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Meet our missionary
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Lydia Goede
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Lydia's exposure to Native ministry began as a young teen growing up
in Germany. Her youth choir sang regularly at a service emphasizing
ministry to South American Native people.
"Though I was convinced at that time that Brazil or Paraguay would be
too hot for me, my interest in Native people grew," Lydia says. Her
missionary journey began there, but Lydia felt that she was not good
enough for full-time ministry.
As time went on, she took nurses training and decided that her role
would be to pray for and support missions.
The next step in Lydia's journey to northern Canada was reading James
Evans' biography (which had been translated into German). She was so
impressed by the hardship that this 19th century missionary had endured
that she wrote to the publisher asking if there were any Canadian
ministries still working to reach Native Canadians.
They referred her to SEND (an interdenominational sister mission of
NCEM's). A year passed while Lydia pondered.
Then, with the help of a fellow nurse who translated her letter into
English, Lydia wrote to the SEND missionaries in Canada. Amazingly, within
a week she had a reply -- an invitation to the Yukon!
In 1994, and then again in 1996, Lydia traveled to Canada for
short-term missions. But at this point she questioned herself. Was her
desire to come to Canada born merely from a sense of adventure?
Leaving nursing, Lydia attended a German Bible school. Her drive to
perform academically brought her to a crisis point and a new way of
thinking emerged: "What I learn only in my head, not in my heart, I won't
be able to teach anyone."
Finally, during a third short-term, this time in Nahanni Butte, NWT,
Lydia went alone before the Lord. "Is this ministry really what you want
from me, Lord?"
After years of testing the waters, Lydia was finally convinced of God's
plan for her when He answered to her heart, "Lydia, you already know
what I want from you. But I need your 'yes' to that, with all its
consequences."
Now, after serving with NCEM in Nova Scotia, and presently in the
Mission's Printshop at Prince Albert, Lydia reflects on what she brings
to this ministry. "I love the Native people. In return I have been
loved. I don't want to turn them into Germans! There is much I can learn
from them.
"For me perhaps it has been easier to minister cross-culturally
because the Canadian culture has taken away the German pressure I felt to 'perform.'
"I know with all my heart that God wants me in this place and,
despite the difficulties, I never feel like running from ministry."
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