Before the modern era, missionaries packed their belongings in coffins with the sobering knowledge their bodies would likely return in them! Prospective missionaries were fully cognizant of the ultimate sacrifice they may be required to make in carrying the Gospel to the ends of the earth. 

In the 20th century, missionaries like Herb and Eileen Tiessen knew life in India would have risks but could never anticipate what happened one Easter Monday. The day before, Herb preached a powerful resurrection message in the church founded by missionary statesman C.T. Studd. Preparing for a picnic in the mountains with another missionary family, Herb, a capable mechanic, hopped on his Vespa scooter to go examine their car, which would not start. He took six-year-old Dougie, the youngest of his three children, for the ride. Inspecting the vehicle, Herb discovered the problem and had the necessary part at home. Dougie wanted to ride with him, but Herb said to play with the kids, and he would be right back. Sadly, he never returned; a truck passing another on a winding mountain road hit his Vespa head-on. It was a senseless end in the prime of a ministry career. Centuries earlier, Herb’s 11th great uncle, the Bishop of England, was burned at the stake before the Protestant Reformation. Although Herb’s tragic death would never be recorded in church history, God would use it to draw young people into missionary service. 

Eileen and the children returned to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and later moved to Regina, for her to serve as Campus Nurse and Director of Admissions at Canadian Bible College (now Ambrose University in Calgary). It was there, while a student, that God called Doug to replace his father on the mission field. 

The Berlin Wall was torn down, and the Soviet Union was opening up. Doug and I, married and both students at Canadian Theological Seminary, felt strongly that The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) should respond (we were both members and Doug’s dad had been an Alliance pastor). Dr. Arnold Cook, Vice President of Global Ministries, accepted our proposal to do a Missions Research Project on the feasibility of sending missionaries into Russia. 

In the summer of 1993, we were asked to host a Canadian/American C&MA Russia team for a six-week language program at the University of Regina, billeting them in the dorms at Canadian Bible College. We were the first wave of missionaries invited to join young Russians starting churches and opening schools for theological education in Southern Russia and the Crimean Region of Ukraine. With new religious freedom, Christian literature had started flooding in from Germany. Downtown book tables led to Bible studies, which developed into fifty fledgling church plants by the Apocalypse Mission, which would soon partner with the C&MA to become the Evangelical Christian Missionary Union (ECMU). Discipleship and pastoral ministry training were desperately needed, and the C&MA was well suited to fill the need. 

Studying Russian at Kuban State University, we were affirmed as having an early aptitude for the language. Doug and I were often pulled out of classes to translate between C&MA and Russian church leadership, meeting to develop the relationship and establish a partnership. Before we finished formal language study, we were hastened into ministry, invited to teach at Lampados Bible College (now Kuban Evangelical Christian University). Prior to the first wave of C&MA missionaries arriving, in September 1993 the Russians had started this school in the “Adegei” Muslim Republic adjacent to the city of Krasnodar, and from it an extension education program based in the city of Maykop an hour away. Inundated with 250 applicants the first year, the two large houses could only accommodate 50, yet they accepted 75! In the first cohort, 23 students studied at the school, and 80 by extension. They asked the C&MA to provide teachers and church planting “consultants” (their word) to partner with future grads. 

With space restrictions, and pressures from the Muslim Republic disapproving of a Bible college being located there, the Canadian Alliance Women raised funds for a new college campus on 4.5 acres, which still thrives in the north sector of Krasnodar to this day. Almost 30 years later, they have graduated 877 students, now spread into 16 countries! 

While teaching there, Doug served as Academic Dean, training a young Russian to take over when Doug was appointed Field Director for the C&MA missionary team that grew to forty missionaries from seven countries. He taught Organization of the Church at the Bible college and in their extension program. The Russian church leaders stated publicly at their pastors’ conference that this was the most practical and beneficial class to their church planting efforts, for which Doug gave glory to God and thanked Him for being used in this way. 

