In this episode, Pastor Phil interviews international workers Drew and Leslie. They discuss how they met, their family, and how the Lord is working in Central Asia.
Intro
I’m Pastor Phil, pastor of missions at Providence Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. You’re listening to “Reaching the Nations,” a series dedicated to keeping the people of Providence connected with what the Lord is doing in the lives of missionaries and church planters we support around the world.
Phil
Today, I have Drew and Leslie with us who are working in Central Asia, and so welcome, Drew and Leslie.
Leslie
Hey.
Drew
Yeah, thank you.
Leslie
We’re glad to be here.
Phil
It’s really late for them. It’s early morning for us, but it’s late for them, and so they’re ready to go to bed, but they’ve graciously joined us to talk about the work they’re doing and their family. So tell us a little bit about how the two of you met early on.
Leslie
Well, we both decided to, by God’s providence, go to NC State, and He led us to live in Sullivan and Lee dorms which are right next to each other. God used other people in our lives to make us aware of a ministry called InterVarsity. It’s a student ministry that was on campus at NC State. So both of us attended a welcome to campus event the very first weekend of our freshman year. We actually met each other our very first weekend of college.
Drew
Yeah.
Leslie
We were 17 and 18, fresh from our small-town life and at the big campus of NC State. We both got involved in InterVarsity and really grew in our faith there and became really good friends. After knowing each other for three years, we started dating and then through a series of events, eventually came to the point where we decided that we wanted to get married. We got married a year after I graduated, and Drew took five years, so the weekend after Drew graduated, we got married and planted in Raleigh after college. We just loved Raleigh. We loved Providence. And felt like that was where God was calling us so we stayed in Raleigh after college was over.
Phil
How did you get connected to Providence? How’d you end up coming to Providence?
Drew
You started before I did.
Leslie
I did. I started before Drew did. I guess, at that time the college ministry was pretty small, and I guess there were some flyers up and I must’ve gotten on a van or something one Sunday. I don’t even have a clear memory of how we got connected, but it was a great small group. The Baileys were leading it at that point in the literal bar of Providence. And it was like a dark.
Drew
It’s where Prisms is now, right?
Leslie
It’s where Prisms is now, but it was a bar at that point, and Dave O. was there and there was really great chocolate cake every Sunday. And we loved it. It quickly felt like a home, a community. We had our InterVarsity community on campus and then our church community on Sunday.
Phil
Wow. That’s awesome. So tell me a little bit about your kids.
Drew
Yeah, so we have two kids. Eliana is nine and Jayden is four. And with us feeling the Lord leading us to move overseas and serve, really cool story of just God’s grace in blessing us with children. We had been unable to have children for many years and had done many tests and procedures and nothing had worked and just really felt like rather than pursuing more medical processes for trying to get pregnant that we needed to just come on over to Central Asia and start serving. And we came, initially, summer of 2010. And that summer we were connected with an ex-pat believer here who asked us if we wanted to have children. And we told him that we had been unable to. His name was David. And he said the Lord has used me to pray for folks who have struggled with infertility.
And there was this couple, three or five years they’d not been able to have children. David prayed for them and that month the wife got pregnant. He said, “This has only happened like, it’s happened like seven times. Do you want me to pray for you guys?” And we’re like, “Yeah.” So after we finished dinner together that evening he laid hands on us and prayed for us. And we came back to the States that month and were appointed by our sending organization and sent out. And the next day after the appointment ceremony on Leslie’s 30th birthday we found out that she was pregnant with Eliana.
Phil
Wow.
Drew
So Eliana’s name means God has given, and names are really important where we live. And it’s been a cool opportunity to introduce Eliana to everyone and be able to tell the story about our friend David prayed for us in Jesus’ name. The Lord used David’s prayer to bless us with children.
Phil
Wow. Amen. That’s always a great story to hear. I’ve heard it a few times and it never gets old.
Leslie
No.
Phil
And so you talked about moving overseas. Tell me a little bit about how you came to that decision. How did you decide and feel the call to go?
