Across the Globe: The Gundersons and Help International (pt. 1)

I was a young teen when I met the Gundersons at a missionary get-together in the Philippines in the 1980s. Our families became fast friends and eventually worked together to deliver babies in a safer, more affirming environment than what was available to many women in those days. More than 30 years later babies are still being delivered and other children without parents are being cared for and adopted into their forever homes. But how did it all begin? Grab some coffee and settle in for an honest behind-the-scenes glimpse into the making of a missionary family and some tips for those who sense a family call to the nations. 

Joy: Hi Jeri, Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story with us. Maybe we can start out with how you and your husband met and your family backgrounds. 

Jeri: Dennis and I met in our Montana State University Chemistry lab. He was a Sophomore re-taking a Chemistry course and I was a Freshman taking that course working toward a Med Tech Degree.  I told one of my friends who was also in the same lab, that I was determined to have a date with him by the end of the quarter. Sure enough. The last day of class he asked if I wanted to go out and have a few beers with him and two of his buddies (buddies who wound up being Best Man and one of the Groomsmen at our wedding). I didn’t like beer but, sure, why not? Our relationship blossomed very quickly and we were married three months later, a marriage that was to last almost 43 years until he died in 2007. 

I’m an only child. My Mom, Dad, and I were close. We were horse people and spent our summer evenings and weekends together on horseback, riding the mountain trails around my hometown of Helena, MT. My Dad was an alcoholic. Certainly, his drinking affected me in ways I only began to understand, finally, when I was somewhere in my 30’s. In spite of his drinking, though, my growing up memories are incredibly positive. I know that many Christians struggle with the notion of a God the Father who loves them, who have a really hard time accepting that, because of their conflicts or abuse from their own father. That was not my story. Even with the trauma that addiction brings to a family, and it did, I never, ever doubted that I was loved. 

Dennis grew up in a family of five siblings on a farm and ranch 30 miles north of the nearest town, only six miles south of the Canadian border in Liberty County, MT. He was the quintessential farm kid, albeit a pretty sophisticated one, who partied hard on his way toward a degree in Veterinary Medicine. After we married, we both switched our studies to History and attended every class except one together. He loved the farm, as did I, living there  to help with the farming during the summer vacations from school and then returning to farm for another seven years after we finished two years of teaching high school History in Washington state.  His folks were staunch Lutherans. The whole family faithfully attended the rural Lutheran church a few miles down the road from our farm. His Mom played the organ every Sunday and his Dad sat in the back pew so he could sleep (his own confession). While Dennis had been brought up churched, I hadn’t and had no desire to be churched for the first eight years of our marriage, but that’s another story. 

Joy: How did you know you were called to overseas missions? 

Jeri: Dennis had known he was called to the ministry several years before we met, long before I became a Christian. He had heard God’s call on his life one day on the farm when he was feeding the cows. He was wrestling with the idea of changing his curriculum studies to prepare him for seminary when we met. 

In retrospect, you could see that call trying to work its way to the surface. Dennis got this idea that the folk who lived in my parent’s community, an old mining town about 22 miles east of Helena, should have the opportunity to go to church. So, he went into town and talked with the pastor who married us about the church helping him to start Sunday services in the Community Hall in the remnants of what remained of York. We were still in college at the time, so every other weekend we’d make the 100-mile drive from Bozeman to Helena so he could conduct the service. Every Saturday afternoon, he and my dad would go down to the York Bar and have a few beers with the folk there. Good natured betting often ensued about who was going to show up in church the next day. When Dennis was there every other week, the Community Hall saw maybe 30 or more come out for the services. It was a tight little kind of community and Dennis was seen as one of them because my folks lived there and they liked him, so they came. When the fellow from town came out to preach on the alternate Sundays, not so much. The only reason I went to the services was to support Dennis, since I was married to the guy. He was so earnest. And, my Dad loved it. He’d been raised Baptist in West Virginia and knew all the hymns. He’d sit right up in front singing with exuberant abandon while I sat next to him and died. I would have given my right arm to be anywhere else but there. 

Joy: So it took some time before you got on board the “missionary call” train.

