A girl from Michigan deeply involved in a campus church. A boy from Nigeria acting as a father to orphans. How did they both end up in College Station, Texas, reaching students at Texas A&M?

When I was 11 years old, I was home alone watching a news story on Romanian orphanages. I had never seen such despair in my life. One little boy stood out to me; he said he wanted to be a pastor. At that tender age, I remember wondering how he had so much hope in such horrible conditions. I knew right then that the Lord was calling me to work with orphans and vulnerable children one day. I had no idea when that day would come or how radically my future would change once it did.

I chose to attend the University of Michigan at the urging of a friend. He told me it would give me a great opportunity to learn to live out my faith in a very liberal environment, which was completely unknown to this private Christian school student. Throughout college I was a member of New Life Church, and I grew tremendously in my faith and character. I also got to know a Reliant staff member who talked a lot about orphans in Africa. By the time I graduated and immediately went on staff with Reliant, my heart yearned to work with orphans, and I was leaning more and more toward Africa.

As he stepped on the escalator, he was a little too excited and missed my instructions. He began to topple backwards and luckily caught himself!

After a very personal encounter with the Lord, I felt led to move to Orlando, Florida, and work as a short-term mission coordinator at the Reliant office (then Great Commission Ministries). I served in that role for two years while building relationships with churches all around the United States and missionaries overseas. I had always loved mission trips, but this role deepened my appreciation for the impact they can have on people’s lives. I also built a relationship with Fellowship Church at Texas A&M, where I serve now, because of all the mission trips they took each year. Honestly, before taking this position, I had never heard of Texas A&M. As a Michigan girl, Texas seemed like the land of westerns and cowboy hats. Little did I know I’d eventually be moving there!

In 2007 I moved to College Station, Texas, and now serve as the missions manager at Fellowship Church. What led me here was the fact that they wanted to begin a partnership with an orphanage in Nigeria and recruited me partially to help make that happen. How could I resist? My lifelong dream finally came true in 2008 when I took my first trip to Nigeria to visit a brand-new orphanage. On that trip, my future husband, Ade, was my tour guide in a big city where I was visiting a more established orphanage. A handsome Nigerian man who dedicated his life to working with orphans? I wondered if I was dreaming. After I took three more trips over 1.5 years, we began the epitome of a long-distance relationship.

I started a child sponsorship program for 40 Nigerian orphans, and he moved down from his big city to train the staff at the new orphanage. Our love story began while doing the very thing that we both felt God had gifted us and emboldened us to do: advocate for the orphaned and vulnerable. Ade proposed to me during a six-month stint I spent in Nigeria at the orphanage. When I met his parents for the first time, I was so nervous about bowing down to them and showing them proper respect that I had to take an Imodium that morning. For him, meeting my dad and hugging him and shaking his hand was just as hard. We knew the merging of cultures was going to make for some pretty good stories!

Ade left Nigeria for the first time two weeks before our wedding. His first new experience would be within the Nigerian airport. As he stepped on the escalator, he was a little too excited and missed my instructions. He began to topple backwards and luckily caught himself! As we sat on the first airplane in Abuja and watched the emergency video, Ade turned to me during the flotation-device part and asked, “What is the meaning of this?” I had seen that video more than 50 times and had learned to tune it all out. In the next week, Ade went from never flying to going on five flights. In the Frankfurt airport, he learned about the joys of automatic toilets and sinks. We Americans just don’t realize how non-instinctive many of our newfangled gadgets are!

The memory to top it all off was going on our first “real” date. Ade was astounded by the choices on the 20-page menu at our restaurant of choice. Being used to ordering a simple dish of chicken and rice, he wasn’t sure what to do with all the questions about types of sodas, side dishes and temperature to cook the meat. Since that date five years ago, our lives have been filled with laughter and many “firsts” that will be told to our children for generations to come.

Ade also became a campus missionary with Reliant, reaching out to students on campus. His accent and fun-loving demeanor have drawn many students to his homegroup that he leads. He has also helped disciple many Nigerian students — a surprisingly large number live in Texas! This year we became foster parents for the first time. We have a little 2-year-old girl who has been in our home and hearts for four months. The Lord directed us away from international adoption and toward the children in need that are in our own back yard.

Our lives and missionary journey have a beautiful mosaic of different parts of the Lord’s heart: reaching college students, managing staff who are reaching international students, overseeing international mission partners and future church plants and being advocates for orphans. We love the path that the Lord has illuminated for us as missionaries in His kingdom.