Drew
So I think we have to go back to how we met, that part of the story. Leslie, from a very young age, really felt like the Lord was leading her to go overseas. She had been involved with World Changers in high school, and that was something the Lord really used to show her how she can serve and have an impact in people’s lives through physically serving them, but then also sharing the gospel with them. So she came into NC State thinking that this is something that she wanted to do. And I came to faith my sophomore year of college, even after being in InterVarsity for a year. I grew up in a church, but there was always a disconnect for me when people would talk about having a personal relationship with Jesus. That was the part that I didn’t understand.
So after we started dating, we actually broke up when she said, “Hey, I know I want to go overseas. How about you?” And I was like, “Well, I don’t know. I can’t commit to that. I’m not opposed to it, but.”
Phil
Right.
Drew
So we broke up and after several months of continuing to maintain a close friendship, I told her that I knew I wanted to serve the Lord, and I knew I wanted to be with her, and if that meant that that was doing that overseas, I was up for that. So the Lord really used our relationship and me growing in my faith during our college years to just open my eyes to overseas work, because that’s not something that I had had a whole lot of experience to growing up.
Leslie
And then after we got married, we knew that that was what we wanted to do, but we were a long way from actually getting on a plane and going somewhere. So we joined the team there at Providence, with George at the time, trying to support workers and help mobilize people in the church. And he encouraged us all to go visit people who lived overseas. And we had met a couple who actually at that time was living in the city where we live now and we thought, “Hey, let’s go visit them. That would be fun. We’ve got time.” In December of 2004 at Christmas, we came here to our city and visited this family. We brought loads of Christmas gifts for all the workers here. And we spent like 10 days just hanging out, getting to know the families here, and through that, we actually connected with a different family that was here at the time and we continued to engage with them. And when they were on stateside, we would go visit them, and just continuing to learn about what God was doing here. And at the same time, we were trying to check all the boxes that had to be checked in order to get approved, to go overseas with our sending organization.
And in 2008, we felt like it’s really, really time now. It’s time to go forward. God has told us it’s time to move. And we actually went back here. We came on another trip in the summer of 2008 with a real focus of trying to see is this where God would have us to be. And when we came, we just felt like we could see ourselves living here. There was a job opening for an office manager and they were really looking for someone to fill that role. And we thought, “Well, Drew’s not, administration isn’t his gift, but it’s a job and they need help. And we’re willing to help. And where we live is not very popular. Most people have never even heard of this country. So we might as well do it. We’re willing to go wherever. Seems like that’s where God would have us to be.”
So it wasn’t like super spiritual, God opened the heavens, “You need to go serve the Tajiks.” But we just felt like God was calling us to serve Him and this was a door that He opened for us.
Drew
But He did give us lots of confirmations along the way. We sold our house in 2009 in like five days. And that wasn’t exactly the best market for selling property anywhere in the States. And coming in, like Leslie said, I was a middle school technology teacher for seven years before we came overseas. And just seeing, Leslie’s extremely administrative. That is her gifting. And I was thinking, “How’s this going to work? Me coming into an office manager role for a humanitarian aid organization we have here?” Just seeing that I enjoy relationships. That was why I got into teaching. I just really enjoyed being with people and the relationship aspect of that. And in Central Asia, everything’s about the relationship. You don’t start talking about work until you’ve already asked about somebody’s health and their family, their kids. And it’s just part of the culture. And it was just seeing God’s grace and how he had gifted me for the position that he called us to.
Phil
That’s awesome. And so glad that you were obedient to that call. And I’ve told so many students and young people over the years as they’ve stepped into the office to talk about, “Hey, how do I know if God is calling me to go overseas?” And I say “Well, people just don’t come into my office and talk about those things unless God is working.” And then, so let’s work out the call. It sounds like you did, it took you some time, but visits and prayer and seeking wisdom and all of those things work together to get to the point of you going, actually going.
