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To the Ends of the Earth
Part One: The Journey toward the Call
By Jennifer Raynes (Class of 2006)
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"What if God sends me to Africa?"
Being a missionary is not what Danette (Goodmanson) Childs 88 pictured for her future when she was an ORU student. But after serving for 8 years in Niger, Africa, along with her husband, Neal 89, she can't think of anything she would rather be doing.
"Where His light is seen dim"
The Republic of Niger, a nation in Sub-Saharan West Africa, is listed by the United Nations as the poorest country in the world, according to Wikipedia. Due to its desert climate and frequent droughts, it is also considered one of the hottest places on earth. These conditions, coupled with poor health care, have also made Niger the nation with the highest infant mortality rate, and an alarming high child mortality rate of 25 percent.
The needs are great, and that's exactly why the Childses are there. For these former ORU students (along with their children, Trae, Tanika, and Tobi), "going into every man's world is not just a slogan," Neal says. "It's a reality." The Childses' ministry, "Vie Abondante" ("Abundant Life"), is focused primarily on church planting through discipling and training nationals to reach their own people. In addition to a Bible school that trains up new Christians and future leaders, the Childses facilitate a primary school, a summer camp, and a radio ministry and provide humanitarian aid to the locals--all within a nation that is 95 percent Muslim. The ministry is intense, but according to the Childses, it is more than worth it. An excerpt from one of their update letters says it all: "We are smack in the middle of hot season, which means we are experiencing temps up to 120 degrees. But that's nothing compared to the fire of God that is moving across Niger."
A Lifetime Assignment
So, how exactly did the Childses go from the Prayer Tower and hall meetings to the desert and ministering to Muslims? First, they had to get together--and what better place to do that than ORU? The "ring by spring" or "MRS. Degree" jokes lingered on campus for a long time, and certainly with good reason. No matter what generation of students, alumni are sure to find their fair share of fellow grads who met their spouse at ORU. Neal and Danette did; they were brother/sister wingers, in fact! When Danette met Neal, she was quite intrigued by the "unusualness" of this missionary kid from Nigeria and wanted to get to know him a little better. Taking matters into her own hands (albeit, quite slyly), when it came time for Danette (then a chaplain) to assign brother/sister wing prayer partners, she put everyone else's name in a hat and kept Neal's name for herself. "Without me knowing who or how prayer partners were matched up, [she] assigned us together," Neal recalls. Needless to say, what began as an innocent set-up turned into what the Childses playfully refer to as "a lifetime assignment."
Two Roads Converge
Although Danette knew from the start that she was interested in Neal, and was "impressed by his love for God and ministry," she was not quite sure what to make of his calling. Neal was set on returning to the mission field, something Danette assumed he would "'get over'...once he got assimilated into American culture." Little did Danette know, Neal would not be easily swayed. As a high school senior in a Nigerian boarding school, Neal had had the opportunity to attend a healing crusade that Richard Roberts held in the city of Jos. Seeing the mass evangelism that resulted from the crusade, Neal's "heart was stirred for the vast harvest of souls that were yet to hear the Gospel in other parts of Africa." From that point on, Neal had no doubt that he was called to an unconventional and radical life of reaching the lost.
While Danette was thinking Neal's career plans would change, God was preparing some plans of His own...for her. As Danette prayed about her future, the Lord changed her heart and began to "give her a desire" to do missionary work alongside Neal. Several years later, Danette ironically discovered that God had planted a seed in her life regarding her calling, long before she ever came to ORU. "I found some of my old elementary and junior high school writing assignments [after we were married]," Danette said. "[In them,] I wrote that I wanted to be a missionary in Africa." She says that "the rest is history and it is being written every day."
All in the Family
Armed with a stronger faith and an exciting vision from ORU, Neal and Danette got married a few weeks after graduation and made plans for a future "on mission" together. First, however, came a season of preparation. The Childses moved to Flint, Michigan, where Neal worked at Electronic Data Systems and the couple had their first son, Trae, in 1991. Soon after, their daughter Tanika followed, though not without a struggle. Tanika was born 4 months premature and the diagnosis was grim for the tiny 1 lb., 7oz. baby girl. "It was a long road," Danette recalls, "but we never stopped using our faith--faith we were taught at ORU--believing for our healthy daughter." After "more than her share of close calls...the doctors have declared her a miracle," Danette says of Tanika, who is today living a normal, healthy life, serving alongside her parents.
In the midst of hardship, the Childses never forgot their vision for reaching those who had never heard the Gospel. In Michigan, they served as youth pastors at Davison Full Gospel Church. "During those years," Danette said, "[we were] encouraging teens to take missions trips all over the world, believing it would someday be 'our turn.'" And soon enough, it was. Five years after their ORU graduation, the Childses moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, where they attended Pastor Happy Caldwell's Agape School of World Evangelism (ASWE). After finishing the school, the Childses knew it was time to go forth in their calling. "We took a scouting trip to Niger for 3 weeks to confirm in our hearts that this is where God was calling us. We spent 10 months raising support and returned to Niger as full-time missionaries in July 1998."
While in Africa, the Childses added another little member to their clan--Tobi, who was born in 2000 in South Africa. Tobi, however, like Tanika, also had a rough start. After being born three months premature, doctors told Neal and Danette that Tobi wouldn't live past his first week due to life-threatening infections. But after much prayer, God came through again and Tobi was miraculously healed, and has no health problems to speak of today.
Neal and Danette say that all three children are "very much a part" of their ministry in Niger. With almost half of the population being under the age of 14, the kids play a vital part in reaching out to their peers, doing everything from teaching English in the school, to putting on puppet shows, to playing guitar and drums on the worship team. And it certainly doesn't hurt that the Childs kids have a knack for Hausa, the native language. "Our kids learned the language within months....they learned it faster than we did!" Danette exclaimed.
Committed to bringing the salvation message to the unreached of Niger, over the past eight years, the Childs family has found that life in the desert has both its highlights and its hardships...
(Check back soon for "Part Two" of Neal and Danette's story to find out more about the amazing things the Lord is doing in Niger. You won't want to miss it!)
