From Served to Serving

By Abby & Audrey Faulk

We are Abby and Audrey Faulk, sisters from a missionary family in Washington State. We moved from Jacksonville, Texas to the great Pacific Northwest in 2010 when we were 5 and 10 years old. Our dad, Brad, was called to the Tri-Cities (Richland, Kennewick and Pasco) to plant a church. With our dad as the pastor and mom as the worship leader, we definitely got to see a lot of the “behind the scenes” that takes place in not just leading a church but leading a church plant.

Our church’s story is not your typical church story. We met in parks, hotels, living rooms, banquet centers, other churches, schools and pretty much any other place you can think of before we felt led to disband the church after COVID kept us from getting back on our feet. One thing we learned from this experience that our dad always reminded us of was that a church is not a building; it is the people. We are called to make disciples (followers of Christ) people willing to set their pride aside and surrender to an Almighty God.

Looking back over the 13 years God allowed us to serve this church plant, the VSM (Volunteer Student Missions) teams that came to help us are definitely a highlight of our time in the church-planting experience. We would not have been able to reach as many people as we did without students’ willingness to serve! We always looked forward to working with the teams, whether we were putting on an “Easter Extravaganza” or Vacation Bible School for the kids, landscaping and gardening wherever we were meeting at the time, handing out flyers for our church service or even building a potential place for us to meet. The VSM teams were always so willing to serve and remain faithful to God’s plan, which was so inspiring to us growing up! Watching these people selflessly give up a time in their lives where their sole focus was to serve and tell people about Jesus was incredible!

Seeing how these mission teams impacted our church in Washington opened our eyes to a whole new opportunity — VSM! We had the opportunity to serve in Honduras this year with a VSM team, and what a life-changing experience that was. To be able to serve people for the glory of God and share the good news with them was just indescrible. It’s easy to think a trip is just you serving the people wherever you go, but how far from the truth!

The humility and gratitude we gained from this trip still leave us speechless. We served in some places with no air conditioning in the scorching heat and met so many kids with no shoes, yet we saw overflowing joy in these people! Seeing people still coming together to worship Jesus was so beautiful because nothing else mattered! We are blessed with so much, yet take so much for granted here, and this experience definitely opened our eyes to see how joy is so much more than the “things” we desire on this earth. These people didn’t have much, but they had joy in the Lord, and that was all they needed!

As Christians, it is our job to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19), and VSM provides the perfect opportunity to do so. But it didn’t stop for us in Honduras, and it won’t stop for you wherever you serve. We are called to make disciples of all nations, and that includes your hometown, your school campus and your youth group. Spread the good news wherever you go, whether down the street or across the country. Go!

— Are you interested in serving on a mission trip? Go to letsgovsm.com and request information about VSM 2025! You can also contact BMA Global Short-Term Missions Director Angela Rice at angela@bmamissions.com.