Ricky and Carol Hendon
New Missionaries to Ecuador

Our call to missions started for us about 12 years ago when we were attending an Assemblies of God church in Alabama and we heard the word mission for the first time. Our pastor said they were signing people up for a missions trip to the Ukraine. I knew in my heart that I had to sign up for that trip. When the church service was over, I went to the foyer and put my name on the paper. When I told my wife Carol about the missions trip, she said, “Well, I feel like I need to go too.”

I’ll never forget it. It was $1788 per person to go. I was thinking, Wow. I knew I could raise my money, but how could I raise both of ours? I had two pickup trucks, and I knew I could sell one of those trucks. That would be part of my money, and then maybe our income tax return would be the rest of what we needed. That week during our devotion time, I felt God speaking to me that I should give the truck away.

God said, “If you give that truck away, I’ll bless your trip. I’ll take care of financing your trip.”

At first, I thought, Get behind me, Satan! This is my missions money.

But then I asked God to give me another sign: “I really need some confirmation here.” And the next Sunday morning, the young man God had told me to give the truck to came up to me at church.

He said, “Mr. Ricky, what are you going to do with that little truck you got?”

It really just scared me. It frightened me so bad that God was speaking so directly to me. I went in the church and repented. That afternoon I filled the truck up with gas and found the title. That night I gave the truck to that little boy, and he began to weep.

The boy said, “Mr. Ricky, God showed me in a vision about two weeks ago that you were going to give me that truck.”

The next morning, when I got to work—I worked for a company that built and sold fire trucks—my boss did not want me to go on the trip. At first he had said I couldn’t go because I would be gone too long. But the Monday morning after giving my truck away, my boss said, “How much do you lack on your trip?”

Ricky said, “Well, all of it.”

His boss said, “If that fire truck outside sells, then I’m going to pay the whole thing for you.” And before the week was out, that fire truck was sold! Now not only did we have the money to go on the trip, but we were able to buy luggage and a few souvenirs for my boss.

That was our first experience with missions. On that trip, God began to change the way we thought about things, the way we looked at people, and the way we loved people. We came back home and got back into our routine—everyone except for me; I couldn’t get back in my routine. I would stay up at night just thinking about the people there. I would begin to weep and think, What is wrong with me?

Something was going on inside of me. After a couple of months it would die down, and then a missionary would come to our church to speak, and it would eat my lunch. It would be like the man was pointing his finger in my face and saying, “You’ve got to go!” And then I’d go home and ask my wife if she saw him pointing his finger at me.

She’d say no, and I’d say, “He was in my face.” I just felt like he was telling me I had to go.

This went on for a while. Then it would die off. Then our church would have another missions trip, and I would have to go. During those times, God was just confirming my call. Yet I still didn’t know what He was doing. A church missions trip was planned for Ecuador. One of the team members decided not to go, so I was asked to fill his spot.

While in Quito, Ecuador, God spoke to me, “This is your place.” At that time I really didn’t understand what God was saying. I was thinking, Wow, maybe He wants me support a missionary to Ecuador. Or maybe He wants me to just pray for the people of Ecuador.

So I came home and began to do that. We started supporting a missionary to Ecuador, and we began to pray for the people constantly. But it just wasn’t enough. There was still something unsatisfied.

I decided to talk to my pastor about what I was feeling. He said, “Well, let’s take it slow. Maybe you should be the missions director of our church.”

I thought, That’s good. Maybe that’s it. I can take people on missions trips.

I knew the first place we were going was Ecuador. I got a team together and went back to Ecuador. God again said, “This is it. You’ve got to stay.”

When I returned home, I talked to Carol about what I felt God was speaking to me. I said, “Honey, I think God is calling us to Ecuador.” (I knew that if God was speaking to me, my wife would confirm it with some profound words.)

Carol said, “You’re crazy.”

I asked her if she would pray about it, and she agreed to pray. So we began a process of praying and seeking God.

We didn’t talk to our sons about this. I prayed, “God, if you’re calling me, then You’ve got to call my whole family.” During that time our two sons, Caleb and Joshua, were going to a Christian school. Joshua was only five at the time.

One day just before nap time, his class was praying. Joshua told his mom, “I was praying for a little girl’s arm when I heard a voice say, ‘Joshua be quiet and listen to Me for a while.’ ” Joshua looked around. Since the teacher was up front, he said he knew it had to be God speaking to him. Joshua told his mom that God had spoken to him at school and told him he was going to be missionary.

Carol began to cry and said, “Okay, God. I see what You’re doing.”

Our oldest son, Caleb, was ten years old at the time. We were serving as children’s pastors, when one Sunday morning we just felt the move of God. So we said, “Alright kids, just find a place to pray and seek God.”

Caleb went into the corner and started praying. Then he came back in, with tears running down his face, and said, “Dad, I’ve been praying, and God told me I’m going to be a missionary. But I’ve been telling him that I want to be a doctor.” Ricky told him to keep praying.

Caleb went back to the corner and continued praying. In a few minutes he came back to his parents with a big smile on his face and said, “God said I can be both!” Right now he’s 17 years old and is planning to pursue medical missions. We know God is going to do a work in his life.

