Last summer, 2008 NGU graduate Jeff Norton left Greenville to embark on an adventure in faith to share the gospel of Christ with university students in Africa.
IMB Journeyman Jeff Norton visits with children in a village in rural Zambia during on-field missionary training.Norton is serving a two-year term with the International Mission Board in the Journeyman program in Nairobi, Kenya.
The adventure began in Richmond, Va., and, although exciting, brought feelings of fear and doubt for Norton – but God quickly reassured him of his call to missions.
“The day I left Greenville and headed up Interstate 85 toward Richmond, God gave me incredible peace,” Norton said. “I felt it was actually happening and the hardest part was over.”
Norton spent two months at the IMB’s International Learning Center in Richmond, completing Field Personnel Orientation, an intensive training program for new missionaries.
Norton was part of the largest FPO group to date for the IMB, with more than 360 singles, couples and families with children answering the call to serve overseas.
“The eight weeks spent in Virginia at ILC were incredible, and the IMB did a tremendous job preparing us for our assignments,” Norton said. “Many of my fears were quieted and I made some amazing friends who are serving all over the world.”
To conclude training, the new missionaries were commissioned in a worship service at ILC and most had two weeks at home with family and friends before departing for the mission field.
“After FPO, I headed back to Greenville to say goodbye to some of my best friends,” Norton said. “That was a really hard time, but God was faithful and my friends were supportive.”
The last few days of Norton’s time in the U.S. were spent with family in Georgia before he left Oct. 16 for Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the original location for his university ministry assignment.
After a few days in Tanzania, Norton was off to Lusaka, Zambia, for 40-40 Orientation Safari, an on-field training for new missionaries in the Central, Eastern and Southern Africa Region.
“I joined my fellow CESA missionaries for a great time of training and learning how to better minister in the African culture,” Norton said. “I really enjoyed this time and found myself ready to face the challenges ahead as I left this group of missionaries who I had become so close to.”
Norton and the other new missionaries spent their first 12 days in Zambia, learning how to work in an urban African setting. The group was split into teams of two and paired with a local pastor to visit Zambian nationals in the towns, or compounds as they are known in Zambia, surrounding the seminary where the group stayed.
The second part of the training sent the group to Petauke, a rural town about seven hours outside Lusaka, where they stayed in an African bush camp and learned how to minister in a rural African setting.
The Daily Field Assignments were much like those in Lusaka only the missionaries were visiting nationals in villages surrounding the bush camp, where many lived in mud huts.
“It was interesting to hear and see the differences in the lives and beliefs of the people in the villages compared to those we visited in the city,” Norton said. “There were many more people in the villages that hold on tightly to traditional ancestral beliefs.”
After the time in bush camp, the missionaries were paired up and sent to live with a Zambian family for three days. Because Norton’s journeyman assignment is in an urban city, he and another missionary stayed with a family in town.
“The home stay was a great experience for us,” Norton said. “It really opened my eyes to the daily hardships many Africans endure and how they make the most of what they have.”
It was during his time in the bush camp that Norton was told he had been reassigned from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi, Kenya. The change in assignment came as a result of Norton’s supervisors deciding to return to serve in the U.S.
“This news was difficult to process as I had been mentally preparing for several months for life in Tanzania,” Norton said. “But upon arriving in Nairobi, I immediately understood why God moved me to Kenya.”
For the past two months Norton has gotten settled into life in Nairobi. He has ministered to university students, in the slums near his home and at a nearby school with children who are disabled and have special needs.
“Obeying God’s call to move to Africa has been one of the most rewarding and toughest decisions of my life,” Norton said. “I get homesick and have my times of frustration, but I am reminded of why I’m here every time I step out my front door: to share the love of Christ and encourage Kenyans to do the same.”