After many years serving in NCEM’s Prince Albert Printshop, followed by service at the Mission’s USA Office in Billings, Montana, Kit and Debbie have retired to Townsend, Montana.
Missionary life began very early for Kit, born into a northern missionary home. He remembers hearing a young missionary say that, if it didn’t work out, he could go home. “I realized,” says Kit, “that I had no where to go if I didn’t like it. I was home!”
Along with an older brother and younger sister, Kit grew up with missionary parents, Bud & Marge Elford. Their first stations included Churchill, and Brochet (MB), where Kit remembers Grade 1 in a one-room school. There would be more moving – back to Churchill, up north of the Arctic Circle to Ft. McPherson (NWT), then down to Cold Lake (AB) where his parents continued their linguistic and radio ministry among the Denesuline (Chipewyan) people. Adjustments at this last stop, his first non-Native setting, were particularly hard for him, Kit acknowledges.
There were “early awakenings” to his need of a Saviour, Kit says, and a definite decision while visiting Peoples Church in Toronto. Up North Kit was aware he was being watched by the community. “I knew that if I messed up it would hinder the work my parents were doing.”
His decision to attend Bible school was a struggle, but he enrolled at Bethany College of Missions in Minneapolis. That is where he met Debbie, who had grown up in the States. About junior high age things had changed in her family when her dad got saved, and they began attending an evangelical church.
She remembers “invitations” at the end of services. “I went forward, but there was no change; no reality in my heart and life,” recalls Debbie. In fact, she says it wasn’t until finishing Bible college and being married to Kit that she truly gave her heart to Christ.
During their college internship year they were seeking the Lord’s will for their future. Kit recalls, at the time, having no desire to be a missionary – making money and being comfortable seemed more attractive. But there was an inner struggle going on and, finally, Kit told the Lord that if He wanted him to be a missionary, a mission would have to contact them – he wasn’t going to take the initiative.
And that’s what happened. Two weeks later a letter from NCEM arrived, asking if they would consider working in the Mission’s Printshop. Their college years had included trades training and, in God’s providence, printing was one of the skills that Kit had acquired. In 1976 they crossed the border, moving to Prince Albert, SK. They had no idea of financial support and, with Kit growing up in the North, had limited exposure to potential supporters.
Kit was “home” again – there was no where to go if it didn’t work out. “But I had asked the Lord for a complete love to do what He wanted me to do,” says Kit, “and He did.” “God has been faithful in providing for our needs, too,” say the Elfords.