Jeri: It sure did! Our call to the field came quickly, less than a year after I became a Christian and Dennis had recommitted his life to the Lord.  It was 1973, during the Charismatic Renewal. The Holy Spirit was drenching the whole of the United States during those years and our farming community was no exception. Our call was a prophetic one. First, to me, silent and in my heart. And, then, to Dennis through a prophetic word. There was no doubt for either of us. We sold our share of the family farm and moved to Sunburst, MT to be discipled in the on-fire church there. Four years later, we were called to join an international gospel team who worked with local churches in India and Pakistan but based in Kabul, Afghanistan. 

We had four children at the time of our sending out to the world. Our eldest was 8 and our youngest, a nursing baby of 9 months. Being as we were the first missionaries sent out from our home church, there were a lot of very tearful prayers over us that God would somehow protect the children from all manner of things. Not altogether reassuring, but very kind and well-meant. My mother was distraught. She was not a believer and was sure that she would never see any of us again. There was no email or cell phones in those years. Nevertheless, we made every effort to stay in touch with both my Mom and Dennis’ Mom, both of whom were widows by the time we left. I think they were comforted as fairly frequent blue onion paper thin Areograms that folded into its own envelope started showing up in their mailboxes.  

Joy: It must have been quite challenging traveling with so many kids of varying ages.

Jeri: It was great!!! Our kids were super travelers. Even today, they look back on those years on the road, both in East Asia and the U.S. and Canada as some of the best of their lives. 

We home-schooled so took our schooling on the road with us. In Asia, we flipped our suitcases on their sides for desks and fired up school, no matter where we were. In North America, we had a travel trailer so wherever we were having meetings we could get school going once we had parked our rig. I think schooling on the road brought a sense of normalcy and continuity to the kids that perhaps they wouldn’t have had otherwise. Here in the Philippines we continued to home-school so they had that steadiness all through their growing up years no matter where we were on the face of the earth. 

Joy: Before landing in the Philippines where we met, where all did your family serve? 

Jeri: Our first team’s home base was Kabul, Afghanistan. Our team leader and his family had been ministering with local churches throughout Pakistan and India for two decades so had developed quite a network of solid relationships long before we arrived on the scene.  We couldn’t live in either India or Pakistan in those years as the team leaders were not from a Commonwealth country, so could only be in India for three months at a time and then had to be out of the country for at least three months before being allowed back in. The team was itinerant in that we travelled from church to church holding a month of meetings in each location with preaching at night and teaching meetings during the days. While homebase was Kabul, in reality we didn’t live there much, only being in Kabul for a couple of months at a time to rest and repair our vehicles which took quite a beating on the Indian and Pakistani roads. The rest of our two years in that part of Asia was spent mostly on the road, either renting a team house or living in a church with a lot of time on the road in-between meetings. 

As I mentioned earlier, we had figured we’d be with the team for at least five or six years, but the second year we were there, Russia invaded Afghanistan and we were forced to leave the country. The team, which was international, all returned to their home countries, and that was that. 

We returned to the States and spent the next 7 years working with our Montana home church in outreach and a gospel tent ministry, traveling with a team from our church throughout the Northwest both the U.S. and Canada working with local churches to bring the gospel out of the four walls of the church and into the public square. 

In 1987, we were invited to join a former Kabul team member and his family who had relocated in the Philippines doing gospel work with primarily rural churches to the north of Manila. ‘We’ve been here ever since. By the time of our move here, our family had grown to six children. Our eldest stayed in the US, entering his first year of college and we moved overseas. We have lived in the same house now for almost 34 years, the longest we’ve ever lived anywhere.  

Joy: What were some of the wins that you experienced throughout the years of ministry in different places? 

Jeri: Just being in the ministry is a win in and of itself. Not always easy by any means, but a win. It may be different for us since we are not aligned with any particular denomination or large mission, but rather, along with the family we came to join, started our own mission here. That has its pluses and minuses, of course. A minus is that all the finances needed are on us. We don’t have a large mission that we can turn to in times of need. The big plus for us has always been that we have been quite free to do as we felt God was leading us. In any big change, we always counseled with our home church, and now our church here in Manila, but at the end of the day, we were not restricted by policies that wouldn’t have fit the needs we saw here nor the circumstances. It’s not the mission life for everyone, but it has worked well for us. 

