What do you do at SIM UK?
I am the Irish Mission Mobiliser at SIM UK, working in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
What does your job look like day-to-day?
It can look different day-to-day, which I love. Every day I’m in contact with somebody, whether that’s a missionary helping them sort things out, or an enquirer who wants to go out and serve short term. Or I could be in contact with a church, chatting through things with them.
What makes you enthusiastic about your work?
Getting to play a part in somebody serving short term, and what it looks like for them to fulfil the call that God’s put on their life. Also, the privilege that I get to stand alongside long-term mission workers who’ve decided: ‘I’m going to give my whole life to this.’
I love working for SIM because I love the fact that it’s sharing the good news of Jesus with those who are yet to hear it, which is a really important thing and something which we need to focus on.
How have you seen God working through your job?
In the past two-and-a-half years, I’ve seen the next generation of mission workers coming through and God stirring their hearts to go on to the mission field. This is definitely not a dying thing – God is still sending and using people. I haven’t necessarily had to do anything: I haven’t had to go to lots of youth events or conferences, but instead God keeps sending them, which is really exciting.
I got to see one of the young people that I led leave for a mission trip recently, and it’s amazing seeing how God is still speaking to people and using people in mission.
How have you been involved in mission in the past?
When I was 16, I was at a conference, and I felt like God was asking me to go to China. There’s no way I could go when I was 16, but it wasn’t something that I just threw away, it was something that I held very close to my heart. I consulted my youth leaders and pastors at the time, and they helped me work through it. I had the opportunity to go to China in my gap year, during which I worked with vulnerable women and trafficking.
In what ways do you continue your ministry in life outside of work?
Outside of work, I’m involved in youth ministry. I think it’s really important to talk to young people about mission from an early age and making it normal that people are being sent onto the mission field. I recently went to France with a church mission team and I took four young people with me. The youngest was 16, which shows the younger ones in church that this isn’t a far-off concept for them either.
How can we pray for you?
- For balancing work and life outside of work, involving youth and church. To know that God is sustaining me.
- To rely on the wisdom of God in situations and areas that I’ve never been in before.