Adam’s Story

Growing Up Catholic

I grew up in Milwaukee, WI, the oldest of four children to very loving parents who were practicing Catholics. I went to Catholic grade and high school and for most of my life and everyone I knew was Catholic. My Dad was the main parent who would take us to church but sometimes he would forget, so in time, we became Christmas and Easter attenders only . By the time I was fourteen I became disinterested in religion and the Catholic Church. It was cool in my high school to sit in the back row of the bleachers when they would have services and fall asleep, which I did by senior year.

After graduation from high school, I moved to California to attend college and decided after one semester not to continue in my declared major. I then came back home and start working full time in a call center. One day a girl who was in my department came over to strike up a conversation since she had heard I had just moved from California which she had also. She and I became friends and a few months later invited me to come and meet her family in California during her trip back home. I accepted this invitation promptly.

God Got a Hold of My Heart

Over the next several months before the trip she began to talk to me about Jesus. I was not interested in that but I was interested in her so I listened. When we visited her family I found out that they were missionaries with Missionary Aviation Fellowship and her Dad worked on computers for the organization. They were some of kindest people I had ever met and treated me as if I was a part of their family. This made an impression on me because my parents had divorced a year earlier and I was desperate inside for a family that was not broken and hurting like mine.  

Later that week, they invited me to their church where I heard the testimony of a man who had grown up running from God as a pastors kid. He shared how he did that until one day when he was out surfing with his friends when he had an encounter with a shark. For the first time he realized he was not at the top of food chain and something could take him out if it wanted to. Through this message at 19 years old, I realized I was not invincible and I was going to die one day. I knew in the back of my head I was not right with God and I needed to get right with God now.

 I asked my friend if we could go out for a drive and talk about what I just heard. I told her that I knew I was not right with God and I wanted what that man was talking about. She explained the Gospel in more detail and I asked her what I needed to do and she told me I needed to pray and ask God for forgiveness for my sin and accept Jesus as my Savior, payment for my sin but adeed that I should pray that in my own words. I prayed and after I did it felt like this huge weight came off of my shoulders. It was in that 2000 Ford Mustang convertible sitting in a parking lot that I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior on March 12, 2000.

God’s Direction into Tribal Church Planting

After becoming a believer in 2000 I started to hear missionaries come and speak at church. When they would speak I would listen and thought it was interesting but dismiss any desire that came up in my own heart to ever do anything. Then after about a year or so I had a hard time listening to missionaries because I started to get this nagging desire to serve God in this way but I resisted it still because this was not the plan I had for my own life. Then finally God started to interrupt my prayer time with Him. Every time I started to pray I felt like I was resisting Him on this issue. Finally I brought this up to my friend who led me to the Lord and she said, if God is telling you something and you are fighting God, He will win so you better just give up and confess that to Him. So I prayed and told God, “Ok God, I sense you are calling me to serve you overseas as a missionary but I think you have the wrong guy, I don’t even like camping. But if this is what you want, I submit that to you. I will do it.” Again a big weight was lifted off of me after I gave that to God. Then in 2003, I went on a mission trip with New Tribes Mission to Papua New Guinea and that trip I asked God to show me if this is what He had for me while there, to confirm my calling. He made it clear while there that this was the direction He had for me and ever since that point I have been pursing this as a long term career. From 2003-2005 I finished my undergrad. From 2005-2012, God allowed me to pay off all my student debt from college. 2014-2015 I went to Moody Theological Seminary for Bible Education and now my wife and I are pursing full time church planting as a ministry as a family.