HE MAKES EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IN ITS TIME.
~Ecclesiastes 3:11
I’ve wanted to be a missionary ever since I was 13 years old. Now, I get to be one!
My name is Rachel. I had a radical encounter with Jesus when I was 12 years old, and my life has been a beautiful adventure ever since. I learned Spanish as a teenager to prepare for missions; traveled and ministered internationally with my Dad for two years after high school; moved to an amazing Christian community in Blaine, MN, where I unexpectedly spent the next eight years; became a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner in the meantime and started my own business in the field of Natural Medicine; and NOW, finally, I am getting to live my dream as a full-time missionary!
NORWAY
In 2022, the Lord unexpectedly called me to close my business and move to Norway to staff at YWAM Grimerud. As the biggest campus in Norway, it has become a thriving hub for many other Norwegian and European YWAM campuses and is effectively sending out many short and long-term missionaries.
HE’S IN THE DETAILS
I spent the next four years there, and still can’t believe I got to live for four years in Europe! I have loved Europe for many years and always dreamed of getting to live there. What I didn’t expect is that I’d get to do so as a missionary.
My younger brother James was also a staff at the same campus, and it had been one of my dreams to “someday” do missions with him. Little did I know it would happen sooner than later. Together, we led prayer and worship classes for some of the schools, and that may well have been one of my biggest highlights of my season in Norway.
MY ROLE
For the first 5 months there, I staffed an international discipleship school and got to lead a 10 week outreach to Albania, where we got to share the gospel with many Muslims.
While there, God unexpectedly gave me a call and vision for taking over the kitchen back at the campus. So, for the following 3 years, I served as the head chef and kitchen manager, feeding around 200 people a day, and sometimes upwards of 600 for events and conferences. As a Nutritional Therapist, it was incredible to be able to use my knowledge and passion to level up the health and quality of the food for the entire community. Over the 3+ years I served as the head chef, I crafted over 50+ diverse recipes, emphasizing quality and flavor. People were constantly raving about the food, and word of our “healthy kitchen” even reached to many other countries.
Although my time in Norway came to a close due to visa issues, I am incredibly grateful that I got to be one small piece of the puzzle of what God is doing in and through Europe—albeit with an apron on.
LONGTERM VISION
Although my long-term goal is still to move to an unreached country (Japan’s the country in my heart), God has called me home for a season. And I firmly believe that this is because He’s called me to write—full-time.
Since I was 15 years old, I’ve said that I wanted to write children’s books. And in the last five or so years, the list of book ideas and projects has only expanded, both in genres and topics. To be completely honest, I think I have enough book inspirations lined up to last me 5–10 years.
At the same time, I feel Him calling me to continue in missions. Based at home with my family in Charleston, SC, I plan to go on many mission trips each year, returning home to write in between.
As an itinerant, writing missionary, I felt the Lord lead me to stay on missionary support as my source of income. As unusual as that may sound, I’ve decided to take a leap of faith and pursue it. And He has been SO faithful! I stand in awe.
LET’S STAY IN TOUCH
Thank you for your friendship in my life. If you care to hear more details about the specifics of this journey or just want to stay in touch, I would love to talk with you.
I’m a bit of an old-fashioned soul + specifically love letter-writing, so feel free to send me some snail-mail! (I promise to write you back.) Otherwise, email or texting is great too.
rachelli.anderson@gmail.com