I taught Music and Worship at the Bible college and extension program and Christian Hospitality to the female students and pastors’ wives based on notes from a seminar in Canada by the C&MA President’s wife, Marion Sylvester. We, in turn, passed on all our class and seminar notes to young Russian teachers who carried on our ministry at the Bible college and beyond. Working ourselves out of a job in two years, we were happy to make a small contribution to the multiplication process for God’s Kingdom advancement in Russia and Ukraine. 

The push into the former Soviet Union was a significant endeavour for the C&MA. Before going to the field, we had travelled to speak at “Eastern Europe and Russia Rallies” held at churches across Canada. This was organized by C&MA Vice President Stuart Lightbody (who later visited us in Krasnodar when I was on bed rest awaiting the birth of our first child in 1995). From those rallies emerged an army of financial supporters and faithful intercessors. Carried along by their prayers, during the early years on the field, we felt invincible despite dangers at every turn. 

One winter’s day, Doug was detained and interrogated KGB-style for long gruelling hours, while I ventured to the farmers market and wound up locked in a dark cold-storage vault with a fur-clad mafia kingpin wielding the most menacing axe I had ever seen! We each emerged unscathed and found the way back to our Soviet-era apartment block by nightfall, shaken up but safe. The prayers of God’s people had miraculously unlocked doors, reminiscent of the Apostle Paul and Silas, whose prison gates flung open. 

In Moscow, we were awaiting the birth of our first son, after a difficult pregnancy which necessitated emergency flights and a Kremlin hospital stay. Doug was held at knifepoint in the market, then days later was given supernatural strength in the C&MA guest flat to fight off an intruder intent on cutting the baby out of my tummy to sell on the black market! The threat of death from snake bites and tropical diseases was replaced by new dangers on mission fields like Russia, where corruption and crime seemed to lurk on every corner. 

Despite emotional trauma caused by the incident and the mission’s directive to keep it quiet so as not to alarm other missionaries, I remained undeterred, knowing God had protected Doug, me, and the baby born a week later. Discovering the intention of the intruder from a police detective (confirmed later by an article in the Moscow Times newspaper), I sensed little ‘Joshy’ must be a special child meant to be raised by us. 

From age eleven I had a strong call to missions, and I believe God knew why this would be needed. Missionary Ruth Patterson spoke to our Pioneer Girls at Stoney Creek Alliance Church, asking for any willing to follow God’s call to the mission field. I stood immediately, never forgetting that moment when I was the only girl in a large circle who made a stand. I would take the road less travelled, leaving behind an artistic flair, career aspirations, and boyfriends not called to missions. Instead, God gifted Doug and me with tenacity and a love of adventure. We would turn our missionary hardships into stories featured in C&MA publications and videos. It seemed nothing could stop us… until something did. However, like Doug’s father, it was not what anyone expected. 

During our second term, as Field Director, Doug, along with me and our sons Joshua and Zachary, faced finding a new home, field office, and guest apartment on short notice. Threatened by mafia loan sharks, our landlord needed to sell his real estate fast. When Zachary was born, I had contracted a severe virus from the Russian hospital, which developed into symptoms later diagnosed as Fibromyalgia. With a newborn and toddler, I had spent most of our first home assignment in Canada flat-out on the couch, in between a rigorous speaking schedule in Ontario and Saskatchewan. Back in Russia, I struggled to stay on my feet caring for a young family and steady stream of missionaries, Russian church leaders, and short-term mission teams. So I was thrilled when God provided a large home close to the building site for the new Bible college, which conveniently housed everything under one roof. 

In our previous home and adjacent field office, we had to keep the mission money in a safe, carried into the country by visiting C&MA leaders, professors, and short-termers. As a result, we endured a couple of harrowing nighttime break-in attempts. The Russian ‘ruble’ had crashed, and the bank froze $200,000 of mission money, which took Doug a two-year battle to retrieve (with interest PTL!) The ECMU Church President urged us to get a gun or a guard dog. We opted for a fierce-looking German Boxer that immediately took to our boys. Sadly, a year later when we were in Helsinki, Finland having our work visas renewed, the dog fell ill and died. 

