A child of a missionary and now as a missionary myself, Joshua 1:9 is my beacon: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

In 1987, WELS called my dad straight out of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary to serve in Antigua. Looking back at my parents’ pictures from call day, I am as shocked by my dad’s mustache as I am by my mom’s pregnant belly. I grew up hearing the story of how they had ten minutes to deliberate the call—and then after accepting it, how they headed to the library to look up Antigua in an atlas.

I remember my mom telling me that she gave birth to my sister and later to me while listening to cows moo outside her window. I remember turning off all the lights in the house so there was enough power for my dad to write a sermon on his dinosaur of a computer. The God-given strength and courage my parents possessed to leave their norm and develop a new one created a life that would later become my own culture and passion.

To me, the island of Antigua was not a foreign land. It was home. The foreign land was that place called the Midwest where everything sat in perfect rows, streets had no bumps, and markets had entire aisles dedicated to cereal. In the Midwest, I looked like everyone around me, but I did not feel like them. In Antigua, even though I was often the only white girl and didn’t look like I belonged, I felt like I belonged—at least more than anywhere else.

Being a missionary kid is hard and beautiful. Society calls you a “third-culture kid” because you don’t match up perfectly with your parents’ culture or the one that you live in. Rather, you become a unique member of a “third” or in-between reality where you don’t fit in anywhere. This can be challenging. But to me, this unique reality became my safe place. I feel the most comfortable in the uncomfortable.

Finding a place to belong

Now as an adult, I see how the life my parents gifted me shaped me not only culturally but also spiritually.

When you don’t fit in anywhere, you are forced to grapple with hard questions from an early age—questions about ethnicity, worship, and identity. Those questions have shaped my heart for diverse perspectives and realities. They have humbled me in the best ways. And they have shoved me to the cross, where everyone is equal at the pierced feet of Jesus. They have made me wrestle with the church and ultimately find and rejoice in my place in the body of Christ. This place does not change regardless of language or location on a map. It does not change in sickness or health or based on what opportunities or skills God chose to grant you. This place is permanent and the best version of home because it is everlasting.

“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27). This, my friends, sounds like home, and it sounds like I belong. It sounds like you do too.

Finding a place to serve

In 2021, I received a call to serve as a missionary with Academia Cristo (Christ Academy) on WELS’ One Latin America Mission Team. My husband and I had more than ten minutes to deliberate this call, but we could see almost immediately how God in his infinite wisdom was piecing together the puzzle of our lives with this special opportunity to serve.

The large, diverse ministry field of Latin America inspired the creation of Academia Cristo many years before I joined the team. Through Academia Cristo, students learn about God’s grace, many for the very first time.

Students begin with 4 self-study courses and 13 live, missionary-led courses in which they learn biblical literacy, doctrine, and key differences between various faith groups. I recently taught a course called “Legalism” on Zoom to a group of 75 women from many countries. We dug into law and gospel and the beautiful reality that there is quite literally nothing we can do to earn our place before God. Our identity was bought for us and gifted to us. In this first part of our program, our goal is simple and everlasting: We desire for people to know Christ and believe in him.

Once students finish, they are invited to confess their faith with a missionary. During this profound process, students answer 95 questions. The end goal is unity, like the unity Jesus prayed for on the night he was betrayed. On the foundation of that unity, students are asked if they would consider planting a church in their own community, to share the goodness of God that they now know and confess.

When Academia Cristo students believe in Jesus as their Savior, we rejoice! When Academia Cristo students desire to share what they have learned in their home and community, we rejoice—and we invite them to the church planting level of our program. There they receive ongoing courses and are connected to a missionary who serves as their personal counselor, someone who meets with them regularly and travels to support them in person, helping guide their ministry.

Today we rejoice in the more than 30 congregations formed throughout Latin America and in the many individuals sharing Jesus, while praying for the Lord of the church to grow established groups of believers in their neighborhoods.

Finding a place to flourish

When I was in college, I took a spiritual gifts survey. Upon discovering that my main spiritual gifts were leadership and administration, I crumbled. “Lord, what do you want me to do with these in the church?” I asked.

For years I dabbled in ministry opportunities that the Lord presented me: teaching in Milwaukee, serving in Chile, leading a health evangelism program, slowly learning Spanish, and slowly being shaped by Scripture to value the ministry that God granted me more than seeking something based on my own desires.

I thank God for those years of grace, for even my human frustration. I also thank God for the countless Latin American women whose hearts are on fire for their Lord. In Academia Cristo, close to half of our students are female. This inspired the missionary team to pray for and create the position that they later called me to fill: director of women’s ministries.

I look back at my college-aged frustration and see how God must have been so entertained by my tears: “Daughter, just wait a couple of years. Let me grow your heart to love the church and to value every single member of it. Let me teach you to care more about souls than positions. Let me show you your identity in me so that you may then teach other women to value their special place in the kingdom and in my family.”

Women’s ministry is diverse, challenging, and fun. I work closely with women from the Mexico/United States border to Argentina, the most southern country of the Americas. I work with women who are church planting together with their husbands as well as single women who are leading female groups in their homes. I also work with women who live in areas where there are no Lutheran churches or spiritually mature male leaders, women who desire to share Jesus in God-pleasing ways because souls are at stake.

Together with other Academia Cristo missionaries, I get to counsel the women, firmly teaching the desires that God has for men to lead his church and the desire from God for all people to speak the praises of him who called them out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

Finding a place to call home—and sharing it

Every believer is a member of the body of Christ. This is home. And in this home, we open the door to everyone we meet, inviting them to know their Father and the feast he has prepared for them. God is building his church in Latin America one soul at a time. We trust him in this process, and we value the people whom he leads to Academia Cristo, people who desire to proclaim him right where they live.

Before the Israelites crossed the Jordan River, God reminded Joshua that the Promised Land was already won. He told the new young leader of Israel to be strong and courageous, not because of his own strength but rather because of the Lord’s presence (Joshua 1:9).

God calls on us to have strength and courage as well. The promised land of heaven is won for us. We hold the victory. While he gives us breath, let us share this story of victory with the people God puts into our lives. May the Lord of the church make it so!

Featured photos on header image picture Elise Gross with her husband, Jon, and their son, Moses, as well as with fellow missionaries and students in Latin America.

Learn more about mission work in Latin America.

Author: Elise Gross
Volume 111, Number 10
Issue: October 2024

Nurturing confessional Lutherans in Mexico

Elise Gross shares more about one of the families with whom she works:

Several years ago, Sandra Luz was searching for a way to study the Word of God. Her husband, Sergio, stumbled upon Academia Cristo online, dug into its resources, and said to his wife, “This one; this is it.”

Sandra quickly began working her way through the self-study lessons on Academia Cristo’s mobile app. She was then welcomed into live classes via Zoom led by WELS missionaries. She completed 13 live Zoom courses and officially became a confessional Lutheran. When asked if she desired to share the gospel message in her community, Sandra responded, “How can I not?! People must know.”

Sergio had been listening to many of Sandra’s live classes. When my husband and I made our first in-person visit to Sandra, we were pleasantly surprised to see that Sergio wanted to know everything about Academia Cristo’s church-planting program. While Sandra had been faithfully studying, God was reaching her husband.

Now Sergio is also a confessional Lutheran. He and Sandra both lead small groups in their living room and in the homes of their neighbors.

Sandra and Sergio work closely with fellow missionary Luis Acosta and me. We guide, train, and encourage them as they share God’s Word. At least twice a year, Luis and I visit Sandra and Sergio and their group in person to observe God’s work and to encourage the congregation of believers that is growing in Mexicali.