With the Office of University Ministries wrapping up their last week of Global Focus Month, two missionaries and Union alumni, Jeremy and Rachel Hollie, led chapel on Wednesday, Sept. 26, to inform students of their ongoing missionary work in West Africa and to also bring encouragement and wisdom to those planning to join the international mission field. The Hollies stayed around after chapel to fellowship and interact with Union students at the Office of University Ministries, where free pizza was provided.
Jeremy Hollie graduated from Union with a degree in business management, and Rachel Hollie graduated with a music education degree. The couple said upon completing college, they moved to Memphis and bought their first house, but it was then that God began to stir in their hearts a desire for the nations.
The couple spent three years in Afghanistan and, afterwards, moved to Peru, teaching in an international Christian school at both places, but the couple shared that they felt God stirring in their hearts to switch organizations to the IMB, which led them to their current mission field: West Africa.
Though the couple graduated with a degree in business and music education, they have been able to use both of their degrees in the mission field and encouraged students to use their unique passions and talents to make disciples of the nations.
“God is not making a mistake in what he’s equipping you to do,” Rachel said. “If you think that what you’re equipped to do and what you’re learning to do doesn’t match up with the nations and mission work, I would challenge that you’re not letting God be creative.”
Caroline Clements, a junior music education major, said she loved hearing how Rachel and Jeremy Hollie dedicated their life to missionary work and still used the talents and education they gained from Union to spread the Gospel around the world.
“It was really inspirational, as a music education major myself, to hear how Rachel used her degree to impact her work on the mission field,” Clements said. “It’s a testament to how we all are able to use our various talents to honor and serve the Lord.”
The Hollies have built a community center in which they teach English to students in that area, have basketball clubs, conduct gardening projects and have a medical mission team come once a year to the center.
Through the community center, the Hollies have been able to teach the students the whole Gospel message, from Genesis to the Resurrection, and they have been able to teach students who rarely hear about the Gospel the whole story of Jesus.
“This is our life: relationships for years at a time,” Rachel said. “We can talk all day about [strategies], how to do it and the right books to read, but the Word of God speaks louder than anything we could concoct in our minds.”
Stephen Neu, coordinator for service and mobilization at University Ministries, closed the chapel with three key points that embodied not only the Hollie’s mission in West Africa, but Global Focus Month as a whole: focus on the Gospel, focus on the Word of God and focus on prayer.
Photo Courtesy of Hannah Heckart & The Union Photo Project