The Hendons served as missionary associates for the past three years in Ecuador. They are now transitioning to career missionaries.

During their missionary associate term, they constructed 35 churches in the jungles of Ecuador, started a girls’ home called Hope House, and established a water purification ministry, of which Ricky said,

We call it “back-door ministry” in Alabama. We go in and adopt a village. We put clean water in the homes of these poor pastors and people in the village. We tell the people receiving the water purifications that we will need to send a water technician back every month to check the system. The water tech just happens to be the local pastor! So once a month, the pastor goes into those homes and talks with the family about God’s mercy.

The Hendons are excited about the call God has on their lives and the lives of their sons. They are in the United States raising their support, then returning to Ecuador.

“Really when it transcribed into a call was during the first World Missions Summit in Kentucky.” Bryan took some students from his Chi Alpha group. Because of the time he had spent in Europe, the Elliotts decided to visit the “European Experience.” The Summit featured different areas of ministry  in breakout sessions. Misty had to take the baby back to the room so they decided to meet in the breakout session. “Walking down the long hall way to the big room that was decorated as Europe, I was filled with emotion. I was half way down the hall way,” said Bryan. “The hall way was dark and you couldn’t even see the room. But I was overcome with emotion. It just happened.” He had to recover before he was able to continue. He thought, “Wow, God. Are you up to something?” He saw the European Experience. Meanwhile, Misty had made her way back in. They found each other and Bryan asked her what she thought. She said, “The program was OK but when I was in the hall way, I was overcome with emotion.” That was a moment to hang their hat on. “What’s going on with this?”

Not being the type of people to have emotional experiences and act on them, they decided to file it away. They went on with their ministry. Bryan was a Chi Alpha pastor at K State at this time. Misty is a music major but was spending her time as a stay at home mom with three young children. Bryan and Misty met in college where she was a music major and he was in broadcasting. She had been teaching lessons and Bryan was in radio. Now they have been in Chi Alpha ministry for 10 years, living in Topeka, Kansas.

After the World Missions Summit, Bryan and Misty had a student come to K state from London. She was an Atheist. During her time at K State, she met the Lord and was baptized. She was only in Chi Alpha for one year. She went back to London but the Elliotts kept in touch with her. This young lady communicated to them that her friends were very interested in her experience with God while she was in the states. They even seemed curious. She was a baby Christian and was trying get hooked up with a local body but was having problems finding a good church. She would hear about a church and then find that it was no longer meeting or trains didn’t run to the meeting location or she would go and there would only be a handful over people all over the age of 65.

Bryan and Misty had an emotional experience at the Summit and now God was showing them the need with the generation they had already been working with for 10 years. “God was putting it everywhere for us. We would turn on the radio and there would be something about the UK. Or we would go to a church and the pastor would say something about the UK.” They were wondering if they were hyper sensitive or if God was speaking to them. The Elliotts had heard that the AG wasn’t sending missionaries to the UK other than Scotland, so they were starting to wonder if they were going crazy.

In July, two years ago. Misty was at home, cleaning and taking care of the kids. She stopped and asked God to please show them what was going on with all these thoughts about the UK. She found out that the AGWM Area Director for the UK is Tim Southerland. She found his phone number and called him. “Here’s what’s been happening to us. Is this a possibility?” Misty asked.

Tim told her that it had not been a possibility in the past, but AGWM had just received an invitation from the UK. Misty was told, “We decided that we weren’t going to call people but we prayed that God would have the right people call us.” She was in the bathroom cleaning the mirror and her mouth fell open. She called Bryan and told him the story.

So now they new definitely that this was the direction. But they still had to find out about timing. At the next World Missions Summit, they felt God was saying “now.” They will be in going to Wales as new missionaries.

Bryan said, “Our backgrounds have prepared us for this new ministry in so many ways. We can see back through the years the circumstances that God has put in our paths to prepare us for this new call.” Misty said, “Experiences and even hobbies have converged to this point in our lives.” “We’ve spent 10 years in Chi Alpha working with students and seeing the plight of pre-Christian students in the UK. We feel God has trained us and given us the burden for this new call,” Bryan added.

Misty had always had a hobby of doing hair – her mom, friends, Barbies. At K State, God opened doors for her to cut hair for Muslim women. “They were not able to get their hair cut and retain the privacy their religion required,” said Misty. Through a student that had an internship in Turkey, Misty developed relationships with Muslim ladies that needed haircuts. She would go to their homes and to their Mosques to cut their hair. When God started showing them they were going to the UK, because of the large population of Muslims, she prayed that God would make a way for her to get training before they left. Miraculously, God provided the money and time so that Misty was able to complete her training. She is ready to use this gift if it is needed in the UK.

The most fruitful evangelical outreach method the Durenes have done is English evangelism. They have focused their energy on university campuses, as students are eager to improve their spoken English and tend to be more receptive to the gospel than most others in the strongly Buddhist culture. The Durenes have been recruiting volunteers from the USA to teach conversational English in the new church plants for several years. These volunteers are making a huge difference in the new AG churches of northern Thailand.

Larryon & Aida Truman

(Larryon II & Sydney - children)
Panama