August 2, 2023 • 42 mins
Today's Studio Guest is Serena VanFossen, a young Mechanical Engineer Missionary.
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Episode Transcript
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Music
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Welcome to Mission Sunlight Chat from the Media Missionaries of Network 7 Media Center.
We are in our world headquarters studio located in Chattanooga, Tennessee in the United States
of America, wherever you are.
Welcome to our program.
My name is Christopher Beeson and our director of production and engineering today is Jordan
Wagner.
Our guest today is Serena Van Fossen.
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Serena, welcome to the studio.
Thank you.
I'm going to share with the folks at home a little bit about our program and then we'll
come back and start a conversation, a chat, if you will.
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Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Serena, we want to thank you for joining us today in our studio.
We're glad you're here.
You have a bit of a mission background and we're going to talk about the history of that,
but tell us who you are.
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What are you doing now for, whether it's school, work, play, family, just tell us a little
bit about yourself.
Not a little bit.
Some family history.
My family is Adventist for several generations.
So I grew up Adventist.
My parents grew up Adventist.
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Some of my grandparents grew up Adventist.
So there's some background and some groundwork that has been laid generationally in my family.
Kind of runs in your blood.
Yeah, on some level.
My parents, when I was 11 or 10, decided to, they felt called to move to the mission field
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to South America and God opened the doors when we needed to walk through them.
And they just kept opening and my dad would pray, God, if you want us to go, open the
doors and don't just open them.
Put a vacuum on the other side.
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And God did that and we kind of got pulled along into this mission field in Guyana and
we were there for about five years.
All right.
For those who aren't global or for those who may not know, where is Guyana?
It is along the Northern coast of South America.
It's just above Brazil.
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And then to the East, there's Suriname and French Guyana.
And then to the West, there's Venezuela.
So out in the Caribbean to the North would be what?
Trinidad and Tobago?
Trinidad and Tobago.
Yep.
Okay.
All right.
Keep going.
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My family was there for five years.
My parents felt led that it was time to move back to the States when my brother and I were
about the age to be halfway or most of the way through high school.
And my parents wanted to make sure that my brother and I had some experience in attending
formal education before we went to college.
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And I have found that very helpful.
But also at that time, my parents had had one church plant and then a local person was
working on another church plant.
And that church plant was at the point where we really needed to step out.
And they were ready to take lead.
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And we slowly stepped out during that last year that we were there.
And we were putting the local leaders in position and giving them guidance for how to lead and
how to do Bible studies and how to do sermons.
And granted, throughout our time there, we were kind of teaching that through our example.
So that is the biblical process of discipleship, making disciples.
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So here today, what are you doing?
It's summer.
So right now I've found a summer job.
But I'm working on completing my bachelor's in science of engineering at Walla Walla University.
And I'm about, I would be considered a senior now, at least with regards to how far I am
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through the program, but I completed two years of student mission work in Cambodia.
So that has shifted my coursework a little bit.
Okay, how has that, what you're doing in your coursework, affected your summer job?
So the summer job that I got is really cool.
I just started today.
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I'm working at Southern Adventist University as kind of an assistant to help them start
their new engineering program there, and they're having me utilize some of the skills and knowledge
that I've developed in my coursework.
Okay, so how is that?
You're a female in the engineering program.
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Are there a lot of females in engineering there?
I can't speak on behalf of Southern because I haven't attended and they're just starting
their actual accredited program this year.
But at Walla Walla my freshman year, it's still majority guys.
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The discipline that you're in really changes the proportion of female to male students.
The majority of the female students are in civil engineering and bioengineering because
those, I'm guessing those two are more viewed as service oriented, whereas courses like
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mechanical engineering and computer engineering and electrical engineering aren't seen to
have as much human to human interactions.
And in my class with the students that would be graduating with me right now, there are
eight of us and I'm the only female in that group.
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Does that gender disparity affect you much or do you feel like you're just running with
the program with everybody else?
After spending some time in a culture where I had to be very acutely aware of if I was
in a room by myself with a guy or how much interaction I had with a guy because of the
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way they culturally viewed things in Asia.
Yeah, it has taken me a little bit to adjust again to being in an all male environment
essentially.
Where it's less noticed?
Yeah, where it's not, we don't care so much if, oh, you were seen walking down the street
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with someone else that's of the opposite gender.
If somebody's tuning in, they may not know Walla Walla and Southern are both Christian
educational institutions of higher learning.
So we'd like to think that the culture on those campuses is maybe more inclusive and
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more supportive of Christian behavior.
I didn't mean to sound hesitant on that, I was just trying to think of the proper way
to say it.
I have close affinity with Southern and feel like they do have that culture on campus and
I'm happy to be a part of the community of Southern too.
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I haven't felt any, I don't know, sexism towards me from any of the other students or the faculty.
At most I've only felt like-
And that's at Walla Walla where you've been educating.
Yeah.
I've only felt like some of them feel inferior so they've kind of let that out a little bit
towards me and that could just be because I'm older than them.
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I haven't been with them since their freshman year, just a variety of different things.
And it could just be my perception of it.
It could be a variety of things.
Well I'm glad you're comfortable.
What else is going on?
Do you have any hobbies?
Tell us about your family, your parents, your brother.
I'm giving it away, you have a brother.
I'm a first born daughter.
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I have an older brother.
He's about 18 months older than I am.
So we've had that competitive sibling rivalry.
Since I came home the first day, that's what I've been told.
Well I've got two older sisters, one one year, one two years.
I'll be in trouble for announcing that on this podcast.
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Tell us about your folks.
My brother just graduated from Southern with a BA in business.
And my parents are working in kind of the medical field.
My mom works as a medical technician at a pediatric clinic.
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And my dad works as an nurse practitioner at a pain management clinic.
So we brought you on the program to share a little bit about your story of being a missionary.
And so we're going to take a break.
But when we come back, I want you to share a bit about where you have been, both in your
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youth, you talked about serving in Guyana, but also where you've just been most recently.
How long were you there?
Were you there a year, year and a half, two years during COVID?
I was in Cambodia for two years.
Okay.
And the majority of that was during COVID, wasn't it?
Yes.
Okay.
We're going to talk about that when we come back.
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All right.
You ready for that?
We're going to take a break here for about 60 seconds or so.
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We'll be back with more Mission Sunlight Chat.
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Welcome back to Mission Sunlight Chat.
