Jim & Lois joined NCEM in 1977. Their first station was Maskwacis, Alberta, before moving to Whati, NWT, where they continue serving as associate missionaries. Read here how it all began:
Just after their wedding, without a job Jim thought he had, the Stauffers volunteered two weeks at Key-Way-Tin Bible Institute. Those two weeks turned into two years on KBI staff, and a growing desire to serve as career missionaries. Several experiences and choices had brought them to that point.
Jim was born into a Pennsylvania Dutch family. As a teen he’d understood salvation, but delayed surrendering his life. “I almost waited too long,” he says. At age 16 he fell 20 feet through a roof at work. He thought he was going to die, but he still put off giving his life to Christ.
Shortly after his recovery, Jim’s dad took him to northern Ontario to help a missionary with construction. Later their family decided to move there to join the work, and God used the missionaries there to get a hold of Jim. He finally surrendered, and felt a peace he’d never known.
Jim attended Prairie Bible Institute in the early 70s. With its strong missions emphasis, it was there he learned of several missions, including NCEM. And there one day he found himself seated next to a graduating student who told him of her plans for NMTC (NCEM’s summer program). The student was Lois, daughter of rural Albertan missionaries who had joined Prairie staff.
Lois accepted Christ as a child, and shared in her parents’ life of ministry. She doesn’t remember ever not knowing about NCEM. Several missionaries were like extended family, she says. (For awhile her family rented on the property near Lac La Biche that was later donated to NCEM.)
Lois’s parents regularly had students into their home. One of them was Jim, who admits to borrowing a book from her dad … so he’d have a good excuse to come back! As Jim and Lois got to know each other, and as Jim prayed and considered God’s will for his life, he also went on NMTC (the year after Lois), and they were married in 1975.
While volunteering at KBI, the Stauffers formally applied to NCEM for village work. Like other missionary candidates, a big test was raising their financial support.
“I came from a Mennonite culture that drew back suspiciously from Christian organizations that ‘begged’ for money,” says Jim.
“However, even in finances we’ve found God’s grace abundant and His provision sufficient.”
Maskwacis (Hobbema) AB, was their first assignment, followed by Wha Ti (Lac La Martre), NWT. “We’ve learned that God has His own ways of working through different people,” say the Stauffers. “We’ve had to learn to compare ourselves less with others and be more concerned with fulfilling God’s will for us in the place He put us.”
