MBMS International. Transforming Lives In Mission

Country: Thailand

Project #: C0615

Biography: Edd grew up in Connecticut and was raised in the Christian Science religion. At the age of 17, he accepted Christ through a youth group that he attended. Edd became involved with Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship while he was attending the University of New Hampshire and started to learn more about missions. He went to a missions conference just after his university graduation. It was here that Edd was introduced to a missions agency, and in the fall he went to their training school in Ontario, where he met Ingrid.

Ingrid spent her childhood in Germany, and her family immigrated to Canada when she was 9 years old. She grew up in a Christian family and made a decision for Christ at a camp when she was 10. Her family was very mission-minded and she can remember them praying for missionaries daily when she was a child. Sometime during her early teen years, Ingrid dedicated her life and told God that she was willing to serve Him in long term missions if that’s what He asked her to do.

After high school, Ingrid went back to Germany for a year of Bible school and then decided to do her nurse’s training there. She came back to Canada when this training was completed and started to think more about serving as a missionary. She was interested in trying out a short term mission trip and she ended up at the same training school as Edd.

They were on the same mission team that was heading to Haiti for a year, but were not interested in each other at this time. When they came back from Haiti, Ingrid went to work as a nurse in Alberta. Edd got a job in Alabama but decided to visit Ingrid before moving down there. It was during this visit that they started to become more interested in each other and a few years later they were married and living in Alabama.

After living in Alabama for a while, Edd and Ingrid started looking at mission opportunities again and decided to go back to Haiti. They only intended to serve for two years in Haiti, but ended up staying for seven years. They lived in a rural part of Haiti where there was a school, church and clinic. Ingrid was in charge of the clinic and Edd was involved in a wide range of tasks, such as teaching Bible studies, training local people to run the school and doing agricultural work. After spending seven years in Haiti, Edd and Ingrid felt that it was time to take a step back and hand the work over to the local people.

After leaving Haiti, Edd took an apprenticeship for 6 months in ecological horticulture at the University of California. Towards the end of this time, Edd and Ingrid felt that God was not calling them to go back to serve in Haiti and they didn’t have a specific call to any other place. So Ingrid worked as a health nurse and Edd worked with the US Department of Agriculture in Bakersfield, California. After seven years in Bakersfield, Edd was promoted and transferred to Fresno, California where Edd and Ingrid began attending Butler MB Church.

During their time in the United States, Edd had served on short term mission trips to Congo, Kenya and India and he always came back excited about missions. In 2007, both Edd and Ingrid served on a vision and prayer team that was sent to Thailand from their church to minister with Team 2000. This was when God started to stir a desire to serve overseas in Ingrid’s heart again.

That fall, Edd and Ingrid attended a Perspectives class and God showed them through this class that they needed to be more intentionally involved in missions. They also attended a workshop that taught them about how their gifts could be used to serve in missions. Edd and Ingrid prayed together and then called MBMSI Regional Mobilizer Galen Wiest the next day. He encouraged them to apply so they took his advice. They attended Spring Adventure in April and were then accepted to join MBMSI’s Missionary Training Institute (MTI) in the fall.

Edd and Ingrid are now preparing to serve with a team in northern Thailand at the Changed Life Centre. The focus of the Changed Life Centre is to train and equip Khmu believers and the hope is that this will one day be a training centre for all of South East Asia. Edd and Ingrid have a heart for poor and marginalized people and are hoping to have opportunities to also reach out to the northern Thai people. They want to see lives transformed and communities changed in northern Thailand and all across the world.