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Our guest, Serena Van Fossen.
Serena, as we began the program today, we like to begin with prayer and you're going
to share some stories.
Before you do that, we missed having prayer in our first segment.
I want to pause and invite you to pray with us and for our time together.
Go ahead.
Heavenly Father, thank you for today.
Thank you for this opportunity for me to share my story with other people.
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I ask that you cause this to bless them and help them to grow towards you because of it.
Please help us to be able to speak clearly so that the people that hear this podcast
would be able to understand and would also be able to share it, whether it just be word
of mouth or through actually sharing the podcast.
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Thank you in the Jesus name.
Amen.
Amen.
Tell us a little of your story, the mission experiences you've had.
My family moved to Guyana in, I want to say 2011.
Before we moved down, we did a, we call it a survey trip.
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You go down, you spend like a week or two checking out the scene, what's going on there,
kind of where you might be moving in.
If you really want to move in and actually work the mission, is this a project you want
to work on?
Is this people that you want to work with?
Because if the people aren't people you want to work with, it makes a lot of conflict.
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So a lot of data gathering.
Yeah.
That's what the survey trip is for.
So my family spent about a week doing a survey trip and we decided that we were going to
move forward with this.
So my family went back to the States and we did training at Adventist Frontier Missions
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through their formal training program, which they do culture training, like how do you
study a culture?
In essence, it's you look at their culture, how they behave, how they interact with each
other and you live as one of them among them so they see that you're like them and you're
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trying to reduce the number of differences between you and the other people.
And so my parents went through that training.
The training also included some leadership training and some Bible study training and
some other training that's necessary for working with groups of people and in those types of
positions.
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And then we went around the States doing some, a bunch of traveling and we did fundraising
towards our goal because a missionary can't live in the mission field without some form
of income and dedicating that much time to mission work requires a source of income that
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you're not able to provide for yourself while you're in the field because you're doing all
of this social interaction.
So we had to go do all of that fundraising and after the fundraising was done, we launched,
we spent those five years in Guyana, which because of my age and the age of my peers
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that were there, the local peers that I would have had, my parents weren't comfortable with
my brother and I going and hanging out with them off our land because here's part of the
culture of Guyana.
The kids, 12, 10, all the way up, they'll start hanging out at the bars.
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They call it liming in Guyana where they'll go and hang out and they'll just chill with
the adults and partake.
And from what I understand, there weren't really any drinking laws in Guyana.
So the adult would, you know, I bought the beer, here you want some kind of a thing.
My parents just didn't want my brother and I interacting in that environment and really
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as a Christian, that's not a good environment to be in because I mean, you don't really
know what's happening or what could happen because people's judgment is impaired.
And then we had, we worked our way into getting to know the locals and as part of AFM's training,
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they suggest that you spend the first year or two doing that culture study and language
learning.
But because Guyana is an English speaking country, we didn't have to devote a large
amount of time.
Right.
More culture, less language.
And though there was less language, they speak pidgin English, not what they call proper
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English like what you and I speak.
They speak, I mean, think about how some of the Caribbean people speak a little bit and
then combine that with a heavier accent and some like.
Can you give us an example of what that sounds like or has it been too long?
It's hard to get into it because I'm speaking with someone who speaks proper English and
I definitely can't do it as well as they can by this point, but.
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All right, we'll let you off the hook.
I can try if you want.
It's okay.
Everybody at home is going, make her do it, make her do it.
No, no, we won't do that to you.
So we had this and the dialect that they speak is different enough that if I was speaking
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like I am to you, some of them wouldn't be able to understand it.
Even though they have a lot of the movies we watch in the TV shows and stuff that they
get through pirating stuff.
But after we within the first year we were there, we had a family come to us and ask
us to do Bible studies.
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And I mean, what do you do?
I mean, God's brought them to you.
You can't say no.
Friendship, evangelism and the Holy Spirit working.
Yeah.
So my parents started doing Bible studies with them and the group slowly grew.
And at one point they were like, hey, can we keep like what do you do for like keeping
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Sabbath or keeping Sunday or like what do you do with regards to that?
And they were kind of asking for like a sermon and some they want a church.
They want a church.
And my parents were like, well, we're Seventh-day Adventists, so we keep Sabbath holy.
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But we understand that out of the market days that you have.
That's a big day.
Saturday is a huge day.
Saturdays and Tuesdays in Guyana were their market days.
And if you didn't go to market when market was open, you didn't have food.
So it was very important for them to be able to go to market.
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And they're like, yeah, we need to be able to do that.
So let's have church start at 10.
And so we were like, OK, but we need a building.
And we're like, because our house wasn't big enough.
And my dad was the way we got the building, one of the wheels on our vehicle needed to
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be fixed.
And my dad was trying to get the wheel off and he broke his tool for getting it off.
And he was asking around who has this type of tool that I can borrow.
And he got word that brother so-and-so lives down over so.
That's the directions.
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He lives over so.
Yeah, very, very descriptive to our minds.
So you went over so and found the tool and what happened?
Yeah.
They're like, hey, we heard that you're doing Bible studies.
Would you start the church here?
Kind of thing.
And my parents are like, yeah, we need to pray about this.
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But that's not the response they gave him.
They were like, yeah.
Sure.
Let's talk about this, figure it out, see how things work.
The building had to be cleaned out and benches had to be put in so that people had places
to sit during church.
And that happened.
And later my parents found out that in their culture, in order to start a church, you have
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to have approval from the village chief.
Uh-oh.
Yeah, uh-oh.
And in Guyana, you have two village chiefs.
You have the elected village chief for government work.
And then you have the social village chief who's in charge of like, he's chief because
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the community has put him in that position.
And that's the guy that you really need to have that in order, that approval from in
order to be able to start your church.
So even in the far flung regions, there is layers of bureaucracy.
Yes, yes.
Anyway, go ahead.
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How did the approval go?
It went well, seeing as the guy who asked us to start the church in that building was
the village chief.
Oh, that worked out very well.
Amen.
Did.
Wow, praise the Lord.
So that's kind of how the church there started, a small group that grew to a larger group
that needed an actual building.
And the chief was the one that offered the building.
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All right.
I don't know if you have more you want to add to that, but I'm interested in jumping
over to Cambodia when you're ready.
Tell us what you were doing in Cambodia and what that work was like.
I went through Adventist Frontier Missions as a student missionary, which is the same
organization my parents trained with.
