About Us

Jay – I was born into a good moral, yet not Christian home in Montana. At a Bible Camp when I was twelve I realized my sin, my need & my hopelessness without God. It was at that time that I accepted God's forgiveness, His gift of salvation, and His love. It was great to grow with my parents, in the knowledge and love for our Savior together as 'babes' in Christ. After high school, I attended Montana Institute of the Bible in Lewistown, MT. It was my third year there I met Jonalynn. Two years later we were married.

Jonalynn – I was born into a Christian home, where Jesus was not just talked about, but lived for…I saw first hand what it meant to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. I was 3 years old when in my limited understanding, I saw that I was a sinner and believed that Jesus died on the cross to save me.

Our first five years of marriage we lived in Montana. When I changed jobs, we moved to Jonalynn's hometown in Washington state. We began to get involved with AWANA and the youth ministry at our church there. We wanted to be used by the Lord for eternal purposes. It was during this time we felt the Lord was preparing us for some type of Christian ministry. We decided that surely the Lord wanted us to serve in the region of the U.S. that we were living in with a predetermined salary; but doing what, we didn't know. In 1994 some friends from Bible school, who were getting ready to go to Papua New Guinea with New Tribes Mission as boarding home parents, came to visit us. God used them to challenge our thinking and show the great need for Christ and the Gospel to be proclaimed in countries such as PNG. We started the NTM training program at Kentucky in 1998. By the fall of 2000, we had completed the training & found ourselves in Papua New Guinea.

There we lived at a small support base near an old Japanese WWII airstrip where New Tribes has a hangar in Hoskins, on New Britain Island. We were part of the supply ministry there at Hoskins for those in the ‘Bush’ locations as well as those on the base. Though we went there with less than 30% of our recommended support level, we knew God wanted us there at that time. We were excited about our ministry there and were looking forward to serving there until we retired.

But God had other plans. When we came back to the U.S. for ‘Home Assignment’, we had built up a considerable debt because of our low support. We were praying that the Lord would raise up some financial partners so that we would be able to pay off our debt & go back to PNG. We spent the following year taking all the opportunities that we could find to share the need there is for more laborers. After being home for a year, Jay was able to get a job with Jonalynn’s uncle to help pay off our debt (yet flexible with our ministry needs). It was at this time that we found out that we needed to either; go back to PNG, find a ministry here in the states with NTM or resign from the mission.

We had to come to the point that we were ready to say okay Lord, we won’t go back to PNG. We had to also be willing to not be involved with tribal missions. We saw the great need for laborers, but we had to realize that God may not want us to be part of NTM anymore. Often times it seems that God has to do a great work in someone’s heart to get them to say “Lord, send me overseas as a missionary”. It was harder for us to come to the place that we would say “Lord, we are willing to not go back to PNG, if that be your will” than to originally say “Lord, I am willing to go overseas”.

When we came to that place that we were ready to go anywhere He would want us to go, even if it wasn’t back to PNG or continue with the mission; the Lord opened doors. There was an opening here in Sanford, our debt was paid off and our monthly support increased (instead of decreasing as it can commonly do for state side missionaries).

In 2006 we moved down to Florida to the ministry that we are currently involved in. As before, we know God wants us here at this time. We are content knowing that God has led us here and is using us as a vital part of the body taking the Gospel to those who haven’t heard about what Jesus did for them. We are excited about being part of the team reaching those that live in unreached areas of the world.