Following their faith out West

It’s not an easy task to move a family of five from Birmingham to the Pacific Northwest.

“When we first started talking about it, there was a, ‘No way,’ ‘No way’ and ‘Why haven’t we left yet?’” said Todd Sproull, explaining the reactions from his three children, Colin, Erin and Shannon. 

The Sproull family’s relocation to the Pacific Northwest, however, is not the average move. They plan to move to Bellingham, located in Washington near the Canadian border, to join a missionary team through Mission To the World, the global missions-sending agency for the Presbyterian Church in America. 

Short-term ministry teams from MTW have visited the Pacific Northwest to build relationships among the Lummi Nation, a self-governing community on the Puget Sound. The Sproulls will join MTW Lummi Team Leader Michael Wadhams and his family to be part of a long-term team in that area.

Soul searching

Faith has been an important part of the Sproulls’ lives since Todd and his wife, Cindy, wed 21 years ago, and their family has remained active at Briarwood Presbyterian Church for the past 14 years. Becoming missionaries, however, was not something they thought to pursue.

The Sproull family worked in divorce care, the soccer ministry and marriage enrichment studies at Briarwood, in addition to Todd’s busy work schedule. While his job had been fast-paced and hectic for about 28 years, things started to slow down a few years ago. He was able to go to work and come home at regular hours, and it freed up time to reflect.

“It gave us time to think, and we both had this gnawing feeling that something is not quite what it ought to be,” Todd said. “We started talking and praying about it, and started to think maybe it’s missions. Then, we started to realize when we felt the most jazzed, the most excited was when we were helping with ministering to people.”

They approached their missions pastor at Briarwood to discuss available options, and he recommended focusing on English-speaking countries because the Sproull family was not proficient in another language. As they looked at international options, however, nothing seemed to fit. They attended a MTW vision retreat to learn about the organization’s teams, and that is where they learned about working with native tribes in the Pacific Northwest.

“Part of our concern was we felt like it was missions, but we love our country, and it is starting the downward swirl,” Todd said. “We kind of felt like we didn’t want to jump ship to go elsewhere, that there might be a need here. When they mentioned this mission to Lummi, it kind of filled all our desires.” 

Sign searching

The decision to apply for the missions team was not an easy one, Cindy and Todd said. It took a few years of mulling the idea over before they took the plunge.

“It was not a quick, snap decision,” Cindy said.

They took Bible and theology assessments, figuring they might not do well enough to qualify, Todd said, but they passed. In August 2014, the family took a 10-day trip to Bellingham and Lummi Nation.

“We went out there looking for a sign,” Cindy said. “We were just really praying, ‘Lord, make it clear if this is what you want us to do,’ so it kind of became the joke of the trip, was looking for the sign.”

Their kids even joked about the local transit logo, which is a picture of a bus that states, “Go.” 

“I said, ‘It is a sign. I just don’t think it is the sign,’” Todd said.

Although they never discovered an obvious providential signal declaring the trip to be the correct decision, Cindy said things started falling into place. 

“While we were out there, there wasn’t a sign, but everything seemed right,” Cindy said. “As the week went on ... and as the time went on, it became, ‘OK Lord, show us if this is not what you want’ because everything said yes.”

One indication was that their three children were enjoying the trip and becoming comfortable with the idea of moving. Their son Colin, who was 14 at the time of their trip, said he noticed most families on the reservation were young but their kids did not have a youth group. Colin, now 16, said he hopes to start a youth group for the kids in Lummi similar to what he has done at Briarwood.

“I was not expecting that to go from, ‘No way,’ to ‘Let’s move out here, and I want to help start a youth group,’” Todd said.

Their youngest daughter, 10-year-old Erin, said she could see good parts about staying and about going.

“At first when the idea came up, I really did not want to go at all,” she said. “Whenever it came up, I would just look away or not listen, but now it’s just kind of in between I want to go, but I don’t want to go. There’s so much here, but there’s good stuff there, too.”