So I got similar training to what they got, but instead of training for three months,
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like my parents did, I only trained for about a month, which shortens a lot of the training.
You don't need as much because you're going for a short period of time.
You're going in a supporting role.
The career missionaries are looking out for you.
You don't need to have as much in-depth culture study.
But they provided us with some with some expectations as far as like you're going to get culture
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shock.
You're going to have to readjust.
You need to do language learning.
Here's some ideas on how to do that.
And they gave us these these sets of tools to be able to use towards the ministry that
we were there to support.
I'm going to lean past you before you continue and look over at Jordan.
Jordan worked with young adult missionary service in Jordan.
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You were in Thailand.
Am I correct with that?
Yeah, that's correct.
OK.
And before that, as a much younger person, where were you?
We were in the Congo.
OK.
So your experiences in Africa and in Asia and your experience, you know, was in South
America and Asia.
So I wonder, I wonder, Jordan, as we talk, maybe there are some comparisons to be made
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between the two countries being pretty much side by side, right?
Cambodia and Thailand?
Yeah, that's correct.
OK.
Cambodia and Thailand are right by each other.
They share a border.
Yeah.
So you guys can dialogue a little bit in this segment, too, about being similar ages in
in those countries.
But go ahead, Serena.
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And like I said, Jordan, feel free to jump in here.
So after completing the training, I had about a month to.
Hmm.
Yeah, about a month to prepare to actually launch.
And I didn't know where I was going initially because of covid.
The training and the fundraising that I had to do had all kind of shifted on what it looked
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like.
And I had to have my fundraising and mostly by the time training started, I had to have
a certain amount more for training to start.
Right.
For me to be able to go to training.
And training had changed because of covid.
And normally the student missionaries that were training, they were able to go out into
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the community and interact with the people in the training, you know, the training facility
and build relationships with them.
But because of covid, we weren't able to leave.
We were actually quarantined to the facility for two weeks before we were able to leave
and do shopping and stuff.
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What a tough orientation.
Oh, man.
All right.
So go on.
So we trained and then I launched in September of 2020.
And I had to get Cambodia required certain things in order to enter the country, one
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of those being a document from a doctor that had done a covid test, a specific type of
covid test they were very picky on, which one it was.
And this document had to have a stamp and a signature on the stamp from the doctor.
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And that's not something we do here.
So the doctors don't have those types of stamps.
And luckily, one of the student missionaries that was going to Cambodia with me, her mother
is a doctor and she was able to find a company that makes what do you call it?
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Custom stamps.
And we were able to get one of those.
She was able to do the documentation.
And she could have been in high demand after that.
Yeah.
All right.
So they accepted that they accepted that.
And when we got to Cambodia, we had to quarantine for two weeks.
But when I arrived at that point, covid wasn't super scary in Cambodia.
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So we only had to quarantine for three days at the hotel before we were allowed to go
over to the province that we were going to be working out of.
And then we finished up our 14 day quarantine in the province that we were working in.
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And that was a little bit rough because it was just me and three other girls in a facility.
We're actually at in the living quarters of the school.
And then the one guy, student missionary ended up being by himself in a little house for
the rest of those two weeks.
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And we weren't allowed outside because the locals had told the principal of the school
that if we walked around and stuff and spread covid around, they blame the school for it.
So they told the career missionaries told us not to leave the building itself.
But when school was closed for the day, we were allowed to walk around and the whole
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building, but we just couldn't leave the building.
It's a tough quarantine.
Yeah.
Is there any specific story or blessing from your experience here in Cambodia?
Two years is a lot to summarize into one short little blip.
But maybe just give us one story.
Let me think.
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One of my second year, I was there with two of the other missionaries that I launched
with and we had a couple of other missionaries come down.
But myself and one of the missionaries that stayed with me, she and I moved out to a village
that we were working in.
It was only like eight, ten minutes away from the actual city.
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If you want to call it a city, it's like a small town.
But we moved there and the time to travel changed depending on what it was throughout
the year because that road was made out of mud clay mixture.
So when it rained, it really wasn't nice to drive on.
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Because we were living there, we had a lot of the village kids come and play with us
and we kind of entertained them on some level, made friends with them.
And one of the local women who was living by herself with her children, she started
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doing Bible studies because she saw that we cared for her kids.
And she was very impressed with how we actually cared for them and how we interacted with
them and all of that.
And that opened the doors for her to do Bible studies with the current missionaries.
And we started doing those Bible studies with her while I was still there.
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And from what I know, by this point, she's been baptized.
Amen.
So that was really cool to see.
Yeah, that's a neat story to be a part of that experience.
Wow.
Okay.
So we're going to take another break and come back.
Kind of tell us about future plans and any of this we've talked about that you want to
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add to or informs that future, you can share that as well.
We certainly hope you've been encouraged and been blessed by the program today.
We have more to come, but we need to take a break.
So remember, you can give at missionsunlight.org or you can share this program with anyone
right now.
Thank you for doing both or either.
(30:09):
We'll be back with more Mission Sunlight Chat.
Our salvation is a day to day matter, isn't it?
The real principle of the Sabbath is reconnecting ourselves with the Creator.
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We must learn to abide in Jesus' name.
We move ahead with our mission objectives, recognizing that we are serving together the
Most High God.
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Welcome back to Mission Sunlight.
Our guest, Serena Van Fossen and our engineer, Jordan Wagner.
Jordan, Serena, if you will, let's get the camera over to Jordan.
Jordan, as you listen to some of those experiences from Cambodia, any of that reminiscent of
your experience in Thailand, the culture or just watching people's lives change, any of
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that you recall from your experience?
Yeah.
I mean, the culture in Thailand, they've got differences, but they're very similar as well.
When I was there, I just enjoyed being in that culture.
I guess my question for Serena is how have you found that this has impacted your life
for what you want to do in your future?
Because I know my mission experience growing up and once I was in college has made a big
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impact on my life and kind of changed what I plan to do in post collegiate time.
Yeah.
This has impacted me because in and I'll get into that.
When I was there, we had a very diverse team of missionaries that, I mean, diverse as in
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a couple from South America.
So one was from Ecuador and the other one was from Chile.
No.
Anyway.
And then we had two career missionaries from South Africa and then two families from the
United States.
So we had this mesh of different cultures within the team itself and that created some
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conflict because of cultural differences.
