Growing Up on the Mission Field
Not long after becoming a Christian as a six-year-old, Ruth and her family moved from Tasmania to Niger in West Africa, where her parents served as medical missionaries.
“It was such a wildly different experience to anything I would have had if I’d stayed in Tasmania,” Ruth says. “Living in what was the third poorest country in the world, I was exposed to life that was radically different to everything that I knew, people living in absolute poverty. My dad was working in a hospital where people were dying daily of diseases that are preventable.”
“I saw my parents’ example of giving up their comfort, giving up their lives to go over there, and I realised there’s more at stake here.“
As her faith grew, Ruth began to see that beyond the desperate physical needs facing the community lay an even deeper spiritual need.
“I saw my parents’ example of giving up their comfort, giving up their lives to go over there, and I realised there’s more at stake here. I began to understand that even people’s basic need for food and shelter is secondary to their need for Jesus. The biggest need we have as God’s creatures is to know our Creator.”
Wanting to Do Something Grand
After returning home for high school in Tasmania, Ruth went on to graduate from university as a teacher. While teaching suited her skills, Ruth wondered whether God was calling her somewhere else.
“It was a comfortable job, the pay was good. I really enjoyed it for four to five years, and then I just began to feel like it was something that I was too comfortable with in some ways. I had this desire on my heart to do something a little bit grander for God.”
“I wanted to do something grand for God, but if I’m honest, I also wanted to do something grand with my life too.”
“I loved the Lord and I’d had all this exposure to cross-cultural life and spiritual poverty from my time in Niger,” she says. During that time she wrestled with the question, “Is this really all I’m going to do for the next 30 years? Or could I step out and do something big?”
“I just felt like there’s got to be something greater God can use me for.”
“I wanted to do something grand for God, but if I’m honest, I also wanted to do something grand with my life too. There was that mixed motivation of loving the Lord and also wanting to do something kind of big and special for myself.”
A Reluctant Missionary
Ruth’s desire to serve God overseas led her to Thailand, where she joined a church-planting team for two years. It was there that her idea of what it meant to do something “grand” for God began to shift.
“The spiritual landscape in Thailand is pretty dark. It has some of the largest unreached people groups in the world. Buddhism has a real hold over the 70 million people who live there.”
“I became what most people would call a missionary,” Ruth says. “It’s a title I never really felt comfortable with, if I’m honest.”
“I feel like sometimes people treat missionaries as a different category of Christian. The title ‘missionary’ had all these connotations that I didn’t relate to.”
“I feel like sometimes people treat missionaries as a different category of Christian. The title ‘missionary’ had all these connotations that I didn’t relate to.”
“I wanted to serve people and share the gospel. I wanted to be a normal, everyday Christian loving people – just in a different place.”
Ruth’s time in Thailand came with many challenges, and her initial two-year plan stretched into six years of tough ministry.
“God taught me resilience – he taught me how to live for him and serve him in a difficult context,” Ruth says.
Life at College “More Beautiful Than I Expected”
Ruth started taking online classes at SMBC to complement her ministry in Thailand, but while on home assignment she began to explore where God might lead her next.
“The Lord put it on my heart that I should really consider staying in ministry. I should really consider taking on the label of missionary and hold out that life choice as something good and beautiful. It’s a worthy thing to do.”
After beginning a graduate diploma online, Ruth committed to a three-year degree, studying full time.
“I think God saw that I needed a season of rest, community, learning and growth,” she says.
“It can be such a good thing to take time out from ministry – maybe especially from the busyness of ministry – and sit with God’s people in his Word for an extended period of time.”
“I thought, ‘I’ll take this season as a gift from God.’ It has honestly been more beautiful than I expected.”
“God’s been teaching me so much that’s been unexpected. I love academic study. I thought I’d learn technical theological things about God, and he’s been very kind and used my official classes to teach me lots.”
“But I’m learning things that weren’t on the course outline that I signed up for.”
“That’s the beauty of a community like SMBC – all the other ways that God grows you and shapes you. It’s so comprehensive what you can tap into here.”
“That’s the beauty of a community like SMBC – all the other ways that God grows you and shapes you. It’s so comprehensive what you can tap into here.”
Ruth recounts a particular Old Testament assignment that turned into a significant moment of personal spiritual growth.
“We were asked to pray through one psalm for five days in a row and write down our reflections,” she explains.
“I thought, ‘How am I supposed to do that for five days? Surely it will be the same every day.’”
“God graciously used that experience to start a journey of understanding. He not only showed me there are different ways to pray, he’s also been equipping me and resourcing me to pray better.”
“At SMBC, many of the students spontaneously pray for one another. That’s not been something that I’ve been good at in the past, but I’ve seen that I can do it now. God’s really made me a better pray-er and taught me how to commune with him in new ways.”
Looking Forward to a New Start
When Ruth arrived at SMBC, she was pursuing a new chapter of mission. God has answered that prayer by showing her new ways to serve him.
“My prayer when I came was that God would re-form my deep passion for cross-cultural ministry and for people living and dying in places where Christ is not known. And I prayed that he would give me a greater love for himself, his church, and the lost.”
After many different kinds of mission, God is leading Ruth into something new. After graduation, she and her husband hope to move to rural Australia, where Christian ministry can be remote and under-resourced. It marks an exciting new opportunity for her to serve God. As an added surprise, Ruth is expecting a child later this year.
“God’s leading me unexpectedly down a really different kind of path. I’m going into a totally new place as a totally new person – having a child is a whole new level of unknown for me and a whole shift in who I am. Yet I think the things that God has taught me through college are going to hold me, and God will use me in unexpected ways.”
Redefining a Grand Life
Through her time at SMBC, Ruth has come to a new realisation of what it means to live a grand life for God.
“My idea of grandness and God’s idea of grandness are not the same,” she says. “I had a lot of assumptions about what it meant to do something grand for God.”
“God has shown me that grandness in his eyes is Christ. If I hide myself in Christ and hold onto his hand, I can do the grand things he has in store.”
“God has shown me that grandness in his eyes is Christ. If I hide myself in Christ and hold onto his hand, I can do the grand things he has in store.”
As Ruth prepares to finish college, her encouragement to anyone considering theological study, ministry or mission is to trust God enough to take the next step.
“There is nothing lost in stepping out and giving it a go,” Ruth says.
“It doesn’t really matter what your idea of ministry or Bible college is going to be, because God will show you what his idea is.”
“I would say to anyone who’s thinking ministry or Bible college, give it a go and see what the Lord does.”
