Our Story
We are the Stahl Family and this is our story… several years ago God started stirring our family in many ways. We were living in Minnesota, were I (Ryan) worked as an engineer. Our family was also attended a church for 20 years and were very involved in all aspects of it. I also had the privilege to serve as a bi-vocational pastor at my church for almost ten years. We currently reside in Yuma, AZ.
It Started with a Stirring
In the fall of 2018 God stirred our hearts for the persecuted church. There are many places in the world where it is illegal or at least very difficult to be a Christian. Sometimes it is governmental restrictions, other times it is religious oppression, or societal pressures. In America we don’t face persecution, at least not like it is experienced in many places around the world.
With this stirring, we were prompted to start selling our possessions and giving the money to support persecuted Christians. There are organizations where you can donate $5 to get a Bible to someone who doesn’t have one because it is either too expensive or it is illegal to have. One organization prints Bibles in China and they say that every Bible that gets distributed in country, three people get saved. For $21 there could be 21 more people in heaven?
It was easy then to look around the house and see what we could sell to get more money for Bibles.
We continued to sell our possessions for the next several months, then we asked ourselves when we should sell our house. Our logic was if we could live more simply, then we could give more generously to our brothers and sisters. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when would we sell our home.
What is Stopping Us?
As we continued to walk in obedience to what God was asking us to do. God prompted us with a question. “What is stopping you from going overseas to serve the persecuted church?” Our answer was, nothing we can think of.
The next question is about with who and where would we serve. We contacted a few organizations, one being Wycliffe Bible Translators. They helped me to determine that it wasn’t a good fit for us. Also, they had big concerns about the ages of our kids. Missionary families don’t typically do well with older kids, at least statistically.
Around this time I attended a regional pastors overnight with many other pastors from our area. I was talking with a pastor friend over lunch one day and he mentioned that RUN Global was looking for help. I was aware of RUN Global as I had been on their email list for many years. I knew the founder and president of the company loosely because he was also a pastor in our church movement.
An Email Introduction
I sent a long email to the President of RUN Global, Mike Keator. I explained who I was, about my family, and how God was stirring us. We had many conversations over the next few months about how I could help Run Global. The biggest thing I was offering was my help. I didn’t know how God wanted to use me. At one point Mike just said, “Why don’t you come to Nepal?” He said, “I don’t want to be your boss, but I want you to find your place in ministry.
By the fall of 2019 we had sold all our possessions, sold our house, and I resigned from my work as an engineer. On October 1st, 2019 we were on a plane to India! We then spent 3 months in Nepal then about 3 months in India. You can read about many of those stories HERE!
Covid-19
In late February we started making our way across India to get to New Delhi. We needed to make a couple of “tourist” stops on our way there since our visas were for tourism. Then in March of 2020, COVID-19 started hitting India. We found ourselves in lockdown in New Delhi, our VISAs were cancelled, and now we needed to get back home and that was a story in itself.
Now What?
We arrived back in America in early April 2020. We spent 5 weeks in Alabama at Laura’s dad’s home. It was a reflective time, it was a hard time. God had stirred us to make a big change in our lives to be more purposeful for Him. But now what? What do you want us to do Lord?
We still had a return ticket to India in July. We weren’t sure how long Covid would last. We did want to take some time to travel to visit family and friends. We also felt God telling us to travel more than that. We had friends across the country and many different churches. We felt God reminding us that we have a passion for the church, passion for the lost, we have an amazing testimony and he wants us to tell everyone. So we started traveling…. To Be Continued….