Foothills family member, Tessa Brizzolara will soon be heading to South Sudan. To learn how Tessa began this journey, I asked her to tell me her story. I told her she could go as far back as she could remember. “It’s funny,” she said, “but I remember when I was in kindergarten being asked to draw a picture of what I wanted to do when I grew up. I drew a picture of myself handing out Bibles to people.”
She felt more at home in Africa than in the United States.
Tessa grew up in a Christian home. It was also a very academic home. As a result, her early ambitions focused on architecture and engineering. But God slowly worked on her heart through a series of missions trips in high school. “Serving others made sense for me.” Tessa shared, “I really felt a strong presence of God leading me to missions work.”
While at Corban University, Tessa majored in Intercultural Studies. During the summer months she did several internships in Africa. She noticed that when she returned from those trips, she felt more at home in Africa than in the United States. This was an indicator for Tessa that her future was going to be full time missions work in African.
The perfect fit to launch her career in missions.
Tessa learned about African Inland Missions during a World Outreach event hosted by Corban University. “Something that stood out about Africa Inland Missions,” she said, “was a team they called TIMO which stands for training in missions outreach.” TIMO brings teams of 3 to 12 new missionaries into places of engagement with Africa’s unreached people groups. With the guidance of an experienced team leader, and national church partners, each team sets out to learn language and culture as they work through TIMO’s specialized curriculum. Tessa feels that this team will be the perfect fit to launch her career in missions.
When Tessa heads over to Africa, she and her team will be partnering with a local church in Torit, South Sudan. She will spend two years there learning the language, understanding the culture, training and equipping the local church people to reach out and serve the needs of the community. “This is just really exciting,” Tessa said. “Because I think ultimately African believers are going to be more effective at reaching Africans for the sake of the Gospel.”
“Prayer is the biggest support I can get.”
Foothills Church is supporting Tessa in her South Sudan mission. She is humbled by all the support she has received. “Something I’m realizing too,” she shared, “is that prayer is the biggest support I can get.” She has created a blog for people to follow her journey and pray specifically for the needs and challenges that arise. To go to Tessa’a blog click HERE. You can also sign up for Tessa’s newsletter by clicking HERE.