Our Russian nanny suspected poisoning from the large clan of Gypsies running an opium trade from the house next door. Syringes were often tossed over the tall metal walls into our yard where the boys played. On one occasion, three-year-old Zac found a used condom in his sandbox, thinking it was a balloon! The neighbours stole a large box from our shed containing toys from Canada for birthdays and Christmases, and set a visiting missionary’s car on fire. They seemed intent on pushing us out of the neighbourhood, despite our kindness to them. The nanny hauled our dead dog to a clinic for an autopsy, which indicated it died from a virus that could kill a Boxer in 24 hours. 

We thought it fortunate when we returned from Helsinki to discover the new house came with a guard dog — a German Wire-haired Pointer, the pride of its owner who occasionally took it hunting and returned with a truckload of pheasants. After the first expedition, the dog was placed back in our yard, and a few days passed before I noticed several brown sacs like large corn kernels hanging from around its eyes. Inspecting the long fur, Doug found dozens of engorged insects feeding off the animal’s blood. To relieve the dog and protect our boys who played with it in the yard, Doug began pulling the insects off using tweezers from his computer repair kit, with me urging him to wear gloves as they may carry some disease. Doug removed 30 to 40 ticks on a couple of occasions, and the nanny removed that many a few other times. 

Doug went from hardly a sick day in his life to suffering one health challenge after another—from environmentally-induced asthma to irritable bowel syndrome. Each month he would have a flareup of flu-like symptoms and depression, such that I began calling it male PMS! Several times during our last years in Russia, Doug wanted to ‘throw in the towel’ and go home. By then, my health was recovering, thanks to a suitcase of naturopathic supplements for Fibromyalgia, gifted to me by a short-term team that had heard about my condition. I tried to keep Doug from despair, while adding a one-room schoolhouse for six missionary kids (MKs) to my ministries in our final year. Feeling ill-equipped to teach children, I begged the C&MA to send us a teacher, but none could be found. 

In 2001 we returned to Ontario for our second home assignment, grateful that God had brought our family through another term intact. It had not been easy serving as a young Field Director on a team of mostly older missionaries, although we felt affirmed by leadership and votes from the missionaries. They said we were the right couple for that time due to our language proficiency, favour with the Russion church leaders, and the simple fact that we were willing to carry suitcases! That we did, along with finding apartments, rental homes, language schools, and nannies for the steady stream of missionaries joining the team. 

In Moscow, with our boys in tow, we welcomed new missionary families, visiting professors, and short-term mission teams, showing them around, orientating them to the culture, then accompanying them to their cities. We travelled across Russia and Ukraine to visit church leaders with whom the C&MA was partnering, and missionaries settling into language study, then later entering into church planting partnerships with Russian Bible college graduates. 

I was assigned as Language Coordinator, but felt like a taskmaster while missionaries struggled with this complex language I referred to as “Greek in a blender.” Eager to send missionaries to Russia, North American C&MA leadership ignored Modern Language Aptitude Test results and sent personnel who might have had better success with an easier language. One American couple struggled so badly, leadership wanted to send them home, but Doug fought to keep them as Russian colleagues petitioned on their behalf. This couple is the only remaining first wave of missionaries serving there to this day! 

Upon what would become our final return to Canada from serving two terms, Doug began seeing medical specialists, recounting his story of the hunting dog. After a dozen specialists he stopped telling it, although by then he had heard about ticks and Lyme Disease, but suggested it to doctors in vain. 

Doug was urged by his former professor, Dr. Enoch Wan, and American C&MA leadership to take his Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies from Reformed Theological Seminary. So he flew back and forth to Jackson, Mississippi, on a full-tuition scholarship. In between two-week intensive classes, I would have everything ready to go for a whirlwind of up to 14 speaking engagements at churches and schools on weekends. 