Our overseas ministry work has caused us to grow, to search, to question, to reach toward God that we would have never experienced had we not followed him around the world. Again, that’s not a blanket statement for everyone, but it has certainly been true for us. We’ve always been two things in ministry: risk-takers and putty ministry. We’ve joked over the years that we usually crawl out on a limb into entirely unknown territory, turn around, and saw it off behind us. If God doesn’t catch us, we’re done for. As for the putty, since the beginning of our walk with the Lord those four plus decades ago, we’ve always been learners. If God has a crack that needs to be filled, and asks us to fill it, we’ll learn how to do it. Just stuff us in the crack. We’re happy to learn what we need to learn to fill it.

Joy: What were some of the challenges you faced and still face today?

Jeri: Two big things. Raising finances, keeping the ship afloat and saying goodbye to children and grandchildren for extended periods of time. 

Joy: How did things change when Dennis passed away? 

Jeri: Everything changed and nothing changed. He died very suddenly. Completely unexpectedly. We had a trip to the States booked, due to leave on the trip I think about two weeks before his death. There was the craziness of services here, getting special travel papers to carry human remains back with us…that’s a whole other story…and carrying on. God was so very present with us through it all…and there were many times that we were not without a lot of humor. 

However, on a personal level, I was in for a jolt that I didn’t see coming. Yes, there was the shock and grief of loss of a soul mate. That in and of itself was and remains today in unexpected flashes of poignant memory to be expected so it didn’t blindside. But, what did catch me completely off guard, something that has taken me years to reckon with and I’m still not sure that I have, is that I disappeared in the eyes of those who knew Dennis and I as a unit. He was gone and I ceased to exist. He and I had never understood one another that way. He was his own person and I was mine. I was quite sure of who I was and thought others saw me that way, too. I quickly learned that was not the case.  I’ve never thought of myself as one who could be made invisible although I’m sure there have been those down through the years who would have liked to erase me. But, yet, here I was….having to raise my proverbial hand and remind our various ministry communities that here I was…. “I’m still here, folks. I’m still me. I haven’t gone anywhere”. All of a sudden it was like I, too, was no longer here or pertinent.  It took a good five years or more to even moderately get out from under what felt like a shroud that had covered me up. I was stunned. I still struggle from time to time. 

Joy: How did you decide to stay on the field to process your grief and continue the work?

Jeri: It may have been different if portions of my family had not been here and doing the work right with Dennis and I. I’ll never know, although I would like to think that my choice to stay would have been the same. Truth is, none of us even considered, not for one second, that I would return to the States. Return to what? My life was and is here. My call was not ever dependent on Dennis’ call nor his on mine. Yes, we were called together, but still were our own people before God. I was not what is often called a trailing spouse in the business world, or ministry wife in the church world. Neither of us even looked at our relationship that way. Those who didn’t know me well asked if I was thinking of going home. Those who knew me didn’t ask. 

Joy: How has your family missionary experience shaped the lives of your children? 

Jeri: They would be better equipped to answer that than I am. What I do know is that they’re all their own people, unafraid to be unique in the world. I don’t know if that is because of missions…maybe since our whole mission life has been one of learning and discovery, stepping out into completely uncertain circumstances, but stepping out together as a family, so perhaps some of that has been shaping for them. Like other TCKs they see the world from a vantage point that is not rooted in the United States and I think they see that, as do I, as an advantage. They have a larger lens. As with many MKs, there have been faith struggles. I’m confident that God will win the day, so I’m not anxious. 

Joy: What advice would you give to families who are considering leaving their home countries to bring the Gospel to other nations?

Jeri: I’m not huge on giving advice, but I think a few things will matter in the long run. First, be as certain as you can that you are indeed called to live outside your home country. Some will feel called to a particular people group or nation. For others, there is not a particular nation that beckons. Just the Lord who will put you where He will.

Secondly, be as sure as you can that your marriage is solid before you leave. We’ve seen too many couples who were thinking that mission life would heal their marriage. The wreckage from such a notion is terrible. Learning to live among another people  is hard enough without trying to repair a shaky marriage. 

Trust God for your kids. If you’re confident in Him and see your call as a joy and a privilege, an adventure to new worlds, they usually will, too. As you embrace things new, they will as well…probably faster than you will. You might want to follow their exploring lead. 

We thank God most every day…most every day…that He has trusted us with sharing the love of who He is to a world that so desperately needs to know Him. We have grown thereby.

STAY TUNED for Part 2 when Jeri will share some incredible stories from the day to day life of missionaries and their adventures in serving and caring for the needs of women and children in the Philippines. In the meantime check out their website and social media. 

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