Sisters from Coker UMC to do mission work in France

 

 

Future WorldVenture missionaries to France are (from left)
Benjamin Owens, Ethan Owens, Amanda Owens, Abigail
Butcher and Blaine Butcher. The women are sisters and
attended Coker UMC, San Antonio, while growing up.

By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
They are sisters, born three years apart. They live on opposite coasts—one on the East, one on the West. They fit inside different social groups, chose dissimilar professions, embraced their own individual gifts and talents.
But now, Abigail Butcher and Amanda Owens, daughters of Tom and Barbara Ellis of Coker UMC, San Antonio, are sharing a journey to fulfill God’s call on their lives.
They are traveling to France in the spring as missionaries with World-Venture. In France the two sisters and their husbands are to build new churches and ministries, revitalize old ones and spread the love of Jesus to those who have never heard it.
Their story began many years ago.
= = =
As a teenager in the Coker UMC youth department, Butcher, 30, said she accompanied the group on three or four short-term mission trips—more for the social aspect than anything else.
Butcher said she did a lot of “building houses.”
“They were very good experiences,” she said. “They not only taught me how to help others, but they taught me to work with a team. At the time I was very much focused on the social aspect of missions, but over time, God did use those experiences to help me understand what it means to be involved in missions.”
After Butcher graduated from high school, she “truly surrendered” her life to Jesus.
= = =
Owens, the younger of the two sisters, said she joined the Coker youth group on four mission trips during her high school years. She went on a later one as a sponsor. She remembers visiting Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and some places in Texas.
Like her sister, Owens said she enjoyed missions because of the social opportunity.
“My friends were all going,” Owens said. “Since then, I understand that missions are more about doing God’s will instead of asking, ‘What can I get out of it?’ It’s more, ‘What can I give to the people I’m working for?’”
= = =
Butcher attended Texas A&M University. In College Station she involved herself with the Baptist Student Ministry and took her mission work international.
She said her college experiences “grew on top” of her past, and she began feeling a definite call into missions. She began considering different mission organizations in the back of her mind.
With her degree from A&M, Butcher began teaching.
= = =
Owens followed in her sister’s footsteps and attended Texas A&M, earning a marketing degree. Upon graduation, she began working and soon moved to Atlanta.
Owens met her husband, Benjamin, in the singles department of the Atlanta church she attended.
= = =
Butcher soon realized that God was tugging her heart toward seminary. She moved to Dallas after four years of teaching and enrolled in Dallas Theological Seminary.
As she began befriending international students, Butcher said her call to missions became stronger and stronger.
“I realized the need in those places to know who God and Jesus are,” she said.
She attended several missions gatherings, where representatives would tell interested students about mission opportunities. She signed up with a mission agency that sends people to North Africa.
On the seminary campus, Butcher set up a display booth, advertising for prayer partners for her trip.
A man she’d never met, Blaine Butcher, was the only one to sign up.
Butcher discovered Blaine had traveled to Slovenia and Italy and shared a desire to dedicate his life to missions.
After marrying and moving to Oregon, where Blaine’s family lives, the couple signed up to become missionaries with WorldVenture, an organization with some 500 missionaries in more than 60 countries around the globe working to build new ministries.
The lengthy applications process included packets of information, phone interviews, personal testimonies, a doctrinal statement, an orientation class in Colorado and board interviews.
The Butchers were appointed missionaries in June 2005.
Once appointed, the couple had to travel to three different countries where WorldVenture missionaries are stationed to decide where they wanted to be placed. They visited teams in Slovenia, Albania and France.
“This really didn’t come down to the need,” Butcher said. “There was need in so many places. That was definitely part of it, but we narrowed it down thinking about the team itself.
“We needed to be under someone’s nurturing wing. (The team) in France had so much experience in that country. We thought we could really learn from them.”
When the Butchers returned from their trip, Abigail called her sister to urge her and Benjamin to consider joining them in mission.
Little did she know the Owenses had been praying for God’s clarity on mission involvement.
= = =
Before they married, Amanda and Benjamin had talked about their future, agreeing that missions might one day be a part of it.
“We prayed that God would make it clear to us as we made plans,” Amanda said. “We didn’t know if this would be full-time mission work or just a short-term thing.”
About a year later, Benjamin began to feel God tugging them toward full-time missions, so they began to pray.
“A week before Blaine and Abigail got back from their vision trip, we told God, ‘We’re ready. Just tell us where to go,’” Amanda said. “When they got back, Abigail said she and Blaine had been praying about asking us to join them. They had no idea that we were praying, too.”
The couples’ confirmation in location—France—came with Benjamin’s fluency in French.
= = =
The sisters and their husbands are raising support pledges for their work, trying to keep to a spring departure date set. They recently visited Coker, since it’s where Abigail and Amanda grew up. Butcher said they received a good response.
Support would last for four years, Butcher said.
The Owenses will be church planting administrators in France, Amanda said. Both couples will be involved in church planting, discipleship and leadership training, small-group building and evangelism.
“There are a lot of cathedrals in France,” Owens said. “Unfortunately, a lot of them are empty or are more tourist attractions. We want to reintroduce the culture of Christianity again. But a lot of people there have a bad taste in their mouths.”
= = =
The sisters are excited about partnering their families.
“It’s such a blessing,” Butcher said. “It’ll be so nice to have each other there to help out.”
Owens agreed. “I couldn’t be happier about it,” she said. “Whenever you go to another country or a city, it’s always better if you have family there because of the support system. And we’ve always gotten along, for the most part.
“It’ll definitely help the two of us to be close–the four of us, really. We’re all so different, but it’s neat all the different skills each of us brings to the table. It will help the ministry overall.
Butcher said the sisters are planning to live in France the rest of their lives.
Their parents say that, though they will miss their daughters, they are thankful the girls will be serving together.
“Tom and I are very proud of our daughters and their husbands,” Barbara Ellis said. “They are very focused on their goals as missionaries. The girls have married men who share their goals in life.
“Tom and I love them and pray that they reach their goals.”
Butcher said the sisters have teased their parents that, instead of visiting the East and West coasts on two separate trips, they’ll have to travel to only one location.
“They’ve always been supportive,” Butcher said of her parents. “Of course it’s hard for them thinking about our being so far away.”
Owens said, “They’re definitely happy that we’ll be together. They’re excited about what we’re going to be doing. They would rather us live in San Antonio, and they send us messages when houses go up for sale on their street. But they would also rather us do what God has called us to do.”
For more information about monthly support for the Butchers and the Owenses, e-mail butchers@ worldventure.net, or visit www. worldventure.com/wc/.
Click on Owens or Butcher to visit the individual sites to fill out pledge forms.