While there I met a young engaged couple named Nathan and Hayley. They told me that one day they would go to Kenya with R4C. Another year passed and Fellowship was planning their first trip to Kenya. Kim and I had the pleasure of speaking again in their church and doing a training session for the team. Nathan and Hayley were now married and had asked for people to donate towards their Kenya trip instead of giving them gifts for their wedding. We are really looking forward to serving with them and the rest of the Fellowship team in September! I love to hear stories of how God has worked in peoples lives and provided for their mission trips.
Hello! We
are Nathan and Hayley Schraeder and this is our story….
Hayley’s
side of the story:
I grew up
in Dodge City, Kansas going to church all my life, thinking that I was a
Christian and that I was a “good person”. When Nathan and I began dating in
high school, I stopped going to the church I grew up in and started going to
church with him, only because I wanted to spend more time with him. As I
continued to attend church with Nathan and his family, I began to learn more
about Christ than I ever had before. I began to learn the truth and that it is
only by grace through faith in Christ that I could ever be righteous in God’s eyes.
The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I went to church
camp with Nathan and the rest of the youth group. It was there at that camp
that I cried out to Jesus with all that I had and was saved by His amazing
grace. After that, I began to feel a pull towards being a missionary even
though I knew very little about what it even meant. One week after I graduated
high school in May of 2011, I moved to Borger, Texas to live with my dad and
step-mom. I began to attend Fellowship Baptist Church in Borger and started
growing in the Lord and learning more and more about His kingdom. In August of
2012, I went on my first mission trip out of the country to Rivne, Ukraine and
it was after returning home from this trip I knew that this was exactly what
God wanted me to do with the rest of my life.
Nathan’s
side of the story:
I also grew
up in Dodge City. I accepted salvation at a church camp when I was 11 years
old. At that same church camp a few years later, when I was 14, there was a
speaker talking about missions work going on in Kenya, Africa. I don’t remember
anything else about that speaker or that entire week of camp that year, except
for the moment when God told me that one day I would go to Kenya. I can look
back and remember everything about that special moment God and I shared. The
fact that I would be going to Kenya one day as a missionary was the only
information God provided, so I can only wait in anticipation to see what my
Lord has in store for Hayley and I when we get there. I had heard about
Fellowship Baptist Church through Hayley, she would always tell me about the
wonderful things God was doing in her as an individual and in the congregation.
She told me how amazing it was that they were so missions and discipleship focused
and shortly after, I was making plans to move to Borger. Since being here I
haven’t exactly been the model of the perfect disciple. It’s been a bumpy road,
but God has taught me so much on my journey. Not too long after I moved to
Borger, my high school sweetheart became my wife and she is always pointing me
towards God and helping me grow closer to Him.
Now that
we’re married:
We got
married on November 22, 2014 and we are so excited to embark on this journey as
husband and wife! We believe that God has paired us together for work in the
mission field and find evidence of this every day as we experience new
challenges and excitements that we get to work through together as husband and
wife, as a team, and as best friends. We look forward to our trip to Kenya with
Real 4 Christ, as it will be the beginning of a new chapter in our walk with
God and our marriage. So far, getting ready for Kenya has proved to be an
adventure in itself. While we have had so much support from family and friends,
we have also been met with a fair amount of opposition. It has been made clear
that not all of our family and friends understand why we would put ourselves at
risk for what we believe and we continuously pray for God to work in their
hearts. God has also continuously given us confirmation about going to Kenya by
moving the hearts of family members that went from shoving newspaper articles
and reason after reason as to why we shouldn’t go in our faces (literally) to
now giving hundreds of dollars to support our trip because they see how
important it is to us. God has also moved the hearts of people who know our
story to share it with others, and because of that we have also received
financial support for our trip from people we don’t even know. It is simply
amazing! Folks, God is at work in this world even though sometimes it doesn’t
seem like it, and we can either join Him in furthering His kingdom or we can
watch it happen from afar. Please continue to pray for us and the rest of the
team as we prepare to go. Also pray for our families, that they rest easy
knowing we are in God’s hands and that they understand the importance of God’s
Word and making it known. And pray for the hearts of those in Kenya, that they
would be receptive to the Gospel as we go and share this life-changing truth
with them. Our story is nothing special, it is just simply a testimony of God’s
grace, faithfulness, and sovereignty in our lives.
To Him be
the Glory forever,
Nathan and
Hayley Schraeder