And I think there was this concept of we're the career missionaries and we all kind of
have the same culture.
And that created some conflict because someone would do something and they're like, oh, I
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think this is what I'm supposed to do because that's what I'm used to doing.
And then the other person would be like, why did you do that?
That's not the way it works.
So there's this level of conflict that happened within the team.
And I found that to be a valuable experience because that helped me grow my conflict resolution
skills.
And going into engineering as a mechanical engineer, I would like to be able to use those
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skills to be able to work with the people that I'll be working with as a mechanical
engineer.
And what I want to do with the mechanical engineering is somehow use that for mission
work, whether that be in the States or in another country.
And well, in the States, it would look like working with people that you can't normally
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access because the people that I would have access to are more upper class because engineers
are in that group of makes who knows how much a year because they design the super fancy
things that go to the moon and back.
That's kind of where I've come from this is not just the people in the third world countries
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that we advertise so much here in America of Africa needs missionaries because they're
they're poor and lowly and look, they're dying from starvation.
And that's true in parts.
But there are also some parts of Africa which are very wealthy.
And there's just this large gap of income that happens in America or not America, well,
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in America, too, but in Africa.
And I want to be able to reach either or and I think engineering provides me a good outlet
for that.
I love that you have thought about something that is not mainstream, if you will, to the
missionary movement and found a way to still apply it for the kingdom that is really that's
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a great vision.
I admire that.
Jordan, I don't want to take away from any of the question you have, but I just wanted
to comment that if you have anything else.
I think I was.
Yeah.
Anything else you want to share about where you're headed?
I mean, I think what you're laying out is really cool vision.
Anything else on that or?
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I can't think of anything.
Okay.
Well, maybe just share a last word with our audience.
It's important to be able to see not just who you are, but who you're trying to reach.
And if you're trying, maybe you're trying to reach yourself.
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What we're spending our time with.
By that, do you mean, I'm just going to interrupt, but by that, do you mean when you think of
reaching yourself, just finding your place in ministry, finding what God wants you to
do?
Is that what you mean?
Yeah, partly.
Okay.
Yeah.
And sometimes we're in the spot where we're like, I want God, but I don't want to put
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that work in to sacrifice the things that I enjoy, maybe.
And I mean, we could look to Moses.
He set aside the pleasures of sin to endure affliction with the children of Israel, knowing
that God would bring them out of Egypt to a better place.
And he chose that relationship with God over those things that Egypt had to offer as the
(36:33):
world's leading technological society, leading society of, I mean, they were rulers of the
world at the time that Moses was in that position.
So he had access to things that nobody else in his time period would have had.
(36:54):
And in America, we have kind of the same thing, and we need to be able to look at the things
that we're doing and see what we can sacrifice.
And maybe some of those things that we could sacrifice, I would say the things that we
should sacrifice are the things that aren't bringing us closer to God, because what's
not bringing us closer to God is pushing us away from him.
(37:18):
And in finding where we're supposed to go, we can't do that if we're clinging onto the
things from our past that are true for all of us, are keeping us from God.
And we need to be able to give those to God and be like, hey, I know this is something
you don't want me to do.
And I'm struggling with setting this aside.
(37:42):
Help me to recognize that in the moment that I'm tempted to do that, or that I'm tempted
to think that way, or that I'm tempted to act, or an attitude that I have, or something,
that we would be able to leave that aside and be like, God, I want you over this.
(38:04):
Let me move closer to you.
And to not get caught in the moment, but to think to the future.
Kind of a Proverbs one approach, make my will your will.
Or make your will what I will.
Transform me into your character kind of thing.
And Ecclesiastes comes to mind too.
(38:26):
This is the whole duty of man to love God and keep his commandments.
And I realized that in that verse it says fear, but I feel like love God is a better
description of that.
At least to respect him in when we respect.
Yeah.
Because love and fear, the fear I feel like is a bad translation of that word there.
(38:51):
Because perfect love casts out fear.
And if God is love, how can he be fear?
But yes, there's this form of respect to that.
Yeah, I think the translation probably should have been respecting the awesomeness of God.
And when you respect, when you get to know someone, love is the natural response.
And he's all powerful.
(39:11):
So there is a certain amount of fear that would probably be entailed with that as far
as.
And that was probably the approach of the translators back then.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So anything else in your final thought, I kind of cut you off there.
That we would let go of those things and move closer to him, even if in the moment we're
(39:32):
like, oh, I like this.
But.
Total surrender.
Yeah, total surrender.
Absolutely.
Wow.
Thank you.
Thanks for sharing today.
Yeah.
We're going to wrap up the program, but let's have a word of prayer together.
Father in heaven, thank you so much for this time with Serena and Jordan.
Lord, I pray your blessings on these words as they go out, whoever they touch, whoever
(39:55):
might be listening right now, that they would know that Jesus is their very best friend,
that he longs to spend time with them, that he longs to help improve and increase and
bless their life through a connection with him.
And if anything we have said has been useful for your kingdom, Lord, let it flourish and
(40:17):
let it ripple out to anyone and everyone that it can be a blessing.
Thank you for this time with Serena.
Please continue her with her on her journey.
That is she takes this unique approach to missionary service that you and your kingdom
will be honored.
Thank you for this time.
Put it in your hands in Jesus name.
(40:37):
Amen.
Again, thank you, Serena.
That is today's program from the Media Missionaries of Network 7 Media Center.
This has been Mission Sunlight Chat with our guest Serena van Fossen.
I'm Christopher Beeson, your host and today's engineer, our director of production, Jordan
Wagner.
We thank you for joining us.
We thank you for sharing our show with your friends via text or email or on your social
(41:02):
media platforms, whatever way you want to tell others about Mission Sunlight Chat.
We also thank you for your gifts and your prayers, especially, especially your prayers.
That's all today from our studios in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
This is Mission Sunlight Chat.
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(00:24):
Welcome to Mission Sunlight Chat from the Media Missionaries of Network 7 Media Center.
We are in our world headquarters studio located in Chattanooga, Tennessee in the United States
of America, wherever you are.
Welcome to our program.
My name is Christopher Beeson and our director of production and engineering today is Jordan
Wagner.
Our guest today is Serena Van Fossen.
(00:44):
Serena, welcome to the studio.
Thank you.
I'm going to share with the folks at home a little bit about our program and then we'll
come back and start a conversation, a chat, if you will.
