OUR STORY
Our relationship and our ministry had its roots in East Africa from the very beginning. We met on a mission trip to Kenya in 1993 when we were students, Dave at Asbury Theological Seminary and Jen at Asbury College. In those three weeks in Kenya, the entire trajectory of our lives was changed as the Lord gave us an immediate love for each other and for the people of East Africa.
We returned to Kenya in the summer of 1994 (I also spent a month in Uganda), and we were married in 1995. As we continued to seek the Lord together, He made it clear that He was leading us to give our lives to share the love of Christ with the people of Uganda. In 1997, we packed up everything, and along with our 9-month old daughter, we moved to a large children’s home in Uganda, where Dave was one of the pastors.
The day-to-day heart of our ministry was at home, mostly with older students (late teens and early 20s) who had lost their parents. We opened our doors and our hearts to them - loving them, sharing our lives with them, teaching them and modeling for them what it means to wholeheartedly follow Christ. It was there where we first saw the depth of the need for people to understand the love of the Father; and it was there where we began to experience the immense joy of seeing young lives transformed through His love and firmly rooted in their identity as beloved sons and daughters of God.
After four years, we sensed a call to work with young people to equip them for ministry, and in 2001, we moved to our current village and established a training centre where we began ministering to university students. It was during this time that we began to see just how common this fatherlessness is in the hearts of young people all over Uganda. As we heard story after story of family brokenness, we could see not only the pain but the distorted picture of God that came along with it.
The Lord used those years to form the heart of our ministry that continues today. I have served unofficially as a pastor in several different university churches, we have hosted many discipleship intensives and other trainings at our centre, and we have walked in close relationship with many young people. Wherever I go, whatever group I am with, I have come to simply assume that broken and wounded hearts are present, and that many of the people I am with desperately need to encounter the love and grace of God in a tangible way.
PERSONAL TESTIMONIES
Jen’s Story
I (Jen) grew up going to church, and I have early recollections of knowing God was real and near, but I tried hard to be good to please Him and others. At thirteen, I saw my need for a Savior who would forgive me of my sins, and that only through Christ could I ever be pleasing to God. I was discipled and even fathered by my youth pastor, and I grew to know Christ so much through our youth group.
Then, in my first year at Asbury College, I surrendered my life completely to the Lord, and in that moment He called me specifically to be a missionary in Africa. Through missions classes and intentional relationships with missionaries, seminary students, and people in ministry during my college years, the Lord worked in my heart to prepare me to serve Him.
My journey has continued to be one of growth, because even as we ministered to our own children and to many young people in Uganda, and as I mentor young moms in their parenting and homeschooling journeys, I am always learning more of who God is as my Father, and experiencing great freedom in knowing His love.
Dave’s Story
I (Dave) was a preacher’s kid. I knew and believed the Gospel, and my parents were wonderful visible examples of the love of God. But I was enticed by the desire to be accepted and popular, which eventually led me down a road that led to alcoholism and all kinds of sinful pleasure-seeking.
During my college years, my life spiraled out of control. I was drunk nearly every night of the week. On the outside, I was the life of the party. On the inside, I was empty and living in a darkness I couldn’t escape, eventually driving me to the edge of attempting suicide.
But the Lord never stopped pursuing me, and when I was 25 years old, He captured my heart with the realization that what Christ did on the cross, He had done for me. It was like waves of liquid love flowing over my entire being. I surrendered my life to Him, and Jesus made me a new man.
I went to Asbury Theological Seminary, where the Lord deepened my understanding of His love for me and for the world. Through the joy of fathering my four children and mentoring many young people in Uganda, He has continued to this day to plant the heart of the Father more and more deeply in my heart.
FAMILY MINISTRY
One of the ways the Lord has brought healing, new life, and freedom to many young people is through their close interaction with us as a family at home. We want to give them a visible example of what it means for a husband and wife to love each other, to delight in their children and to intentionally and continually point them to Jesus. Over the years, the Lord used our four children - Hannah, Elizabeth, Joshua, and Sarah - to freely love people who came for a visit or to stay with us for a while. And that love was often instrumental in opening people’s hearts to the possibility of God’s love. They are now adults, and faithfully serving the Lord.
Through teaching, counseling, developing discipleship resources, and opening our home, the overarching goal and mission of our life and ministry is to walk with young people to help them overcome obstacles that keep them from understanding and experiencing the love of the Father, so their hearts can be set free to know Him and to have fullness of life through Jesus Christ.