Erin said one prospect that excites her, however, is playing a game called nine-square with children on the reservation.

Todd said he struggled with the decision to move because he was so involved at Briarwood and wondered why he would be called to leave those groups behind, but ultimately, he said, his decision came down to trusting in his faith. Cindy said it eventually clicked that by joining the MTW team, they could do the work they love full time.

“I felt like we were frustrated with trying to cram those things [ministry work] into the off hours,” she said. “We have such limited time, and so when you’re working full time and you’re limited to such few hours to do things we really love the most, that’s when I said, some people do this full time.”

About a month after their trip to Lummi Nation, the Sproulls committed to starting the process of raising money and leaving Birmingham.

Support searching

Although it has been nearly two years since they decided becoming missionaries was the right decision, the Sproulls do not know when they will leave.

“It’s God’s timeline, for sure, and he doesn’t let us know what it looks like ahead of time,” Cindy said.

As missionaries, they will rely on monthly commitments of support, and they must have commitments for 80 percent of that budget before they can take the next step. Once they reach 80 percent, their family will go on a month-long cross-cultural ministry internship in Belgium, which is held in January and July.

“We’re praying that we would qualify to go in July, but we are just short of our goal just yet,” Cindy said.

After the internship, the family will work toward commitments for 100 percent of their budget before they can move and enter the field. 

While the wait is challenging, Cindy and Todd agreed it makes more sense to obtain support before jumping into a new area.

“Once you get into the field, you are just thrown into the ministry,” Cindy said. “There’s so much to learn and so much going on — that’s not an optimal time to be raising a support base.”

They have reached out to neighbors, members of their church, community members and other churches for support. Even though financial support is necessary, Todd said it is not the only support they are seeking.

“The ministry will need prayer support and sacrificial giving, but having that prayer support, because of the spiritual battle that goes on in this environment, is huge,” he said.

Schelangen searching

Many Native Americans and Lummi people are resistant to Christianity, which Cindy said is understandable considering the history between native people and white settlers. While MTW has worked to build trust with the Lummi people over the past 20 years, it has been a long and slow process they will join, she said. 

“It’s just been in the last couple of years that [MTW] felt like there was enough trust, enough people turning to the Lord, that it was time to build that team and make that more of a permanent presence,” she said.

One goal of MTW’s Lummi Team is to preserve the Lummi schelangen — their way of life — even though many members of the Lummi tribe see Christianity as going against that way of life.

During the Sproull’s 10-day trip to Bellingham, Todd participated in a men’s prayer circle on the reservation. Wadhams had warned Todd he would be seen as an outsider and probably face a quiet group, but after Todd asked the group to pray for him and his family so that they would know if moving was the correct decision, one member opened up.

“He said, ‘Well if you could pray for me and strength in my faith because every week, somebody [in the tribe] says, ‘Run away from the white man’s god or you will lose your soul,’’” Todd said.

Individuals who choose to convert to Christianity often face discrimination on the reservation, Todd said, which leads to a barrier for missionaries.

Once they have built trust with the Lummi people and learned about their culture, Cindy said, they will work to implement ministry and outreach that connects to their traditions. One thing she hopes will resonate is storytelling, which she often implements in Vacation Bible School and which she hopes will connect to the tribe’s oral tradition.

“I think they know God as the creator, and so through prayer, I hope that they will come to see that God as [Todd] said, as the God of all nations,” Cindy said.

Overall, the Sproulls said their goal is to help establish a native-led church on the reservation. They do not know how long that goal will take to accomplish but said they look forward to the journey.

MTW has a commitment of four years, but Cindy said they do not plan to limit their work to that time frame.

“Our plan is to go and stay,” Cindy said. “We really see that as our desire and what we feel like is required. We want them to know we are coming there to love them and to serve them. … To us it is a worthwhile goal to invest the rest of our lives in if we can see a native-led church evolve from that.”