Skip Hiebert
Donate
Support Skip Hiebert with a ...
Read along as Skip blogs about life at Dulce Refugio.
I am one of those fortunate people who can say "I was raised in a Christian home". I didn't always feel that this was a blessing, but as I've grown older and have experienced more of life I have come to see that it is truly a rich heritage. Life as a young girl was pretty normal where church and church activities were just part of life as I knew it. There were 2 significant and life altering events that took place when I was 7 years old. The first was that I gave my heart to Jesus with my Sunday school teacher Mrs. Penner, and looking back at it now (in light of the 2nd event). I can see that it was God taking care of me. The 2nd event was that I was sexually abused by a missionary man who was home on furlough from our church. For the longest time I did not really remember or refused to acknowledge the memories and so only started dealing with these things when I was a young adult. Though this has been a life altering event for me, it has also shaped me, and God has given the strength, hope and people in my life to deal with it. A long time ago I decided that I was only going to let God use this and so that meant telling my story to others, especially kids and teens that I encountered who needed to hear it. I certainly don't have all the answers for how to deal with this but I truly live a blessed life and am thankful to God for that.
Another big part of my life journey has been trying to figure out what I was meant to do. I have never been one to be career driven so going to university did not have much appeal for me though I did complete 3 years at Bible College and received a bachelor of arts in Biblical studies degree. When I was a teen I attended a bible camp and this opened my eyes to Christian ministry. As soon as I could I started working at bible camp for the summer months. I figured that this would be my life work eventually but God had other plans. I moved to Alberta in 1993 to run a Leadership in training program at a bible camp and then stayed on for another year as an intern camp director. After my internship was complete I moved to Calgary and worked also getting involved in a church that had a good sports ministry program which is another one of my passions. Since the full time camp work was not happening, I thought that sports ministry could be it, well I pursued this for a few years and that too did not work out.
I had begun thinking that I needed to explore the world outside of Canada to see what else was out there. One day in April 2005 a friend of mine from church, who worked for Samaritan's Purse asked me to consider becoming a trip leader for them and to attend the leadership training they were offering that September. Well I thought about this for a while and at the beginning of May 2005 I called their office and talked to the director for the teams dept., introducing my self and he immediately said he knew who I was and then asked if "Can you swing a hammer?", when I heard those words something in me clicked and I thought, here we go, this is the start of a new direction in my life and it was!
That conversation resulted in my first mission trip to Indonesia in June 2005... and I was hooked! It totally filled my passion for being part of helping people in a practical way and showed me how to use the gifts that God had put in me. Since then I've led several mission trips for Samaritan's Purse, one of which led me to Mexico and introduced me to Children of Hope and Dulce Refugio. I look forward to my continued work with them and to know that ministries like this do not take place without much prayer and support from others, so for your part in it I say thank you! It is truly a blessing to be able to live out the calling that God has put before me.
Walking with Jesus,
Skip Hiebert
