Transformation Life Center in Olympia, Wash., and Auburn City Church, in Auburn, Wash., were recently privileged to have former pastoral couple Tom and Gladys Decker and their children, Trei and Alexi, visit their "home churches" to share a day of exciting mission stories and pictures in August.
About a year ago, the Deckers accepted a five-year call to serve at Nile Union Academy, near Cairo, Egypt, as principal and English teacher, respectively.
Three weeks of preparation at Mission Institute renewed the awareness of the Deckers' complete dependence on God as they left their homeland for a land that is 90 percent Muslim and has only 350 active Seventh-day Adventists.
NUA is a 35-acre, American-run school with 135 students. Students are a religious mix of Christian Orthodox, Muslim and Adventist, with an ethnic mix of Sudanese, Egyptian and American. With these cultural and ethnic differences, it is truly by God's grace they have been able, within their walls, to do much to help break the barriers down.
It has been a challenging year for the missionary family. "But the students make all the challenges worth it," Tom says. "Watching them mature, learn and grow truly gives me great joy."
Read more about the Deckers' mission experience at washingtonconference.org.
Nile Union Academy is so respected in the community as an educational provider that more than 70 students must be turned away each year. The Academy instructs 135 students on a 35-acre campus outside of Cairo, Egypt.
Tom and Gladys Decker enjoy making friends in Egypt and seeing lives transformed by God.
