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Meet our missionaries
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Brent
& Wanda Wahlstrom
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Missionary life began very early for Wanda Wahlstrom. She
was born while her parents, Joe and Helen Pope, were NCEMers stationed at
Gods Lake, in remote northern Manitoba. At age two her family moved to
serve in Cumberland House (SK), which Wanda recalls as "the best part
of my childhood," mentioning that she still has friends there.
In her teen years the Popes served in central Alberta.
While Wanda thinks fondly of her youth group and church in Ponoka, life
and ministry for her family on a nearby Reserve was not easy.
After high school she was off to Bible college, thinking
it was probably expected of her as an "MK" to also become a
missionary. However, she spent most of her three years there feeling,
"That’s not what I want to be." Wanda did want
to serve the Lord. It was just that she'd seen more than enough problems
and pain -- like teenage school friends dying from suicide and murder.
But at a missions conference in her final year of college
she said "yes" to God. NCEM seemed the natural choice and in
1980 she began short-term assignments in Yukon, northern BC, as well as at
NCEM's Tribal Trails office in Prince Albert.
And P.A. is where she met Brent, who'd grown up in a
Christian home on a southeastern Saskatchewan farm. He, too, had given his
heart to Christ at a young age. Exposure to missions came through visits
from missionaries to his church and home. He rededicated his life to
Christ as a teen and attended Bible college, following which he trained in
architectural drafting.
With a heart for missions, particularly technical service,
he had contacted an organization which specialized in linking missions
with potential workers. To this day he has not heard back from them!
"So I dropped the missions idea and got a job in
Prince Albert," says Brent. He met Wanda at a singles Bible study.
Though they'd been at Briercrest College together, they'd never spoken to
each other (Wanda says she has no recollection of even seeing him there!).
"In P.A. I got to know Wanda and the Mission at the
same time," says Brent. He joined NCEM in early 1985, they were
married in April, and by fall were serving in Cormorant (MB). Deschambault
Lake (SK) followed and, in 1987, they moved to serve at Tribal Trails.
Brent notes that he hasn't been able to use his drafting skills much.
Instead, he has noticed himself and fellow missionaries often called to
work in areas for which they're not specifically trained. "But the
Lord seems to equip," says Brent, "and it has been enjoyable
serving Him in new and unexpected ways."
Click here to meet more of our
missionaries
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