Doug was exhausted from the rigours, still struggling with a myriad of symptoms coming and going, which no doctor could diagnose. With a strong physical constitution and an inherited Mennonite work ethic, he soldiered on. After defending his dissertation about the C&MA partnership in Russia, professors said it was among the best in the past 25 years. In April 2004, upon completing his studies, Doug took on the role of Assistant Vice President of Global Ministries at the Alliance National Ministry Centre (NMC) in Toronto. 

Dr. Martin Sanders, our former professor who had become a mentor when we hosted him in Russia on several of his trips, insisted I possessed the intellectual fortitude to warrant further studies. When I resisted, he secured financial sponsorship and submitted a reference to the Arrow Leadership Program he taught in. After several trips to British Columbia to attend intensive courses, I was offered a scholarship from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary to apply my Arrow credits toward a Doctor of Ministry in Leadership Studies. Sanders found funding for my travel to the campus in Charlotte, North Carolina, and a pastor and his wife offered me free room and board, making it an opportunity I could not pass up. I only hoped it would help me be more useful for God’s Kingdom and not merely serve my own interest in further studies. By God’s enabling, I graduated in 2008 at the top of my class but by then, Doug was too sick and finances were too scarce for me to attend. 

Neither of us had planned to live in Canada. After graduating from Bible college and anticipating life as a single missionary, I had found myself engaged and sitting through interviews with Doug for pastoral positions to fulfill the two-year home ministry requirement before being assigned to the mission field. During one meeting with a District Superintendent, the man disregarded me until we stood up to leave, and he asked if I played the piano or typed! It was a stark realization of the limitations, especially for a pastor’s wife, in C&MA church ministry at the time. 

Conversely, on the mission field serving among conservative Russian Baptists whose wives still wore head coverings, I was given every opportunity to minister using my spiritual gifts. Eventually I was invited to teach New Testament Greek and Biblical Hermeneutics at the Bible college (although by then I had to decline further teaching, due to our assignment as Field Director). 

The path to my teaching had been forged by an older woman from C&MA Holland named Britta, who, along with her husband Lammert Hukema, was invited to teach at the Bible college in the early years when the Canadian C&MA also redeployed Clem and Maddie Dreger, and Lloyd and Georgette Makaroff. Pre-retirement teachers like these filled a temporary gap, working through translators while new missionaries learned the language. The Russians were brutal about their language, rating missionaries in front of each other and only allowing the most proficient to teach in theological education. 

From 2004 to 2005, Doug worked sick at the NMC and travelled, until his health deteriorated, and he was forced to take sick leave. With no answers from numerous diagnostic tests, after five weeks the missionary doctor said it was likely just chronic fatigue, and he should go back to work as it would do no harm. Doug responded, half-jokingly, he would meet him next in the Emergency. 

A few months later, while interviewing a missionary candidate couple over a meal during General Assembly in Edmonton, suddenly Doug could not breathe. As he gasped for air, in desperation, the young woman handed him an asthma inhaler from her purse, which remedied the problem. He called me at home to book him a doctor’s appointment. Doug barely managed to lead the missions rally the night before flying home and heading straight to the Emergency, where it was discovered all his organs were shutting down! He was forced to leave his ministry at the NMC, not imagining he would never return. 

By the time I received my diploma, cap and gown in the mail from Gordon- Conwell in 2008, Doug had been off work and without an income for two years, and we had drained our savings. Eventually, we secured CPP Disability for him, then the C&MA insurance provider added Long Term Disability, including two years back-pay, for which we were relieved and thankful to God. 