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Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Serena, we want to thank you for joining us today in our studio.
We're glad you're here.
You have a bit of a mission background and we're going to talk about the history of that,
but tell us who you are.
(02:12):
What are you doing now for, whether it's school, work, play, family, just tell us a little
bit about yourself.
Not a little bit.
Some family history.
My family is Adventist for several generations.
So I grew up Adventist.
My parents grew up Adventist.
(02:32):
Some of my grandparents grew up Adventist.
So there's some background and some groundwork that has been laid generationally in my family.
Kind of runs in your blood.
Yeah, on some level.
My parents, when I was 11 or 10, decided to, they felt called to move to the mission field
(02:54):
to South America and God opened the doors when we needed to walk through them.
And they just kept opening and my dad would pray, God, if you want us to go, open the
doors and don't just open them.
Put a vacuum on the other side.
(03:17):
And God did that and we kind of got pulled along into this mission field in Guyana and
we were there for about five years.
All right.
For those who aren't global or for those who may not know, where is Guyana?
It is along the Northern coast of South America.
It's just above Brazil.
(03:39):
And then to the East, there's Suriname and French Guyana.
And then to the West, there's Venezuela.
So out in the Caribbean to the North would be what?
Trinidad and Tobago?
Trinidad and Tobago.
Yep.
Okay.
All right.
Keep going.
(03:59):
My family was there for five years.
My parents felt led that it was time to move back to the States when my brother and I were
about the age to be halfway or most of the way through high school.
And my parents wanted to make sure that my brother and I had some experience in attending
formal education before we went to college.
(04:22):
And I have found that very helpful.
But also at that time, my parents had had one church plant and then a local person was
working on another church plant.
And that church plant was at the point where we really needed to step out.
And they were ready to take lead.
(04:44):
And we slowly stepped out during that last year that we were there.
And we were putting the local leaders in position and giving them guidance for how to lead and
how to do Bible studies and how to do sermons.
And granted, throughout our time there, we were kind of teaching that through our example.
So that is the biblical process of discipleship, making disciples.
(05:10):
So here today, what are you doing?
It's summer.
So right now I've found a summer job.
But I'm working on completing my bachelor's in science of engineering at Walla Walla University.
And I'm about, I would be considered a senior now, at least with regards to how far I am
(05:31):
through the program, but I completed two years of student mission work in Cambodia.
So that has shifted my coursework a little bit.
Okay, how has that, what you're doing in your coursework, affected your summer job?
So the summer job that I got is really cool.
I just started today.
(05:52):
I'm working at Southern Adventist University as kind of an assistant to help them start
their new engineering program there, and they're having me utilize some of the skills and knowledge
that I've developed in my coursework.
Okay, so how is that?
You're a female in the engineering program.
(06:13):
Are there a lot of females in engineering there?
I can't speak on behalf of Southern because I haven't attended and they're just starting
their actual accredited program this year.
But at Walla Walla my freshman year, it's still majority guys.
(06:37):
The discipline that you're in really changes the proportion of female to male students.
The majority of the female students are in civil engineering and bioengineering because
those, I'm guessing those two are more viewed as service oriented, whereas courses like
(06:58):
mechanical engineering and computer engineering and electrical engineering aren't seen to
have as much human to human interactions.
And in my class with the students that would be graduating with me right now, there are
eight of us and I'm the only female in that group.
(07:18):
Does that gender disparity affect you much or do you feel like you're just running with
the program with everybody else?
After spending some time in a culture where I had to be very acutely aware of if I was
in a room by myself with a guy or how much interaction I had with a guy because of the
(07:43):
way they culturally viewed things in Asia.
Yeah, it has taken me a little bit to adjust again to being in an all male environment
essentially.
Where it's less noticed?
Yeah, where it's not, we don't care so much if, oh, you were seen walking down the street
(08:03):
with someone else that's of the opposite gender.
If somebody's tuning in, they may not know Walla Walla and Southern are both Christian
educational institutions of higher learning.
So we'd like to think that the culture on those campuses is maybe more inclusive and
(08:23):
more supportive of Christian behavior.
I didn't mean to sound hesitant on that, I was just trying to think of the proper way
to say it.
I have close affinity with Southern and feel like they do have that culture on campus and
I'm happy to be a part of the community of Southern too.
(08:46):
I haven't felt any, I don't know, sexism towards me from any of the other students or the faculty.
At most I've only felt like-
And that's at Walla Walla where you've been educating.
Yeah.
I've only felt like some of them feel inferior so they've kind of let that out a little bit
towards me and that could just be because I'm older than them.
(09:08):
I haven't been with them since their freshman year, just a variety of different things.
And it could just be my perception of it.
It could be a variety of things.
Well I'm glad you're comfortable.
What else is going on?
Do you have any hobbies?
Tell us about your family, your parents, your brother.
I'm giving it away, you have a brother.
I'm a first born daughter.
(09:30):
I have an older brother.
He's about 18 months older than I am.
So we've had that competitive sibling rivalry.
Since I came home the first day, that's what I've been told.
Well I've got two older sisters, one one year, one two years.
I'll be in trouble for announcing that on this podcast.
(09:54):
Tell us about your folks.
My brother just graduated from Southern with a BA in business.
And my parents are working in kind of the medical field.
My mom works as a medical technician at a pediatric clinic.
(10:18):
And my dad works as an nurse practitioner at a pain management clinic.
So we brought you on the program to share a little bit about your story of being a missionary.
And so we're going to take a break.
But when we come back, I want you to share a bit about where you have been, both in your
(10:39):
youth, you talked about serving in Guyana, but also where you've just been most recently.
How long were you there?
Were you there a year, year and a half, two years during COVID?
I was in Cambodia for two years.
Okay.
And the majority of that was during COVID, wasn't it?
Yes.
Okay.
We're going to talk about that when we come back.
(11:00):
All right.
You ready for that?
We're going to take a break here for about 60 seconds or so.
Just a reminder, missionsunlight.org is a place where you can learn more and you can
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Please share the link to today's program or the entire show podcast platform with a friend
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(11:22):
We'll be back with more Mission Sunlight Chat.
(11:52):
Welcome back to Mission Sunlight Chat.
(12:14):
Our guest, Serena Van Fossen.
Serena, as we began the program today, we like to begin with prayer and you're going
to share some stories.
Before you do that, we missed having prayer in our first segment.
