Childhood Spent mostly in Akab, a remote village in the northern part of the Philippines where her family worked as missionaries. Deb grew up bi-lingual, loved being out exploring in the bush and spending time with her friends, swimming in the river, singing and playing the guitar, looking after babies in the village. A real animal lover, Deb enjoyed her dogs and cats, her horse and rabbits and turtles and often took in injured or orphaned animals and birds including a baby monkey. Envelopes containing school materials were flown in and out of the village on the mission plane, the ‘classroom’ was the dining room table. The surroundings in Deb’s mountain village were magnificent –steep, majestic and rugged mountains – ‘her’ mountains.
Saved As a young child Jesus saved her but Deb can’t remember exactly how old she was. She does remember hearing the Word taught every day in their home and often listening to her Dad teach the Word in Kalangoya – the language spoken in their area. She also remembers a point as a young pre-teen while she was at a conference, coming to a clear realization that her salvation was secure because it didn’t depend on anything at all from her but was the work and gift of the Lord Jesus.
Why Be A Missionary? That was Deb’s dream and her desire from age 14. She grew up exposed to the need for the Gospel and she knew that somehow God could use her to spread the Good News to people who hadn’t heard. Songs about the mission field would make her cry. “My Father’s House” and “Looking Through His Eyes” were some of her favourites.
Life on the Field The years have swept by......if you asked Deb if she would do it all again, she would say, “YES, YES, YES!!!!” She has no regrets about being a missionary, despite many trials and hard times (ask her for some stories!). Deb’s testimony is that the Lord has given her more than anything she ever left behind. She left her country and her family at age 21, she left medical facilities and help that could have made her a mother, she left her chance of further education that she’d desired and she gave up many ‘normal’ things like driving to the supermarket and buying her own groceries, hanging out with friends in coffee shops and much more......but in exchange, the Lord gave her the tall, handsome husband she had prayed for, has given her family a hundred-fold, a beautiful son put into her arms when he was an infant and even a daughter already a teenager and she did get to be a nurse and midwife on the mission field (though it was a far cry from sterile delivery rooms back in our home country!) She has not been able to lead a ‘normal’ life and yet God has used her ‘unusual’ life to help reach people with the Gospel and see lives changed.......so given the chance, Deb would never change the course of her life. No way!!!!!
Our son, Jubab
Our son and daughter
Philippians 1:20 'I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.'
Download Deb singing two of her favourite songs here:
Looking Through His Eyes
My Father's House
