Testimony Tuesday: A life on mission for the Good Shepherd

By Bella Agnello

*for the sake of protecting the subject of this testimony from danger in her future work on the mission field, we have changed her name

Growing up in a family and a church that supported missions, Anna was bound to have a heart ready to go and share the Gospel overseas. From a young age, Anna’s heart for missions overflowed from her personal understanding of the Gospel.

When she was four years old, Anna asked her parents if she could take communion, but her mom did not think she understood the importance of the Gospel yet. It was then that Anna – now a junior Linguistics major at Cedarville University – gave her first Gospel account and prayed with her mom for God to save her from her sins.

For the next several years, Anna wrestled with whether she was truly saved. At 11 years old, after she had an argument with her mom, Anna walked away to be by herself for a while. In her solitude, God opened her heart to understand that because of her own individual sins, Christ needed to die on the cross to save her.

Again, at age 14, Anna had another crisis of faith. Not knowing whether she properly lived out her faith, she cried out to God for help.

“I was in my front yard and I went down on my knees,” Anna said. “And God spoke to my heart: ‘I’m not trying to make this a labyrinth or a maze to figure out. I want you to be saved.’ He had already shown me the way through the Scripture.”

Anna clung to John 10:27-28, which says,

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”

“He is my shepherd, and he is my friend and Father,” Anna said. “He will speak to me since I am his sheep. He will speak to me and I will hear. Even though it’s not always super clear, that’s how he’ll guide me because I am his and no one can snatch me out of his hand.”

In high school, Anna began the process of intentionally serving God and surrendering to him. She joined the track team thinking it would be a great opportunity to share the Gospel, though her health issues at the time created problems for her while on the team. She also fasted for the first time in order to seek God more intently. 

Anna also began exploring her life-long passion for missions. She learned about the 10/40 Window, an area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia between 10 degrees North and 40 degrees North latitude that is vastly unreached by the Gospel. In her research, her heart for muslims and nomadic tribes increased, and she desired nothing more than to reach them through missions.

Books about missionaries grew Anna’s bottomless passion for missions. One such book documented the faith of missionaries working in Brazil.

“In the book were stories of the team seeking after the Lord, and they’d obey, and they’d see the Spirit doing things for the glory of God,” Anna said. “I was like, ‘Why aren’t the Christians around me living this way? Why wasn’t I living this way?’ And part of what I realized was that I was trying to do those things on my own. I would walk around and try to think about what God was trying to do without walking through those things with a team.”

Her opportunity to work with such a team arrived when missionaries came to serve her hometown of Butler, PA, during her senior year of high school. Before working with the team, Anna prayed one radical request.

“I want to be in unity with you with other believers, and I want to go out, serve you and see you move,” Anna said. “I want to ask you for direction and see where you point and go.”

God answered Anna’s prayer during her time with that team, and then he led her to pursue further mission opportunities overseas. Once she graduated from high school, she enrolled in a discipleship training school in the Middle East.

“I struggled for a bit over the calling,” Anna said. “How do I know that I’m called to this or if I’m making it up? But then why would God create me with that desire and then tell me that’s not what I’m supposed to do? It doesn’t have to be a crazy divine call – God can just bring that about and open the doors.”

Once in the Middle East, Anna again began struggling with what it means to live the Christian life and ‘deny herself’ to follow Christ, as Matthew 16:24 says. During this time, Anna read Lamentations, which led her to think that God wanted her to live a life of suffering.

“I was like, ‘Ok, Lord, I’ll be a living sacrifice, and this is awful, but ok!’” Anna said. “In my mind, what I wasn’t understanding was where God’s goodness fit into that.”

At the same time, in her discipleship class, she read about the characteristics of God – including his goodness – and none of them made sense to her heart. 

One day, in between classes, Anna stopped to look at the lemon trees outside a window and decided to pray for help one more time. As she prayed, she remembered her experiences on the track team and when she learned to fast. Suddenly, Anna’s eyes were opened to God’s heart.

“Both of those things could have been good if they were done in humility for him,” Anna said. “In both of those things I needed to be this super-Christian doing all these holy things, instead of saying, ‘Lord, I cannot do this on my own and I need you. And if this isn’t how you want to use me then I won’t do it.’”

Also, during her training in the Middle East, God grew Anna’s love for languages. She realized that she wanted to study linguistics and help missions organizations translate the Bible. 

Yet, instead of moving on to a university immediately after attending discipleship training school, God rerouted Anna to staying in her hometown for the next 2 1/2 years. There, she worked at a missions ministry in her hometown, where she put into practice what she learned overseas.

While she worked at the ministry, Anna attended community college. Towards the end of her time at community college, Anna found herself looking at Cedarville University, where God prepared the way for her to attend. Now, she is a Linguistics major with a concentration in Biblical Languages.

Anna is already looking ahead to returning to missions one day. Though she is considering getting her masters and is looking at long-term missions organizations to partner with, she knows that because her Good Shepherd changed her plans once, he could do it again – and that, she said, “is a beautiful thing.”

Bella Agnello is a junior Broadcasting, Digital Media and Journalism major with a concentration in Journalism. She enjoys thrifting, listening to records and reading classic Russian literature in her spare time.