Tony and Kelly’s future in Utah seemed settled. Tony worked as a truck driver, and Kelly worked in finance for a large online retailer. They lived near family and attended a large church with a large support network. They planned to get married and spend their lives together.
“We were very comfortable,” Tony says. “We were both working full time. … We would have been fine staying right where we were.” At the same time, they longed for something more. They believed God’s promise in Scripture: “Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). And they had deeper desires in their hearts than living a contented life near family, desires that had been brewing for several years. So when Tony got a phone call from GFA with a life-altering invitation, he and Kelly were willing to follow the Lord’s call, even though they knew that He sometimes led in unexpected directions.A Growing Passion
Tony and Kelly’s journey with GFA had begun in 2004, when they were dating. One day at church, Tony noticed something on the bulletin board: a GFA brochure featuring Gospel literature and other ways to partner with national missionaries. “I was personally doing a lot of evangelism, and I thought it was a great, practical way to get involved in missions.”
Tony immediately donated to help provide Gospel literature and started sponsoring a national missionary. He ended up ordering Revolution in World Missions, K.P. Yohannan’s book about the vision of partnering with national missionaries. It was a book that showed him how he could help more people to hear the Gospel—often people who had never even heard of Christ’s name. Wanting to impact others the way he’d been impacted, Tony “started giving those books out like candy.” One recipient of the book was, of course, Kelly. “I read it and was just inspired by it,” she says.
Tony and Kelly then became volunteers for GFA, attending events to share the vision of national missionaries with more people and handing out more copies of Revolution in World Missions. A few years later, Tony got the chance to see GFA’s ministry in Asia firsthand.
As Tony’s partnership with GFA deepened, God was filling him with a sense of purpose and excitement that had been missing in his life. Though Tony faithfully worked jobs, he often became bored or disheartened about every two years, and discontentment would spur him to find a new job. But his passion to be part of fulfilling the Great Commission in conjunction with GFA was burning brighter and brighter. In 2008, Tony pursued becoming staff with GFA, but after he consulted with staff recruiters, they didn’t sense a right fit. It came as a disappointment to Tony, but he continued to serve faithfully and seek God’s will.
An Engagement and a Plot Twist
Though Tony’s plan to join GFA’s staff didn’t work out initially, the Lord did lead Tony and Kelly to start a new chapter together—they got engaged. Their lives continued with the stability of two full-time jobs, a good church community and family nearby as they looked forward to their wedding. Then, one day in 2009, Tony called Kelly at work. “Hey, let’s go to dinner tonight,” he told her. “You sound different,” Kelly responded. Not liking “we’ll talk later” situations, she insisted Tony tell her what was going on.
GFA’s staff recruiter had called Tony and said, “We think we missed something.” GFA wanted him to come for an interview. But now that he and Kelly were engaged, they needed to make this decision together. Was it God’s plan for them as a couple? It seemed the desires the Lord had been putting in their hearts were starting to reach fruition, but those desires wouldn’t be realized without sacrifice.
A Honeymoon Job Interview
With limited resources and vacation days, Tony and Kelly made a surprising but practical decision: They would go to Texas to interview with GFA—during their honeymoon. “We got married on Friday, reception on Saturday, and we flew to Texas on Sunday,” Kelly recalls. Even as they made that sacrifice, Kelly wrestled during the week, trying to think of reasons to not go to GFA. She had concerns about moving away from loved ones. Would she and Tony be able to stay connected with their Utah friends and family and support them during challenging times? Would Tony and Kelly find a new support network in Texas?
“I was really struggling with leaving friends and family—really struggling,” Kelly remembers. “And the Lord just took care of that. … It was like the Lord saying, ‘I’m going to provide.’”
The welcoming warmth of the GFA community, shown through acts of kindness, helped. The couple who hosted Tony and Kelly threw a wedding shower for them, and another staff member, knowing it was their honeymoon, gave them money to go out on a date. And when Kelly heard Tony share his passion during their interviews with GFA leaders, she would sit back and be “so proud of him.” As the week progressed, Kelly felt a sense of peace and confidence from the Lord: Joining staff just made sense. It was the next step in a journey of faith that He had been leading them on. “No matter what we were going through, no matter what job, [Tony] was just so passionate about raising up these national missionaries,”
And although Tony was the initial driving force behind the couple’s involvement, Kelly’s heart broke for the hardships faced by people living in need of both Christ and the simple care that GFA was providing. It was worth it. Even though saying yes to joining staff would require sacrifice and giving up any Plan B, “There was just like this sense of peace,” Kelly explains. So, at the end of their interview week, when GFA invited them to join staff, they confidently said yes.