Drew
Yeah, it was multiple things. The thing that finally got me to the point of us saying, “Okay, let’s go now,” was Zane Pratt coming in 2008 at the mission’s festival at Providence speaking. I mean, we had heard Zane speak before, I think, but it was that moment that we were like, “Okay, well, what are we waiting on? Let’s go.” But it was a process. Yeah.
Phil
That’s good. So, Leslie, you mentioned your city and where y’all moved and visited. So I’m looking at your city on the Joshua Project right now. And it’s largest religion is Islam, 99.5%. The total population is about 9.5 million? Is that about right?
Drew
For the country.
Leslie
For the country. The whole country.
Phil
Yeah. The whole country’s what I mean, not your city. That’d be like living in a place in East Asia.
Leslie
Yes.
Phil
But in the whole country, I’m looking at your country here, but it’s less than .02% evangelical. So obviously it’s a very strategic place to be in Central Asia. Anything else to add to the why of why you’re there?
Drew
Yeah, I mean, it was just, I remember Zane and his talk, speaking specifically about going to serve in a Muslim context where you can share, and we have the gospel to share. We have the ability to communicate it. It was a hard process coming and learning language to be able to do that and learning culture so that you feel like you understand what the rules are for living lives. But at the end of the day, we have the gospel that we can proclaim and we can share. And we don’t always do it eloquently, and most of the time it seems to fall on deaf ears, but we felt like the Lord had called us and He promises that He’ll equip us. So yeah, it was just obedience, I think.
Phil
Yeah. That’s good. So tell me maybe a story or two about how the Lord has worked recently, even in the midst of COVID. Y’all have been stuck there throughout the entire time, and that’s probably a bad word to use because you decided to stay there.
Drew
I feel like we’ve been blessed to be able to remain here. Yeah.
Phil
Yeah, yeah. So tell me a little bit about what the Lord’s doing.
Leslie
So one of the whole things about where we are is that we do have some local believers that we get to work with. They actually work with us in our platform, going out to villages to do mostly clean drinking water but there are other needs that come up that we try to provide for, but people, they’re all eager and excited to share as they go out. And one thing I was really wanting to do this year was to try to invest more in discipleship with our local believing friends. A lot of people are first-generation believers and just haven’t had a lot of discipleship with the word and how to grow and how to teach. We’ve been given that so we want to be responsible with the resources God has equipped us with.
So, right actually before everything kind of shut down, we started doing a monthly Bible study together with the ladies at our office. And then during the COVID, I was able to continue it, even doing Zoom calls with our ladies in the village, which was pretty hilarious trying to figure out how to get people connected to a Zoom call from a village in a third world country. But it was really encouraging. Fast forward it, fast forward to July. We met and after our time I asked the ladies, “What would you like to talk about next?” And they were like, “Spiritual warfare. We need to talk about demons and spiritual warfare.” And I was like, “Well, that’s not really what had on my…”
Phil
Start with some basics.
Leslie
“…I wanted to go into, but okay. If that’s what you feel like you need to talk about then we’ll work on it.” So they have been going out to a village and meeting with a woman there who was a very young believer, but still living with a community of non-believers. And people here are very entrenched in superstition and folk Islam. There’s just a lot of activity in that spiritual realm here that we normally don’t experience very much in America. And they’re trying to help her know how to live within her family and also try to help with some intense, perhaps demon oppression or possession on another member of the family. So they’re wanting to know what is the Bible saying and how can we help them?
So my friend and I decided that we would look into, we would take some time on our own to study the Word, try to see what God was teaching us and then we would come together, put our study together and see where He would lead us. So we did that. We found passages from the Old Testament where God is very straightforward, commanding the people to stay away from these kinds of practices. “They’re evil, they’re an abomination. My people don’t need to have any part of this.” And then in the New Testament, how clearly Jesus had power over demons, he cast them out. Paul and the apostles had power over demons in Acts, clearly, and Ephesians, we have the armor that Paul tells us about to help us fight the spiritual powers.
So anyways, she gathers all this information. They go back out to the village a few weeks ago. They share with this family, and that day, the mom of the daughter in the house who’s experiencing some demon oppression or possession comes to faith after reading, hearing God’s word proclaimed to her.
