Bible study with the hopes of seeing an English international church born.
Many people came through the guest house. We saw the nations passing through as the board of the Alliance World Fellowship met there, bringing leaders from Thailand, Holland, the United States, Africa, and Peru. More short-term mission teams, along with international workers leaving the country or coming in, found a place to lay their heads. God was moving people through Mexico City. He placed us there with the gift of hospitality, providing a safe and comfortable place to come and go with good food and, many times, a listening ear as people were processing the changes around them.
Our English Bible study floundered, but we had a core group for about eighteen months, including Stan and I, a Filipino couple, a Mexican family, another Canadian couple, a single person from Colombia, and several other Mexicans who spoke English. We were moving forward and even called a pastor. The pastor did not arrive, but before we left Mexico City in 2017, we had contacted another couple who eventually came. Today they are pastors of one of the international churches in Mexico City called Union Church.
Because of Stan’s age, he would no longer qualify for medical insurance with the Alliance. We returned to GPAC and found ministry there. In 2018 I started at GPAC as their director of missions.
I have just returned from having tea with some of my former youth sponsors who have been in the church since the late ’60s and continue to have leadership roles at Grande Prairie Alliance Church. They were there in my youth when I graduated from CBC and made it known to the staff at the church that I needed a place to do my home service before heading overseas. During my years in Argentina and later, when I needed a charity to sponsor me so I could continue working in Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela, they were there for me. They are still there today.
People like this make up the Body of Christ, the local church, and provide the prayerful and financial push making it possible for people like me to serve internationally. Today, I count it a privilege to be involved in mobilizing our congregation to continue blessing the nations by sending out and supporting more people, and encouraging them to continue praying, giving, and going.
This is an excerpt from the book, On Mission Volume 2. Download your free copy today.