✈️ TREE 613: Jeff Gill – missionary, pastor, teenager
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My dad was the pastor of my church. When I was 17 I became the youth pastor. It turned out that I was quite good at it, and the church grew significantly thanks in part to the work that I did with teenagers over the next 10 years. But seriously, no one gets to be youth pastor at 17 unless their dad is the pastor.
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When I was 13 my family went to Guatemala to spend Christmas with my aunt and uncle. They worked for Wycliffe translating the bible into the Eastern Cakchiquel language. They were some of the first people to use computers to assist in bible translation. We climbed a live volcano.
Not too long after, I went to Mexico with my dad and some friends to build a new outhouse for some missionaries working with the Tarahumara people (of Born to Run fame).
At 17ish I went to Awka, Nigeria with my dad. I was the photographer and clothes ironer. He was the guest speaker at the annual conference of an association of churches.
In 1992, when I was 18, I went to Moscow twice (with Bill) to do presentations in schools about building godly character. The best part of those trips was going to students homes for dinner after the presentations.
That same year I went to Caracas, Venezuela with Teen Mania to do street drama to try and convert people to evangelical Christianity. (In the lobby of hotel where we stayed, I saw what I’m pretty sure was an actual WWII Nazi. This ancient white guy was there waiting. A car pulled up outside. A man came in, gave the old guy a Nazi salute. The old guy saluted back. They left.)
Aged 19, I helped lead a team from my church to do a similar thing in Fochriw, South Wales. The best part of that trip was that I met Christine. We got married three years later.
When I was 20 I went back to Moscow for four months (with Bill), but that story is for another time. So is the Hong Kong trip.
I don’t know how much good I did for others on those trips. I do know they transformed my life. I didn’t see many shiny tourist areas. I did spend a lot of time with ordinary people learning about their lives, telling them about mine. When your world gets big, your mind can’t stay small.
When I was visiting schools in Moscow, I heard a lot of Russian folk music, which I loved. My favourite moment was a performance of Moscow Nights. This version in English is the closest I could find to the feeling I remember in that school hall in 1992.
What can you do this summer to get seriously outside of the world you know?
Semi-connected to today’s post: are you connected to the music industry in the UK or Europe? If you are, could you reply to this email? A FFOREST friend and serious recording artist in the States would like to connect with you.
Grow slowly
Jeff