VALLEY FORGE, PA (6/14/17)—Sarah Jean Nash of Olympia, Washington, has been endorsed to serve as an International Ministries (IM) missionary in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. She will minister through the new extension of House of Hope in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

As an educator and dental assistant, Nash is passionate about serving women and children through ministries of discipleship, education and health. House of Hope in Cochabamba and at the new extension in Santa Cruz offers tutoring and after-school programs for children with high-risk mothers, conducts programs for youth with addictions, serves the homeless and provides medical and dental clinics for children with mental and physical challenges. Nash will join IM missionaries JD and Rhonda Reed, who currently serve with the House of Hope.

Nash’s decision to enter full-time mission service is rooted in a passion for ministry that she has held since her childhood. “When I was 13, I felt called to become a missionary,” she explains. “My calling was affirmed when I went to Bolivia as a member of IM’s Ignite Bolivia 2014 team.” Ignite, now called “Young Adult Experience,” is a volunteer mission program designed for young adults ages 19 to 29.

Nash continues, “I am passionate about sharing the gospel with the most vulnerable through education and health and by empowering them to become who God has created them to be. I believe that God has been working in my life over the years to prepare me to do this ministry, and I am ready to respond to God’s call.”

“I have followed closely Sarah’s call to mission,” says IM Area Director Adalia Gutierrez Lee. “I am grateful that she is responding to the call after so many years of dedicated preparation to better serve among our brothers and sisters in Bolivia.”

Nash is a 2014 graduate of Seattle Pacific University and holds a BA degree in Christian theology and mission. She earned her degree as a dental assistant in 2009 from South Puget Sound Community College. Her home church is First Baptist Church of Olympia in Olympia, Washington.

“We are so pleased to hear that Sarah Nash will be serving through IM in important health-related ministries for women and children in Santa Cruz, Bolivia,” says the Rev. Dr. Charles Revis, executive minister ABC of the Northwest. “Our region, Mission Northwest, believes the church grows and its witness for the gospel is strengthened through dedicated servants such as Sarah. We rejoice in knowing that God will use her passion and gifting to touch the lives of so many people.”

Nash is working now to build her Mission Partnership Team and raise the funds needed to begin her ministry in Santa Cruz.

More information about Sarah Nash is available on her profile page.

International Ministries, also known as the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, works cross-culturally to invite people to become disciples of Jesus Christ and to proclaim, through both word and deed, God’s reign of justice, peace and abundant life for all creation.

American Baptist Churches USA is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with approximately 5,000 congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world.