The Strouts’ ministry is based in New Brunswick. It began at NCEM’s Arrowhead Native Bible Center, and has moved out to First Nations communities in the Maritimes.
It sometimes still feels to them as a bit of a surprise, they say. Not because it’s cross-cultural missionary work, though. Kevin was raised in a missionary home in South America. Spanish was the first language he learned, and he grew up immersed in Argentine culture, attending public school there.
He was already doing “Christian things,” he says, but realized at an early age that Jesus also wanted to be Lord of his life. It changed his attitude. “I did things now to please my Lord, and not just because people expected it of me.” Opportunities in Argentina included ministry to street kids, homeless people, and youth.
Though furlough time for Kevin’s family took place mostly in the States, he attended Bible school in Canada at New Brunswick Bible Institute. There he met Marcia, who was born and raised in Nova Scotia. She, too, came from a Christian family and received Christ at an early age. Exposure to missions came through her church, which she describes as a “huge supporter of missions … We would have missionaries come in and share about their work, and we supported several missionaries financially and prayerfully.”
Kevin and Marcia were married in 2000, and later accepted as missionary candidates for church planting in Argentina. They were traveling around raising support and one weekend, while speaking at a youth rally, an NCEM missionary in attendance asked Kevin if he could be a camp speaker at Arrowhead.
The Strouts had never heard of Arrowhead before, but while there learned that Arrowhead was looking for a new camp director. Kevin’s first response was, “I know nothing of camp ministry, and have never worked in First Nations ministry before.”
But the Lord kept leading them. “We started to see the need among the young people in our own country,” says Marcia. “And lots of people who knew me thought it was a great opportunity,” adds Kevin. “They knew I enjoyed outdoor and water activities, and ministering to young people. It wasn’t confirmed in my own heart, though, until my own father, with whom I was going to be working in Argentina, told me not to miss out on what God wants to do through me in Canada, just because I thought I should be in Argentina with the culture and language that I know.”
“We knew this opportunity came from God because it was not something that we pursued or felt equipped to do,” adds Marcia. So, after much prayer, the Strouts, with their four children, joined NCEM in July 2007. “There are always surprises in ministry,” they’ve realized, “but if we are willing to step out and be used, then God will equip us for the task at hand.”
