Hello, my name is Melissa Thiessen and I am 19 years old.
Since the beginning of August 2024, I have been helping out as a teacher at the school here in Paurito, Bolivia.
I come from the Mennonite congregation in Dissen and was brought up in a Christian family, so I have heard and understood the stories from the Bible from a very young age. At the age of 9, I came to faith during a children’s week and have been a child of God ever since. After committing my life to God, I faced difficulties in my faith from time to time and often had to realise that God’s ways are often very different from what we imagine.
In 2023, I was baptised in our congregation. In 2021, I started a vocational training course and realised almost immediately that I didn’t want to stay there.
But when I prayed about it and God didn’t open any other doors for me, it quickly became clear that I should complete this course. I finished this year and once again asked myself where God wants me to be. I looked into several career options, but the longer I thought about it, the more the idea of going on a short-term mission trip came to mind. Even as a child, I loved hearing stories about missionaries and was so inspired by how strong their relationship with God was and how much they had experienced with Him. So I spoke to my parents about it and we prayed about it together.
I didn’t know where I was meant to go and was open to anything. When I spoke to our church elder and he eventually put me in touch with Viktor Peters, who is in charge of short-term missions, I received my answer: I was to go to Bolivia. At first, I had serious doubts about going to Bolivia, as I convinced myself I wouldn’t be able to explain things well enough – and working as a teacher for a year? That was actually a no-go for me. But the Lord works in mysterious ways and, through my time in prayer, made it clear to me that he wants me here and wants to use me.
At my last youth retreat in Germany, we had a talk from a guest preacher on missions, and he explained that God’s ways often seem illogical to us. Even in the Bible, there are many of God’s commands that seem illogical to us. For example, the story in Luke 5, where Jesus tells Peter to go fishing during the day, even though he’d been fishing all night and caught nothing. But because Jesus told him to, he goes and does it, and he even catches so many fish that the nets break.
I’m so incredibly grateful to God that he has the best plan for me.
Here at school, I teach Year 2, covering maths, German, natural history, social studies and Bible studies. The children have already grown very dear to my heart.
I also attend the youth group at the church in Sommerfeld, where I accompany the congregation’s singing on the piano and sing in the church choir.
To the Lord alone be the glory!
