Introducing our New NZCMS Team Member

By Carolyn, NZCMS Personnel Manager

I’m delighted to be working for NZCMS – in fact, I’d call it my dream job because of my passion for mission and to see Mission Part­ners thrive in their calling. It also gives me an oppor­tun­ity to use the twenty-eight years of my own per­sonal exper­i­ence serving God overseas.

Truth be told, being a Mis­sion­ary was the one thing I didn’t want to become when I gave my life over to the Lord at age ten. By twenty-two, I was con­fid­ent that I’d escaped that fate, but it was not to be. A short-term mission oppor­tun­ity arose that I felt com­pelled to respond to and I ended up spend­ing four months in Thai­l­and working along­side a Kiwi mis­sion­ary family. During that time, I dis­covered that I loved being on mission over­seas and when I was asked to stay on per­man­ently, I was very keen. However, as I prayed, it became clear that I needed to return to New Zealand, and I sensed I was going to meet my future spouse upon my return — and I did, at my very first week back in my home church!

Two years into our mar­riage, God spec­tac­u­larly opened up an oppor­tun­ity for us to go to a country in the Middle East. It was only eleven weeks between first hearing of that oppor­tun­ity to arriv­ing in the country. From there, the years just flew by – our chil­dren were born and raised there and even­tu­ally moved to New Zealand for uni­ver­sity whilst we con­tin­ued on for several more years. In 2018 though, to our sur­prise, it seemed that our home wasn’t to be home for much longer. We put out a fleece, which God respon­ded to, and in late 2019 we packed our bags for the final time and returned to New Zealand.

For the first three years back here it felt like who I was, was best rep­res­en­ted by an iceberg – the vast major­ity unseen to those around me. I struggled to see much con­nec­tion at all between the things I’d been involved with over­seas and my ‘new’ life. That all changed dra­mat­ic­ally when I saw the role of Per­son­nel Manager for NZCMS advert­ised. One day, the week before hearing I’d been suc­cess­ful in my applic­a­tion, I had a vivid picture come to my mind that I believed was from God. It was of a bridge that con­nec­ted my old life with my new one, and so it was with joy that I accep­ted the role when it was offered, and I thank God daily for the oppor­tun­ity to con­tinue to serve in mission.