A Woman's Journey in Ministry

Spring in Town by Grant Wood

This is a great testimony by Alice Hatch, a Mission to the World consultant. She shares her heart as she discovers what true ministry is. I pray that it will enourage you as much as it has encouraged me.


"I grew up in a family of strong women who served God with their lives, supported their husbands in ministry, and raised their children to love and follow God. In their later years, both my grandmothers were Bible teachers with wide ministries of counseling younger women. My mother and her sisters were all missionaries and made important contributions to their fields of service. My mother's cousin was a single missionary with pioneer service in Africa, and I was fascinated by stories of her work. Being a woman in ministry was something I inherited, and something I grew up with the vision of doing. My call to missionary service came early, and I did not question it.

Thus, it caught me completely off guard, after one year on the field, to find myself struggling with what my role in ministry was to be. Nothing in my life fit my stereotype of what a missionary should experience or be doing. Our son, first child, was born shortly after we arrived in Ecuador, and I was glad to be able to stay home with him. One year later, I was pregnant again and I felt trapped.


Because of my facility in Spanish, thanks to being an MK, I was asked to take over an existing evangelistic Bible study for neighborhood women, all much older than I was. I did it, because that is what missionaries do, but I felt hopelessly inadequate. My home was a modern well-equipped place, not the primitive situation my parents had. It embarrassed me. My husband had an 8 to 5 job building transmitters and antennas and was on call whenever the electricity went out, pressured to get the radio back on the air quickly. He was not preaching the gospel in the way I assumed missionaries did. In my confusion and despair, I cycled into a major depression that immobilized me for several months.


Looking back now I understand what was not clear then.


I defined ministry in much too narrow terms. Preaching, teaching, evangelizing...these were ministry. Cooking, bathing babies, changing diapers, homemaking, even building antennas and transmitters...these were not. I found much more peace in my heart when I wholeheartedly accepted the roles of wife, mother, and homemaker as my unique and God-given ministry for that time in my life. To be there with my children and to love them, answering their questions about life and God; to have a peaceful and loving home where my busy husband could retreat and rest; to serve tasty and nourishing meals to my family and our guests; to use my gifts in hospitality to make our home a center for people to gather -- these became extremely meaningful to me once I understood how important they were. Offering them up to God as my service to Him for His glory transformed them from ordinary activities to ministry for Him and to others.

A few years later we lived in the HCJB Guest House, and I was the hostess in charge of running it for all who needed hospitality. Someone asked me for my definition of missionary work. Almost without thinking, I answered, 'Missionary work is being a servant, and right now I am serving the servants of the King.' That year I experienced hard work and much pressure. However, the privilege of having God's chosen servants sitting around our dining room table, as well as the richness of the interaction in our home, was something we treasured. My children still talk about that year with fond memories, though at the time they were only six and seven.

Another thing I came to understand about being a woman in ministry is that we go through stages in our lives. Someone has called it "Seasons." The season I have been describing did not last for more than a few years. When I was in the middle of it, I thought it would last forever. I thought I would never get through a church service without having to leave because of a wriggling or crying child. Now when I sit alone in church, I would enjoy the wriggles of a little one beside me. I thought I would never have the time or energy to plan a Bible study, so say nothing of the mental capacity to give one. One day my children grew up and went away to school. While I still felt it was a priority for me to be there when they got home, I had time to become involved in more traditional roles of ministry. Being a pastor's wife during that time was a new and challenging experience.

I also learned another important lesson as the years went by. God is extremely creative in the gifts He gives His children. I found my greatest fulfillment in using the gifts He had given me and serving Him with them, rather than putting myself into a mold and following another person's model for ministry. I am not a Bible teacher...a shock to someone who assumed that was what a missionary did! I found I was a listener more than a talker. I was good with people and relationships and often could speak with wisdom to a friend's problems. I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes work of organization much more than being up front and forward. I functioned well as a team player, especially with my husband. When I began to value my gifts as the tools God had given me for ministry, I found great fulfillment and challenge.

I was part of a group of six women who for several years met weekly to share our lives and pray for each other. As time went by, we came to know each other's different gifts and to talk of our dreams for ministry. While we were a very diverse group of women, and most of us had young children at home, we encouraged each other's growth in these and other areas. Today we are all ministering with great effectiveness in the very ways we dreamed about and affirmed in one another. We all look back at that affirmation as being a key element in the development of our unique gifts.

One last lesson I understand today in a way I missed years ago is that ministry is not what we do for God, it is who we are. None of our words or our actions speak and minister so clearly as the quality of our characters. I have discovered that the more I have learned to concentrate on my relationship with God rather than on my service to Him, the more effective I have been for Him. There is a paradox here. I have come to realize that it is when I share my weaknesses failures, and even my sinfulness that I minister to others in a more powerful way than when I tell about my victories. It is that long-ago depression which became the foundation for my present counseling ministry. As we share ourselves, growing through our struggles, we also share evidence of the grace of God at work making us whom He desires.

I praise God for the wonderful women in my family who modeled ministry to me. They were women who struggled in many different ways yet saw God at work making them into His image and using them in His service. I have sought throughout my life to work through their examples and find my own place in service. Even in this present season of my life as a woman alone, I am experiencing the good hand of God at work leading and directing me to be His woman in ministry."