I want to pause and invite you to pray with us and for our time together.
Go ahead.
Heavenly Father, thank you for today.
Thank you for this opportunity for me to share my story with other people.
(12:37):
I ask that you cause this to bless them and help them to grow towards you because of it.
Please help us to be able to speak clearly so that the people that hear this podcast
would be able to understand and would also be able to share it, whether it just be word
of mouth or through actually sharing the podcast.
(12:59):
Thank you in the Jesus name.
Amen.
Amen.
Tell us a little of your story, the mission experiences you've had.
My family moved to Guyana in, I want to say 2011.
Before we moved down, we did a, we call it a survey trip.
(13:20):
You go down, you spend like a week or two checking out the scene, what's going on there,
kind of where you might be moving in.
If you really want to move in and actually work the mission, is this a project you want
to work on?
Is this people that you want to work with?
Because if the people aren't people you want to work with, it makes a lot of conflict.
(13:45):
So a lot of data gathering.
Yeah.
That's what the survey trip is for.
So my family spent about a week doing a survey trip and we decided that we were going to
move forward with this.
So my family went back to the States and we did training at Adventist Frontier Missions
(14:06):
through their formal training program, which they do culture training, like how do you
study a culture?
In essence, it's you look at their culture, how they behave, how they interact with each
other and you live as one of them among them so they see that you're like them and you're
(14:29):
trying to reduce the number of differences between you and the other people.
And so my parents went through that training.
The training also included some leadership training and some Bible study training and
some other training that's necessary for working with groups of people and in those types of
positions.
(14:51):
And then we went around the States doing some, a bunch of traveling and we did fundraising
towards our goal because a missionary can't live in the mission field without some form
of income and dedicating that much time to mission work requires a source of income that
(15:11):
you're not able to provide for yourself while you're in the field because you're doing all
of this social interaction.
So we had to go do all of that fundraising and after the fundraising was done, we launched,
we spent those five years in Guyana, which because of my age and the age of my peers
(15:37):
that were there, the local peers that I would have had, my parents weren't comfortable with
my brother and I going and hanging out with them off our land because here's part of the
culture of Guyana.
The kids, 12, 10, all the way up, they'll start hanging out at the bars.
(15:57):
They call it liming in Guyana where they'll go and hang out and they'll just chill with
the adults and partake.
And from what I understand, there weren't really any drinking laws in Guyana.
So the adult would, you know, I bought the beer, here you want some kind of a thing.
My parents just didn't want my brother and I interacting in that environment and really
(16:22):
as a Christian, that's not a good environment to be in because I mean, you don't really
know what's happening or what could happen because people's judgment is impaired.
And then we had, we worked our way into getting to know the locals and as part of AFM's training,
(16:45):
they suggest that you spend the first year or two doing that culture study and language
learning.
But because Guyana is an English speaking country, we didn't have to devote a large
amount of time.
Right.
More culture, less language.
And though there was less language, they speak pidgin English, not what they call proper
(17:09):
English like what you and I speak.
They speak, I mean, think about how some of the Caribbean people speak a little bit and
then combine that with a heavier accent and some like.
Can you give us an example of what that sounds like or has it been too long?
It's hard to get into it because I'm speaking with someone who speaks proper English and
I definitely can't do it as well as they can by this point, but.
(17:30):
All right, we'll let you off the hook.
I can try if you want.
It's okay.
Everybody at home is going, make her do it, make her do it.
No, no, we won't do that to you.
So we had this and the dialect that they speak is different enough that if I was speaking
(17:52):
like I am to you, some of them wouldn't be able to understand it.
Even though they have a lot of the movies we watch in the TV shows and stuff that they
get through pirating stuff.
But after we within the first year we were there, we had a family come to us and ask
us to do Bible studies.
(18:15):
And I mean, what do you do?
I mean, God's brought them to you.
You can't say no.
Friendship, evangelism and the Holy Spirit working.
Yeah.
So my parents started doing Bible studies with them and the group slowly grew.
And at one point they were like, hey, can we keep like what do you do for like keeping
(18:35):
Sabbath or keeping Sunday or like what do you do with regards to that?
And they were kind of asking for like a sermon and some they want a church.
They want a church.
And my parents were like, well, we're Seventh-day Adventists, so we keep Sabbath holy.
(18:56):
But we understand that out of the market days that you have.
That's a big day.
Saturday is a huge day.
Saturdays and Tuesdays in Guyana were their market days.
And if you didn't go to market when market was open, you didn't have food.
So it was very important for them to be able to go to market.
(19:17):
And they're like, yeah, we need to be able to do that.
So let's have church start at 10.
And so we were like, OK, but we need a building.
And we're like, because our house wasn't big enough.
And my dad was the way we got the building, one of the wheels on our vehicle needed to
(19:45):
be fixed.
And my dad was trying to get the wheel off and he broke his tool for getting it off.
And he was asking around who has this type of tool that I can borrow.
And he got word that brother so-and-so lives down over so.
That's the directions.
(20:06):
He lives over so.
Yeah, very, very descriptive to our minds.
So you went over so and found the tool and what happened?
Yeah.
They're like, hey, we heard that you're doing Bible studies.
Would you start the church here?
Kind of thing.
And my parents are like, yeah, we need to pray about this.
(20:30):
But that's not the response they gave him.
They were like, yeah.
Sure.
Let's talk about this, figure it out, see how things work.
The building had to be cleaned out and benches had to be put in so that people had places
to sit during church.
And that happened.
And later my parents found out that in their culture, in order to start a church, you have
(20:54):
to have approval from the village chief.
Uh-oh.
Yeah, uh-oh.
And in Guyana, you have two village chiefs.
You have the elected village chief for government work.
And then you have the social village chief who's in charge of like, he's chief because
(21:14):
the community has put him in that position.
And that's the guy that you really need to have that in order, that approval from in
order to be able to start your church.
So even in the far flung regions, there is layers of bureaucracy.
Yes, yes.
Anyway, go ahead.
(21:35):
How did the approval go?
It went well, seeing as the guy who asked us to start the church in that building was
the village chief.
Oh, that worked out very well.
Amen.
Did.
Wow, praise the Lord.
So that's kind of how the church there started, a small group that grew to a larger group
that needed an actual building.
And the chief was the one that offered the building.
(21:59):
All right.
I don't know if you have more you want to add to that, but I'm interested in jumping
over to Cambodia when you're ready.