Phil
Wow.
Leslie
Just one day.
Phil
Praise.
Leslie
And so we were super excited. They’re super excited. There’s still a long way to go. They were talking today about just still the struggles that they have. They’ve come up with a list of all the different ways that people are entrenched in this superstition and try to help people overcome this. When people are new believers, they don’t know how to do everything. So we’re really excited. The ladies are excited. They are wanting to share more. And it’s just really cool how God’s word falls on soft hearts and produces a harvest. And I got to just have a little part in it.
Phil
Praise God. That’s an exciting story because I don’t know if the listeners know, but we have a Central Asia prayer group that prays on a regular basis for the work that’s going on in all of Central Asia, but specifically for our families and the countries and cities that they’re working in. So as they hear this story, they should be encouraged that they had a part to play.
Leslie
Yeah.
Drew
Yeah.
Phil
In asking the Lord. So.
Leslie
I fully believe that the increase in prayer through Providence and other people over the past few years has resulted in the good things that are happening here.
Phil
Yeah. So Emily came over and spent some time there. Are there opportunities for other young people to come and join your team for short-term, mid-term, long-term?
Drew
Yeah, absolutely. There are a lot opportunities with working with students. I think Emily would be a great person for folks to connect to if they can contact you even to get connected with her to be able to see, hear from her, the opportunities that she had to work with with so many different students who are learning to speak English. So not even having to come in for language study, if it’s a especially short trip, but being able to come in and having English actually be the draw. As a native English speaker, you can come in and everybody will flock to you for being able to practice their English because they’re studying but they don’t have many native speakers that they can actually be able to have conversations with. And it’s just lots of opportunities to be able to talk about all the things that they’re dealing with in their life, thinking about marriage, and how marriages here are often arranged, and the issues that go along with that with family issues, with finance issues, because there’s so many struggles here. And just being able to then point them to the Word and look at it together to see how it addresses these issues and ultimately be able to point them to Jesus.
Phil
That’s exciting. Well, we’re praying here at Providence for over the next five years for the Lord to raise up at least 20 full-time workers, but we would love to see even some of our students get involved in the Go Two Initiative and take two years after college and go serve or do a semester as well. So if you’re interested…
Drew
And…
Phil
Go ahead. Go ahead, Drew.
Drew
Yeah, I was just going to say, and I would just say it was so encouraging to us to have her come out for her time with us and see all of the opportunities that she had, because she’s working with a demographic that we’re not as connected to, and just seeing so many amazing opportunities come up. So it was really, her trip, I would say, has really driven our team to work on developing a student ministry because we saw how many opportunities there are.
Phil
Wow.
Leslie
Yeah, it’s just nonstop. It’s nonstop opportunity to be with people. Yeah. It’s an amazing open door if people want to come out and engage with students. The doors are open, for sure.
Phil
That’s exciting. Well, if you’re listening right now and you’re interested in serving with Drew and Leslie in Central Asia, you can email me at pray.org, [email protected] And also if you want to be added to their prayer list and even a newsletter, you can email me at [email protected] and we’ll get you connected with them. So Drew and Leslie, thank you so much for being with us today. And we’re excited about what the Lord is doing in you and through you there in Central Asia. We hope that in 2021, we can reschedule the trip that was supposed to be coming up this week. But we’ll hopefully get that on the books for 2021 and get a team over there to see you and encourage you, and you encourage us. So let me close us in prayer. Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for Drew and Leslie, Eliana and Jayden, Lord, just for how you’re using them in their city there. And Lord, we’re seeing you do great things. We thank you for this lady who has trusted in you. And so I pray that you would continue to use Leslie to encourage, to disciple, to answer questions, but I pray more importantly that you’d use your word to accomplish its purpose and for which it was set. And so we just pray your hand upon Drew and Leslie and their work and the ministry there, and that you would continue to bless them and keep them and your face shine upon them. And we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Drew
Amen.
Phil
All right, we’ll talk to you later.