Get to Know Chris Sandford

Ministry Description

II will be working as the Assistant Outreach Coordinator. That means that I will be planning most if not all of the events that Word of Life Australia does as well as communicating plans and leading the trips as well. Another big part of my job is I will be over the other interns that we have in our program helping them navigate the same thing that I did over the past two years. This includes running weekly devotion times, discipleship, and doing my best to keep everyone in harmony despite the different cultures and backgrounds that they come from. On top of that, once I go back I'll have the opportunity to start a gaming ministry in Australia with Word of Life as part of my new position. This was one of my goals for my ministry as a whole when God called me into ministry and I'm so glad that God is opening doors for that in Australia.

Here is a link that gives a short practical look at what we do and how our ministry impacts the people we minister to: https://www.veed.io/view/042ac6bf-49af-4479-9156-4ffe84354537?panel=share.

Learn more about the ministry in Australia.

About Chris

I Grew up with Christian parents, my little brother was saved at the age of 4 and that spurred me on to see what it meant. At that point I understood that I was a sinner in need of a savior and I asked Jesus to be the Lord of my life. However, it was not until I was about 14 years old and I went on a mission trip to War, West Virginia that I started taking my salvation decision seriously. I realized that being a Christian was more than just acting a certain way when you were around certain people, it’s about having a constant and growing relationship with God. I continued to go on mission trips for the next five years of my life and I continued to grow my relationship with Christ which eventually lead to me coming to Word of Life Florida for what I thought was a single year.

During my time there, through studying His word, God really flipped my whole future around and called me into missions. I did not have any clue where God wanted me, I just knew he wanted me to be involved with missions somewhere. I began to pray and ask God where he wanted me to go and to make it abundantly clear if that's what He wanted me to pursue. Through various circumstances I got in contact with the director of Word of Life Australia and we instantly connected on both our visons for ministry as well as how I would potentially fill the need they had there. Because of that, I decided to do a two year internship with Word of Life Australia.

My first two years in Australia were amazing. They weren't without many hardships but God really grew me and stretched me in many areas that I didn't even realize needed growth. Australia only has around a 2% population of Bible believing Christians so it was quite a shift in culture from living in the Bible belt of America. I cannot wait to go back and resume ministry there now as a full time missionary for years to come. I honestly don't know completely how to put the feeling into words but Australia almost feels like more of a home than the United States ever did.

"Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." -Luke 10:2

Contact Information

csandford@wol.org
US Phone number: 336-792-0090