Jarett

As far back as I can remember, I have been attending church. My parents became believers soon after I was born. With a firm basis for moral Christian behavior and a healthy fear of punishment, I was successful in avoiding the grosser sins of adolescence. During my teenage years, I was the friend that parents felt comfortable letting their children hang out with on weekend nights. Throughout middle and high school I was heavily involved in sports: baseball, wrestling and football. Most of my time was divided between practices and whatever girl I was interested in at the time. My relationship with my parents was, for all intents and purposes, normal. In hindsight, they could have been a little more inquiring into my goings on, but I had never given them a reason to doubt my cover stories. Around my junior year of high school, I became more heavily involved in the “party scene,” and although I would spend Saturday night partying, I would end up at church on Sunday morning. Oddly enough, the young lady who I was “seeing” at the time invited me to a youth gathering (722), and that night Louie Giglio decided not to preach his prepared sermon. Instead he extended the worship service for the rest of the night. As I sat there looking around at all the people worshiping and praying I realized that they were doing something I could not do and talking to Someone that I could not talk to. And then all of a sudden, I saw my sin for the first time, the way God saw it. I had always been ok with the idea that God would die for my sins, but I did not want to do any of the dieing (He could be my Savior, but not my Lord.) From that time on things were different; my desires began to radically change. I had a true Gospel-based, Christ-centered reason for my behavior, attitudes, and reactions to people. For the first time, when I prayed I knew there was Someone there and even when I was done, I still knew He was there. All the knowledge I had accumulated throughout 18 years of church, finally made sense to me.

Around this time, my family had moved to another church, which was planning a week long youth mission trip to Argentina. I went, and during the week they encouraged us to consider spending our first year out of high school at a Bilingual Bible Institute there in Buenos Aires. The year I spent at this program changed me more than anything else I can think of to date. Personally, the character development of being away from parents, friends, comforts, my own culture, food, language, and everything else I had come to rely on for support was tremendous. I lived in a room with 7 other students all from other countries. I took Spanish classes in the morning, Bible classes after lunch and worked around campus during the evening. On the weekends we traveled into BA to stay with families and work in local churches. The campus was a summer camp facility for 8 weeks during the summer and we were assigned various events to work and participate in during the day. We also translated for churches that would come down and do week long mission trips to different parts of the country. Theologically, I began to see the inconsistencies of the Dispensational hermeneutic, and thus began my journey towards Covenant theology. From Argentina, I went straight to North Greenville College, where I graduated with a BA in Christian Studies. Shortly after getting married, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer. Once my father-in-law was diagnosed with inoperable brain tumors, we moved to Chattanooga to help take care of him. After he passed away, we took a 5 month trip back to Argentina were I helped with a prison ministry and traveled the country. Since then we have been living in Chattanooga and attending North Shore Fellowship. Obviously, when I became a father and have spent several years raising children, I have been profoundly changed for the better. 

I believe God is calling me to cross-cultural ministry because of the innate desire he has put in my heart to go. Even before my time in Argentina, I had been fascinated with everything that made up another culture (language, customs, way of life). As a missionary I would like to bring theological education to pastors who are unable to uproot from where they are and travel out of their countries to find adequate formal training. I want to help pastors “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” in a way that would better help them shepherd their own flock with proper and Reformed theology. But having spent extensive time in various cross-cultural environments (Indonesia, S. America, Italy, Greece, Caribbean), these experiences have only worked to confirm my initial feelings. I don’t usually feel very comfortable basing my decisions off the way I “feel.” But since God will not give me a scrolling marquee of His will for my life I have to pray that He makes me sensitive to His leadings and blockings. Up till now, I feel like He has been telling me to wait, and in retrospect I can now see why. But now, I feel like He is telling me (us) to go. I am serving with Mission to the World for many reasons. First of all, they have expressed an amazing commitment to valuing the input, needs, and judgments of their missionaries on the field. Instead of someone making decisions from state side who has never set foot in a particular country nor spent any specific time studying the cultural dynamics of doing ministry with a particular people group, they allow the people on the front lines to contribute their hands-on experience. Secondly, I was very impressed with their efficiency and management skills in running their programs. I would have no doubt that things would be in order and handled properly when dealing with MTW. Also, their strong emphasis on team or community with in the mission field. My wife and I have learned first hand how counter productive it can be to attempt a "lone ranger" missiology.

I have been preparing for cross-cultural ministry since my first year of college in 2000. In order to understand what my own culture consisted of, I had to live in and experience another. It wasn’t until I returned to the states and was working in a predominately African-American part of town that it hit me what made up one’s culture: what a people group found funny, beautiful, meaningful, wrong, important, etc. The neighborhood that we live in currently was chosen specifically because it had the greatest concentration of Hispanics that I could find.  The different strengths I would bring to the mission field include foremost the gifts that God has given me. These range from the call that He has placed in my life to the gift of teaching. I am self-motivated and normally undaunted with trying to tackle big projects. I have little doubt when exercising faith in God to do what I know He has said He wants to do. I can explain seemingly complex or even controversial concepts in a way that most can understand. The different weaknesses that I would bring to the mission field…where do I start? I can be impatient, snappy, sarcastic when frustrated, introverted to the point that it is difficult to walk up to a group of strangers and start a conversation,  too direct when giving my opinion, I mumble, and many more.

Comments

[Aleya]

Jarrett-

I thank God for Him using you and your wife to serve His people. Reading both of your posts confirms that God is preparing to make a major move all over this world. I will keep you and Mary Carole in prayer while you begin to raise funds for your mission. Please let me know how my husband and I can help.

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:3-6

Be Blessed in Christ!!
Aleya Sapp