From Joyce:

I'm a country girl who feels like she has loved Jesus forever!  I'm also a sinner saved by grace.

I remember the singular event that set the course of my ministry life:  I was at LeTourneau Christian Camp when I was twelve years old, sitting with other kids around a campfire.  We were listening to a missionary from some faraway place asking us to commit our lives to share the gospel wherever God would lead.  I raised my hand.  And then I forgot about it.  But God didn't.

As I look back, I see that God used that event to begin searching my heart for everything that needed to be healed or removed.  He knew that I had to be free and whole in order to understand the depth, cost and joy of the Spirit-led life.

God is a gentle--but thorough--tutor who leaves no issue unfaced.  Surprisingly, he doesn't wait until we are perfect before easing us into ministry, but teaches us through it.  While teaching in Bible schools and Teen Challenge, as well as writing books about ministry and speaking at conferences along the East Coast, He was breaking me and preparing me for more.

In 1996, Dr. Joseph Umidi of Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA, and Kevin Hinman, Founder of Leadership Training International, invited me to join them in a first-ever leadership training conference for emerging church leaders in Murmansk, Russia.  Up there in the Arctic Circle, I preached my first sermon and discovered that God could use a woman to proclaim the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ that lead us to salvation.  It revolutionized my life!

It was a new day in Russia.  The gospel could be freely preached, and Westerners were welcome to help the churches grow.  What shouldn't have surprised us, however, was the degree of woundedness and sorrow that filled the hearts of many Russian believers who had grown up under communism.  Our focus at that first leadership conference quickly tacked to include inner healing, reconciliation and restoration.  It was a powerful, wonderful time as many lives were altered by Christ forever.

Soon after we got home from Russia, invitations to return came from pastors who had attended the conference.  Deep relationships grew out of the many times I ministered at their churches in the years after that.  In time, invitations were coming from churches in other regions, and the ministry opportunities and friendships multiplied.  

Concurrently, doors opened to minister in India, England, Scotland, Uganda and Kenya.  Since 2010, my involvement particularly in Kenya has grown steadily, and our partnership with Blessings Hope Educational Centre is very important.  (See Orphan Sponsorship.)  In each country, relationships have taken root and friendships have formed that will last a lifetime.

GLORY TO GOD!