Tell us what you were doing in Cambodia and what that work was like.
I went through Adventist Frontier Missions as a student missionary, which is the same
organization my parents trained with.
So I got similar training to what they got, but instead of training for three months,
(22:21):
like my parents did, I only trained for about a month, which shortens a lot of the training.
You don't need as much because you're going for a short period of time.
You're going in a supporting role.
The career missionaries are looking out for you.
You don't need to have as much in-depth culture study.
But they provided us with some with some expectations as far as like you're going to get culture
(22:43):
shock.
You're going to have to readjust.
You need to do language learning.
Here's some ideas on how to do that.
And they gave us these these sets of tools to be able to use towards the ministry that
we were there to support.
I'm going to lean past you before you continue and look over at Jordan.
Jordan worked with young adult missionary service in Jordan.
(23:11):
You were in Thailand.
Am I correct with that?
Yeah, that's correct.
OK.
And before that, as a much younger person, where were you?
We were in the Congo.
OK.
So your experiences in Africa and in Asia and your experience, you know, was in South
America and Asia.
So I wonder, I wonder, Jordan, as we talk, maybe there are some comparisons to be made
(23:35):
between the two countries being pretty much side by side, right?
Cambodia and Thailand?
Yeah, that's correct.
OK.
Cambodia and Thailand are right by each other.
They share a border.
Yeah.
So you guys can dialogue a little bit in this segment, too, about being similar ages in
in those countries.
But go ahead, Serena.
(23:55):
And like I said, Jordan, feel free to jump in here.
So after completing the training, I had about a month to.
Hmm.
Yeah, about a month to prepare to actually launch.
And I didn't know where I was going initially because of covid.
The training and the fundraising that I had to do had all kind of shifted on what it looked
(24:19):
like.
And I had to have my fundraising and mostly by the time training started, I had to have
a certain amount more for training to start.
Right.
For me to be able to go to training.
And training had changed because of covid.
And normally the student missionaries that were training, they were able to go out into
(24:42):
the community and interact with the people in the training, you know, the training facility
and build relationships with them.
But because of covid, we weren't able to leave.
We were actually quarantined to the facility for two weeks before we were able to leave
and do shopping and stuff.
(25:03):
What a tough orientation.
Oh, man.
All right.
So go on.
So we trained and then I launched in September of 2020.
And I had to get Cambodia required certain things in order to enter the country, one
(25:24):
of those being a document from a doctor that had done a covid test, a specific type of
covid test they were very picky on, which one it was.
And this document had to have a stamp and a signature on the stamp from the doctor.
(25:46):
And that's not something we do here.
So the doctors don't have those types of stamps.
And luckily, one of the student missionaries that was going to Cambodia with me, her mother
is a doctor and she was able to find a company that makes what do you call it?
(26:06):
Custom stamps.
And we were able to get one of those.
She was able to do the documentation.
And she could have been in high demand after that.
Yeah.
All right.
So they accepted that they accepted that.
And when we got to Cambodia, we had to quarantine for two weeks.
But when I arrived at that point, covid wasn't super scary in Cambodia.
(26:32):
So we only had to quarantine for three days at the hotel before we were allowed to go
over to the province that we were going to be working out of.
And then we finished up our 14 day quarantine in the province that we were working in.
(26:53):
And that was a little bit rough because it was just me and three other girls in a facility.
We're actually at in the living quarters of the school.
And then the one guy, student missionary ended up being by himself in a little house for
the rest of those two weeks.
(27:14):
And we weren't allowed outside because the locals had told the principal of the school
that if we walked around and stuff and spread covid around, they blame the school for it.
So they told the career missionaries told us not to leave the building itself.
But when school was closed for the day, we were allowed to walk around and the whole
(27:34):
building, but we just couldn't leave the building.
It's a tough quarantine.
Yeah.
Is there any specific story or blessing from your experience here in Cambodia?
Two years is a lot to summarize into one short little blip.
But maybe just give us one story.
Let me think.
(27:58):
One of my second year, I was there with two of the other missionaries that I launched
with and we had a couple of other missionaries come down.
But myself and one of the missionaries that stayed with me, she and I moved out to a village
that we were working in.
It was only like eight, ten minutes away from the actual city.
(28:22):
If you want to call it a city, it's like a small town.
But we moved there and the time to travel changed depending on what it was throughout
the year because that road was made out of mud clay mixture.
So when it rained, it really wasn't nice to drive on.
(28:43):
Because we were living there, we had a lot of the village kids come and play with us
and we kind of entertained them on some level, made friends with them.
And one of the local women who was living by herself with her children, she started
(29:04):
doing Bible studies because she saw that we cared for her kids.
And she was very impressed with how we actually cared for them and how we interacted with
them and all of that.
And that opened the doors for her to do Bible studies with the current missionaries.
And we started doing those Bible studies with her while I was still there.
(29:26):
And from what I know, by this point, she's been baptized.
Amen.
So that was really cool to see.
Yeah, that's a neat story to be a part of that experience.
Wow.
Okay.
So we're going to take another break and come back.
Kind of tell us about future plans and any of this we've talked about that you want to
(29:49):
add to or informs that future, you can share that as well.
We certainly hope you've been encouraged and been blessed by the program today.
We have more to come, but we need to take a break.
So remember, you can give at missionsunlight.org or you can share this program with anyone
right now.
Thank you for doing both or either.
(30:09):
We'll be back with more Mission Sunlight Chat.
Our salvation is a day to day matter, isn't it?
The real principle of the Sabbath is reconnecting ourselves with the Creator.
(30:36):
We must learn to abide in Jesus' name.
We move ahead with our mission objectives, recognizing that we are serving together the
Most High God.
(30:59):
Welcome back to Mission Sunlight.
Our guest, Serena Van Fossen and our engineer, Jordan Wagner.
Jordan, Serena, if you will, let's get the camera over to Jordan.
Jordan, as you listen to some of those experiences from Cambodia, any of that reminiscent of
your experience in Thailand, the culture or just watching people's lives change, any of
(31:20):
that you recall from your experience?
Yeah.
I mean, the culture in Thailand, they've got differences, but they're very similar as well.
When I was there, I just enjoyed being in that culture.
I guess my question for Serena is how have you found that this has impacted your life
for what you want to do in your future?
Because I know my mission experience growing up and once I was in college has made a big
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impact on my life and kind of changed what I plan to do in post collegiate time.
