She’d loved her years as a teacher in a multicultural charter school, but Nohemi was ready for something different. She’d come to faith a few years ago and could not escape the idea that the Great Commission was meant for her. She was ready to go. The undergraduate degree she’d earned in international education and her ESL certification had only been used to volunteer with a local refugee relocation ministry. So, with her resignation letter already typed, she started combing online job boards for ESL work.

She’d half-heartedly applied to a couple community colleges and a part-time position when she stumbled on an article about indigenous communities in the Amazon. The article said that as urban centers grow and more rural families uproot to the cities for work, many of these communities struggle to find good work on account of the language barrier. Most can’t afford English language classes, and NGOs in the area lack ESL-trained personnel who can teach English to students who don’t speak Spanish or Portuguese. Nohemi was already fluent in Spanish, and her ESL training had prepared her to teach English to native speakers of any language.

Her heart raced as she began cross-referencing the indigenous languages listed on the NGO’s website with the ones described in a missionary database. Within minutes, she confirmed that many of the communities served by this NGO had little, if any, gospel access. Most had never heard the name of Jesus spoken in their language.

Smiling and humming to herself, Nohemi printed her two weeks’ notice, found the NGO’s job list page, and clicked “APPLY.”