Volunteer: Abigail
Role: Facilitation & Group Process Consultant; Church Mission Consultant
Tell us a little bit about yourself
I was born in East Asia, moved to the U.S. when I was 11, became a Christian in middle school and attended the Urbana Student Missions Conference in 1976. My husband attended Urbana in 1979. We attended the same college fellowship and began supporting OMF in 1979, a year before we were married. After Urbana, a small group of church friends got together to pray monthly for the world.
We have three daughters. I worked as a part-time nutrition consultant while the children were young. When my husband got laid off, I was able to return to full-time work where I learned facilitation skills to help monitor 10 senior meal programs in a local county. When I saw how well my facilitation methods were received, I began to look for opportunities to use my skills at church.
Why did you decide to get involved in OMF’s U.S. volunteer program
Due to vision issues, I quit my job. In 2012, I began looking for a volunteer opportunity that would utilize my skills and passion. An OMF staff member connected me with the Bridge Asia Manager, who was scheduled to visit my area in two weeks. After the meeting, we both acknowledged that this was a divine appointment. She understood my health issues (limitations) and my passion to see God’s people work together more efficiently. The Bridge Asia Director was supportive in creating this new role and gave me many opportunities to facilitate different planning meetings.
What does your volunteer role involve? How much time commitment does it take?
I have combined my facilitation role with the church consultant role that my husband and I are doing under the OMF Church Partnerships team (Link Asia). I have the opportunity to help them design workshops for church leaders to help capture their creative ideas in implementing their missions vision. As church consultants, we build relationship with church leaders in our area to resource and coach them to move their congregation to participate in the Great Commission.
Since I took early retirement, I was able to devote a sufficient amount of time to my volunteer role. Some projects took more time than others. For example, coordinating a Heart for Asia conference for the OMF 150th celebration was equivalent to full-time work.
What have you learned as a result of serving in your volunteer role?
I have learned that when you are willing to be a tool that God can use, you will see how he has been working all along to shape you for service (Exodus 35:31, 35; 36:2). I ask God for the wisdom and understanding to steer meetings in the right direction. I have seen the glory of God in almost every project or event that I pour my efforts into. Every outcome is a testimony of God’s presence and I get to see it up close. I learned that all skills including facilitation are given by God to accomplish his purpose. My passion to see Christians working together more wisely comes from the biblical example of the body of Christ working hand-in-hand in alignment with God’s heart. When our desire aligns with God’s desire, he promises that we will see him do awesome things in our lives as a testimony to others (Exodus 34:10).
What encouragement would you give to someone considering volunteering with OMF?
If you desire to find out how you can serve within OMF, initiate a conversation with the volunteer staff. Ask them to connect you with people that you can talk with to find out how you can serve. Every Christian is like a piece of puzzle in God’s masterpiece for the salvation of the nations. It is up to each one of us to find out what we can do in response to God’s invitation to participate.
Are you interested in volunteering with OMF International (U.S.)?
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