Testimony Tuesday: Living on mission

By Megan Deets

Throughout his life, Ethan Foster, a Master of Divinity (mDiv) student at Cedarville University, has felt a call to take the gospel to the people who have never heard it. 

“That’s what really breaks my heart, that people don’t have a chance to repent and believe in Christ,” Foster said. 

Foster grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, with two parents of strong faith and two sisters. He was homeschooled from middle school through high school, which meant he spent a lot of time at home with his family. 

His mom had a strong influence on his life, encouraging him and his sisters to be ambitious with the gifts that God gave them.

“She always saw the best in me and my sisters,” Foster said. 

Foster’s mother also taught him how to suffer faithfully. She struggles with migraines on most days. 

“She has gone through a lot of pain,” Foster said, “but she never gets angry at God. She never blames God.” 

Foster’s dad has also been an example of Christlike action in his life.

“I tend to be a fast decision-maker. He’s more slow and wise,” Foster said. 

His dad demonstrated this wisdom when Foster asked if he could be baptized at around 8 years old. He asked him about the gospel as they walked around the park. Although Foster knew the right answers to the questions, his dad sensed that Foster hadn’t truly accepted God’s gift of salvation yet. He told Foster they needed to have more conversations before he was baptized.

When Foster was in third grade, he went with his parents to serve a group of high school students at their church. Normally, he didn’t pay any attention to the speakers at these events, but the Holy Spirit prompted him to listen to the speaker’s message that night. When he heard the gospel, he accepted Jesus as his lord and savior. 

“The Lord made it very clear to me that I needed to believe that night,” Foster said. 

Foster was baptized soon after he was saved. This time his parents knew he was ready. 

In seventh grade, Foster’s small group leader Matt Blythe, a retired missionary, shared the information that would set a trajectory for the rest of Foster’s life. Blythe explained how there were people around the globe that might never have a chance to hear the gospel. Foster was deeply affected by this and told Blythe that wasn’t fair. 

“That does seem unfair,” Blythe said. “But you can change it.”

Around the same time, Foster went on a mission trip with his dad and their church to Peru. This experience showed Foster how God could use him to spread the gospel.

“The Lord was just teaching me about abiding in Christ and allowing Christ to determine what I do with my life,” Foster said. “That was my most formational, ‘Now I’m growing and walking with the Lord’ [moment].”

From that point on, Foster has sought ways to serve the Lord through missions. 

As Foster began looking for Christian colleges, he searched for engineering schools because he thought he could use engineering as a path to overseas missions. His mom remembered hearing about Cedarville through a family dinner that a professor’s son was at. She recalled that Cedarville was known for a good engineering program. 

Foster decided against majoring in engineering before he even visited Cedarville because he wanted to experience enough training in the Scriptures to serve as a missionary. He wanted to make sure he was visiting a school that taught biblical theology. 

He found out that his youth leader Blythe was good friends with Dr. Josh Bowman from Cedarville’s Bible Department, encouraging him to solidify his choice to attend Cedarville. 

Cedarville helped to reorient Foster’s view of missions. His focus in missions was preventing people from going to hell. Since coming to Cedarville his focus in missions has centered on glorifying God. 

“My motivating desire is that God will receive their worship,” Foster said. “[Cedarville has] oriented my life to God’s glory.” 

Now, Foster desires to see 10% of Cedarville’s students sent out to global missions. 

Foster is grateful for the many teaching opportunities that he’s had at Cedarville. Foster served as class chaplain for three years.

Serving as class chaplain grew in Foster a deeper need for humility in ministry. 

“He [God] can do all that I can do instantly,” Foster said. “Anything that looks good in me is really just Christ permeating through me.”

This year, Foster was elected SGA chaplain. He recalls two separate times that people came up to him after he gave a message in chapel. They told him that they felt like the words he spoke were meant for them personally. 

These encounters reminded Foster of the Holy Spirit’s power and the two things that he has learned through preaching this year’s SGA chapel series. 

“Be receptive to the Spirit,” Foster said, “and believe that God is working in His Word.”

Foster doesn’t want to take his life for granted. Instead, he wants to live by one of the resolutions of the 18th century pastor Jonathan Edwards: “Resolved, to live with all my might while I do live.”

As Foster looks toward his future, his burden from the Lord is to move overseas and plant churches in places where there’s a need. God has been faithful in his abundant grace to Foster as he prepares him for his calling to missions. 

One of Foster’s favorite Bible passages is Romans 12:1-2, which says, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Foster loves how this passage points back to the gospel with the phrase “mercies of God.”

“I don’t work myself into something,” Foster said. “I give myself to God.”

Megan Deets is a freshman Professional Writing and Information Design student. Some of the things that she loves are new notebooks, fresh fruit and musicals.