Yeah.
This has impacted me because in and I'll get into that.
When I was there, we had a very diverse team of missionaries that, I mean, diverse as in
(32:11):
a couple from South America.
So one was from Ecuador and the other one was from Chile.
No.
Anyway.
And then we had two career missionaries from South Africa and then two families from the
United States.
So we had this mesh of different cultures within the team itself and that created some
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conflict because of cultural differences.
And I think there was this concept of we're the career missionaries and we all kind of
have the same culture.
And that created some conflict because someone would do something and they're like, oh, I
(32:56):
think this is what I'm supposed to do because that's what I'm used to doing.
And then the other person would be like, why did you do that?
That's not the way it works.
So there's this level of conflict that happened within the team.
And I found that to be a valuable experience because that helped me grow my conflict resolution
skills.
And going into engineering as a mechanical engineer, I would like to be able to use those
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skills to be able to work with the people that I'll be working with as a mechanical
engineer.
And what I want to do with the mechanical engineering is somehow use that for mission
work, whether that be in the States or in another country.
And well, in the States, it would look like working with people that you can't normally
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access because the people that I would have access to are more upper class because engineers
are in that group of makes who knows how much a year because they design the super fancy
things that go to the moon and back.
That's kind of where I've come from this is not just the people in the third world countries
(34:13):
that we advertise so much here in America of Africa needs missionaries because they're
they're poor and lowly and look, they're dying from starvation.
And that's true in parts.
But there are also some parts of Africa which are very wealthy.
And there's just this large gap of income that happens in America or not America, well,
(34:38):
in America, too, but in Africa.
And I want to be able to reach either or and I think engineering provides me a good outlet
for that.
I love that you have thought about something that is not mainstream, if you will, to the
missionary movement and found a way to still apply it for the kingdom that is really that's
(35:04):
a great vision.
I admire that.
Jordan, I don't want to take away from any of the question you have, but I just wanted
to comment that if you have anything else.
I think I was.
Yeah.
Anything else you want to share about where you're headed?
I mean, I think what you're laying out is really cool vision.
Anything else on that or?
(35:25):
I can't think of anything.
Okay.
Well, maybe just share a last word with our audience.
It's important to be able to see not just who you are, but who you're trying to reach.
And if you're trying, maybe you're trying to reach yourself.
(35:46):
What we're spending our time with.
By that, do you mean, I'm just going to interrupt, but by that, do you mean when you think of
reaching yourself, just finding your place in ministry, finding what God wants you to
do?
Is that what you mean?
Yeah, partly.
Okay.
Yeah.
And sometimes we're in the spot where we're like, I want God, but I don't want to put
(36:08):
that work in to sacrifice the things that I enjoy, maybe.
And I mean, we could look to Moses.
He set aside the pleasures of sin to endure affliction with the children of Israel, knowing
that God would bring them out of Egypt to a better place.
And he chose that relationship with God over those things that Egypt had to offer as the
(36:33):
world's leading technological society, leading society of, I mean, they were rulers of the
world at the time that Moses was in that position.
So he had access to things that nobody else in his time period would have had.
(36:54):
And in America, we have kind of the same thing, and we need to be able to look at the things
that we're doing and see what we can sacrifice.
And maybe some of those things that we could sacrifice, I would say the things that we
should sacrifice are the things that aren't bringing us closer to God, because what's
not bringing us closer to God is pushing us away from him.
(37:18):
And in finding where we're supposed to go, we can't do that if we're clinging onto the
things from our past that are true for all of us, are keeping us from God.
And we need to be able to give those to God and be like, hey, I know this is something
you don't want me to do.
And I'm struggling with setting this aside.
(37:42):
Help me to recognize that in the moment that I'm tempted to do that, or that I'm tempted
to think that way, or that I'm tempted to act, or an attitude that I have, or something,
that we would be able to leave that aside and be like, God, I want you over this.
(38:04):
Let me move closer to you.
And to not get caught in the moment, but to think to the future.
Kind of a Proverbs one approach, make my will your will.
Or make your will what I will.
Transform me into your character kind of thing.
And Ecclesiastes comes to mind too.
(38:26):
This is the whole duty of man to love God and keep his commandments.
And I realized that in that verse it says fear, but I feel like love God is a better
description of that.
At least to respect him in when we respect.
Yeah.
Because love and fear, the fear I feel like is a bad translation of that word there.
(38:51):
Because perfect love casts out fear.
And if God is love, how can he be fear?
But yes, there's this form of respect to that.
Yeah, I think the translation probably should have been respecting the awesomeness of God.
And when you respect, when you get to know someone, love is the natural response.
And he's all powerful.
(39:11):
So there is a certain amount of fear that would probably be entailed with that as far
as.
And that was probably the approach of the translators back then.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So anything else in your final thought, I kind of cut you off there.
That we would let go of those things and move closer to him, even if in the moment we're
(39:32):
like, oh, I like this.
But.
Total surrender.
Yeah, total surrender.
Absolutely.
Wow.
Thank you.
Thanks for sharing today.
Yeah.
We're going to wrap up the program, but let's have a word of prayer together.
Father in heaven, thank you so much for this time with Serena and Jordan.
Lord, I pray your blessings on these words as they go out, whoever they touch, whoever
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might be listening right now, that they would know that Jesus is their very best friend,
that he longs to spend time with them, that he longs to help improve and increase and
bless their life through a connection with him.
And if anything we have said has been useful for your kingdom, Lord, let it flourish and
(40:17):
let it ripple out to anyone and everyone that it can be a blessing.
Thank you for this time with Serena.
Please continue her with her on her journey.
That is she takes this unique approach to missionary service that you and your kingdom
will be honored.
Thank you for this time.
Put it in your hands in Jesus name.
(40:37):
Amen.
Again, thank you, Serena.
That is today's program from the Media Missionaries of Network 7 Media Center.
This has been Mission Sunlight Chat with our guest Serena van Fossen.
I'm Christopher Beeson, your host and today's engineer, our director of production, Jordan
Wagner.
We thank you for joining us.
We thank you for sharing our show with your friends via text or email or on your social
(41:02):
media platforms, whatever way you want to tell others about Mission Sunlight Chat.
We also thank you for your gifts and your prayers, especially, especially your prayers.
That's all today from our studios in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
This is Mission Sunlight Chat.
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