G LO B AL VOI CES
Born Into Missions Faith De Le Cour Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. —Ephesians 3:20-21
duction. We discovered our mutual mis sions call along with a growing attraction to one another, and in September 1983, we were married at College Church.
I was called to missions, God called me to Stan, but truthfully, I did not feel called to Japan. Yet obedient to As of the end of March 2022, I am God’s call, I went with great hopes and retired from holding executive positions expectations. First, we had to go to fullfocused on missionary/member care time language school for two years. Stan in two mission organizations, first in had previously been in Japan on two Japan with Asian Access and then withshort-term trips. He had a good grasp SIM USA. For the past six years, I have of culture, but language acquisition had oversight for the departments was hard, so the mission placed us at providing selection, training, personnela missionary language school with an administration, care and development individualized curriculum that worked of over seven hundred global workers well for him. I was placed in a more advanced, but disappointingly, not very sent from SIM USA. demanding class. The language school I was born into missions. My parents was in a summer resort town, and in the winter, there were few people around going to Brazil as missionaries at ages 20 with whom I could practice speaking Japanese. Even our local Japanese later. They never returned to full-time church wanted us to do a youth ministry overseas ministry, yet world mission was using English. always central in our family life. Our daughter Bethany was born days I graduated from Wheaton College after I finished my basic language in 1977 with a BS in mathematics. course. Six months later we moved to I received my master’s in management Tokorozawa, on the edge of Tokyo, an (MBA) from Northwestern University’s area where we lived for the remainder of Kellogg Graduate School of Business our 30 years in Japan. Disappointments while working in Chicago. In my final began to mount for me. Stan was year of that degree, I sensed the Lord teaching at an English-for-evangelism preparing me to serve him overseas center, and I was home with a baby. and so I determined that I would not I wanted to be involved in ministry, yet seriously consider a marriage partner the only opportunities available for who was not interested in missions. me at that time were to teach English I met Stan at an event for single adultsclasses in our home. While I was not at College Church. I did not realize he trained to teach English, God enabled was accepted to be a career missionary me to get some guidance from others, to Japan until two weeks after our intro - and I taught children’s classes, a private
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