Laying Aside Plan B
Now it was time to go back to Utah, tell friends and family about their decision, and recruit financial partners to support their ministry with GFA. It wouldn’t be easy to do all this during their first months of marriage. Tony and Kelly imagined that many friends and family would probably consider their decision to move to Texas and work for a ministry crazy.
Instead, many of these loved ones, having seen Tony and Kelly’s passion over several years, had a different response. Kelly’s girlfriends and others essentially said, “Yeah, that’s what you should do.” Even Kelly’s boss affirmed the decision. He told her that even though he could offer her incentives to stay, what she and Tony were planning to do was more important. After a season of adjusting to married life, preparing for a work transition and raising support, it was time: They moved to Texas to officially join staff with GFA.
Perseverance and Blessings
Since joining staff 14 years ago, Tony and Kelly have taken on various roles of service at GFA and walked through ups and downs in life and ministry. But through it all, they’ve seen the Lord fulfill their desires to share Christ’s love with those who don’t know Him—and to instill those same values in their two sons.
For most of his years at GFA, Tony has worked as a ministry partner representative, making personal connections with men and women who donate toward GFA. As he encourages them through calls, emails and visits, he sees their shared passion—the same passion that caused him to be part of GFA. “I go to thank them, but they, actually, are in return thanking the ministry for giving them an avenue, an outlet, a conduit to do missions,” he says. “So that's satisfying. … I'm impressed they give this amount, and I thank them. They’re like, ‘No, thank you for having this way to reach people with leprosy or people with clean water.’”
Kelly now serves in GFA’s President’s Office, where she uses her finance background and administrative skills for special projects and daily tasks that support GFA’s leaders and ministries on the mission field. She cherishes the times when GFA’s founder and first president, K.P. Yohannan, would pass by her desk and stop to chat—this was the man who wrote the book that had so impacted her and Tony. Now she is grateful for opportunities to assist Brother K.P.’s son, Bishop Daniel, as he carries on the baton as GFA’s president.
And as God promised Kelly, He did take care of friends and family in Utah. She and Tony regularly visit and connect with them there. Plus, Tony and Kelly gained a new community with the GFA staff, who have supported them through good times and hard times. Through their years of partnering with GFA and then serving on GFA’s staff, Tony and Kelly have seen what God has done through their small steps of obedience to follow His will. Their down-to-earth dedication comes from a trust in the Lord and a faithfulness to Him that’s rooted in Proverbs 3:5–6: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”
That faithful obedience has fueled Tony and Kelly’s service at GFA—a service of now more than 14 years on staff and 22 years of GFA involvement, a service of walking through joyful seasons and hard seasons. Tony calls it “kind of a miracle,” considering he had previously changed jobs about every two years. “God has brought us here, kept us here,” he says.
Through Tony and Kelly’s service, they’ve seen God fulfill their desires to make an eternal impact on the world, helping more people hear the Gospel and experience Christ’s love. And even after 14 years, this desire still burns. On a recent trip to Utah, as Tony shared with a Bible study group for about 30 minutes, the Lord reminded Kelly of that passion to help link Christians in America with national missionaries sharing the Good News in Africa and Asia. “I was just so refreshed. … I just want to be a part of this and be that bridge,” Kelly says. At the end, she jokingly told Tony, “We should be involved with that.”
‘If You’re Willing’
Tony, Kelly and a whole team of GFA staff are part of the bridge. As behind-the-scenes missionaries, they connect national missionaries, the believers most able to share the Gospel among people still waiting to hear, with believers in the West, the believers most able to support missions. Through their sacrificial and prayer-saturated labors, Tony, Kelly and all GFA’s behind-the-scenes missionaries are helping to fulfill the Great Commission.
Tony explains that one of the key components to serving in this way is simple: being available. “God can use you and anybody where you’re at if you’re willing, if you’re just available,” Tony says. “… One of the things that we’ve been told or have learned from experience is if you do step A, what is in front of you, and if you're faithful in that, God will show you the next thing to do.”
While the willingness to serve is a simple prerequisite, the impact is far-reaching. Each GFA staff member helps enable about 200 national missionaries who are sharing Christ’s love in word and deed—and seeing that love transform lives and communities. Do you want to be part of this movement? By serving as a behind-the-scenes missionary, you can expand your vision to help more people in Africa and Asia hear the Gospel and experience Christ’s love.