My graduation had passed by then, and the stresses had given rise to symptoms much like Doug’s. After ten years and eighteen medical specialists, he had recently been diagnosed with Chronic Lyme Disease and several co-infections. I fell ill while still on official study leave with the C&MA. For the next three years, after treating me unsuccessfully for Fibromyalgia, the physician finally realized I, too, had developed Chronic Lyme Disease. 

A year later, with our teenage boys easily breaking bones, it was discovered that they had also tragically contracted this debilitating disease. It was impossible to determine whether we got it from the guard dog in Russia or from living in the same household with Doug (like families in Lyme, Connecticut, where it got its name). 

What started as a small undetected tick bite on the mission field ended up a family tragedy. We read years later about the proliferation of Lyme bacteria in ticks on pheasants in southern Russia during the time we had served there. The deep grieving which began when Doug went on permanent sick leave in 2006, proved to be a terribly hard, long, and lonely road. 

By God’s grace, with the help of His Church and the Holy Spirit as our Comforter, over the course of a decade, Doug and I came to accept the loss of our health, savings, career, and colleagues. We will never be accorded the honour of martyred missionaries, those who returned in coffins, or casualties like Doug’s dad buried in India. But we now live quietly and contentedly as C&MA medical retirees, with the knowledge that we answered God’s call to the mission field and served Him to the best of our ability for the limited time we had, teaching and serving in mission leadership in Russia and Canada. 

Those preparing for missionary service, and those sending them, must seriously count the cost. We knew only too well the threats on our lives at the hands of the Russian mafia and former-KGB that tapped our phones and often surveilled our home and mission office from a car parked across the street. But we never imagined a tiny insect bite would eventually take us out of ministry, rendering us disabled for the rest of our own lives and the lives of our sons. 

Ironically, as teenagers, Josh and Zac were discovered to be prodigies, the odds of two in one family being one in ten million! Josh’s early gift for art is hypothesized to be from an in-vitro brain injury during the scuffle in Moscow shortly before his birth. The full story is told in a book and documentary film. 

In an unusual way, God brought beauty from ashes for our family (Isaiah 61:3). We remain committed to the Lord’s plan for our lives, which took an unexpected turn into the fine art and music composing worlds each of our boys entered at a young age. These are very secular fields populated by exceedingly few Christians. Josh and Zac exemplify the missional fervour of their parents and grandparents, intentional in carrying that legacy to ‘unreached people groups’ on international ‘mission fields’ afforded by globalization. You can take the missionary off the field, but you can’t take the missionary heart out of the Tiessens! 

Over the years, following the advice of industry mentors like artist Robert Bateman, Doug and I have helped launch our boys’ careers in these difficult fields. Admittedly, seminary did not prepare us for this. Nevertheless, we have been able to use transferable ministry skills with the limited strength God gives us each day. Alongside their emerging careers, Josh and Zac are each involved in related local church and parachurch Arts ministries, with us serving gladly behind the scenes in supportive roles. 

After Lyme treatment stronger than chemotherapy, six years later our family still pays $3,000 a month to keep us all on our feet. Doug continues to receive Long Term Disability because of working those two years at the NMC, and we see this as God’s provision, reflecting our life verse in Jeremiah 29:11. Josh and Zac are partially supported as Christians in the Arts through Incarnation Ministries toward their portion of our family’s ongoing Lyme treatment, funded by a handful of donors who believe the Church should look after missionaries they committed to when commissioning them for service. 

We are still in contact with our boys’ Russian nanny, who also developed Chronic Lyme Disease presumably from the same guard dog, as did her daughter. Through Facebook, we eventually reconnected with our missionary colleagues and Bible college students, plus Russian and Ukrainian pastors and missionaries spread throughout the world, continuing the multiplication process to build God’s Kingdom. To date, the C&MA partnerships we were blessed to help forge in Russia have seen 90 churches planted, with 5,700 members and adherents now joining in the song of the redeemed. To God be the glory! 

“Only one life will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” C.T. Studd

This is an excerpt from the book, On Mission Volume 3. Download your free copy today.