All in, From Billboard to Precipice: Part 1

His Story

While eating at Taco Bell late one night during college, Zach Gregg noticed a “Volunteer Firefighters Needed” billboard outside the window. The next day, he signed up for a firefighter accreditation course which launched his career at one of the busiest fire stations in Georgia. Around the same time, a man from his church began modeling what it meant to follow Jesus in daily life. Zach decided, whatever else I do, I have to do life-on-life discipleship with men like this.

Zach’s life revolved around firefighting and discipleship until another “billboard moment” rocked his world. During an otherwise ordinary Sunday morning sermon, his pastor explained that three billion people didn’t yet have access to the gospel. The lack of witness among the unreached was, to Zach, one of those things “you just can’t unhear.” He had always thought of missionaries as “just a bunch of weird people, typically with long hair and lots of children.” But after that sermon, he dove into Scripture and was shocked to see the theme of global missions running through familiar texts from Genesis to Revelation. Suddenly his mindset changed from Should I go? to Why would I not go?

The next Sunday, Zach told his pastor, “I have to do something about the unreached, but I have no idea where to start.” The pastor suggested he contact a missionary couple who, by God’s providence, happened to be in town. Over lunch the next day, Mark and Alice Adams spent three hours unpacking the basics of global missions. Zach couldn’t have gotten a crash course from a better source. Mark and Alice had extensive field experience in East Asia and were part of the international leadership of a missionary-sending organization called Pioneers. They encouraged Zach to go on some short-term mission trips to see what the Lord might have for him in the long term.

A few months later, Zach ventured into the Amazon, traveling on puddle-jumper planes between grass airstrips. On his first night in a remote village, Zach’s missionary host knocked on his door. “You’re an EMT, right?” she said, “Can you help deliver a baby?” That night, Zach started to really believe that the Lord could use a firefighter from Georgia to make disciples on the mission field. “It blew my mind that the two could ever come together.”

Zach came away from his next trip, this time to Central Africa, with mixed emotions. He was both intimidated by the realities of life on the field and exuberant that the Lord would consider him to be a part of the work. Back at the fire station headquarters, he heard a co-worker say, “I’ve been here 10 years. Only 20-something more to go.” Zach realized then that a career as a firefighter wasn’t what God wanted for him. He called Mark and said, “I’m in for the long haul.”

Zach’s church invited him to give an informal presentation about his experience in Central Africa during a Sunday morning service. As he chatted with people afterward, a friend walked up with a beautiful young woman and said, “Denise, this is Zach. Zach, this is Denise, and she wants to go overseas.” Then Zach’s friend took a deliberate step backward and waited expectantly. And so, with no warning and a lot of awkwardness, Zach and Denise were officially introduced.

Her Story

Like Zach, Denise grew up in a small town in Georgia with a church on every corner. As a child, she heard tales of missionaries like Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong. As a freshman in high school, she took a short-term trip to Guatemala and came home determined to become a missionary herself. Denise’s parents were less convinced. They supported missions as a good thing for other people to do but expected their little girl to work a good job, have a nice car and sit with them in church every Sunday.

But it was too late. Denise’s eyes were open to the needs of the world and she went back to Guatemala every spring break. Her early understanding of missions was limited to meeting physical needs and telling Bible stories along the way. After a few years, she discovered the concept of unreached people groups and thought, How could there be people who haven’t ever heard the gospel?

During college, a friend discipled Denise with the same life-on-life principles Zach had experienced and embraced. Denise got to see the way this woman honored her husband in daily life, saw her cry over cookies that didn’t turn out right, and watched her get angry, then ask for forgiveness. All the good stuff, all the bad stuff, and in the middle of it all they talked about the Word and how it applied to their lives. Denise thought, This is so cool! This is the Church.

One day, Denise’s mentor commented that a group of guys from their church would be returning soon from a trip to Central Africa. The fateful morning of Zach’s presentation, Denise didn’t realize what was happening until she had been somewhat formally presented to him and left standing awkwardly in the center of a circle of expectant people. There’s no getting out of this, she realized. Fortunately, Zach was quick on his feet and offered to connect her with some of the missionaries he had met on his trip.

Their Story

Zach swears he played it cool after the church encounter, but he was clearly smitten. After a few months of inviting Denise to flag football games, tailgate parties and group dinners, he asked her to join him at a missions conference at Pioneers, the mission agency Mark and Alice had introduced him to. On the first night they were there, Denise shared her testimony, and it was yet another billboard moment for Zach. Afterward, he told a friend, “I’m pursuing Denise for marriage. I don’t know if she’ll have me, but I’ve got to try.”

Zach and Denise officially started dating in March 2011. They traveled abroad separately over the summer, trying to discern where the Lord might have them serve, either individually or together. Denise already spoke Spanish, so South America seemed like a natural fit. However, her summer outreach program assigned her to a team traveling through Asia. She was surprised to find that she loved Asia even though it felt so much darker than anything she’d experienced on the Western side of the world. Denise thought, Oh no! I want to go to Asia now, and Zach’s probably still thinking about South America. Little did she know, Zach was also drawn to Asia and worried about Denise’s response. One of their first conversations when they finally met face-to-face again started with an awkward, “So…Asia…,” and then relief as they realized, “Wait, you too?”

Zach and Denise became Mr. and Mrs. Gregg in March of 2012, just a few months after they both joined Pioneers. They bought a globe and a copy of Operation World: The Definitive Prayer Guide to Every Nation and started praying about where in Asia God might want to use them. They also attended conferences, talked to missions organizations and sought advice from mentors. Soon, a presentation about the many Muslim peoples of East Asia drew Zach and Denise’s attention. As they learned more, they felt increasingly certain that God wanted them to serve a particular Muslim minority group. As Denise puts it, “We didn’t know, but we were pretty sure.”

At that point, Mark Adams, Zach’s original missions coach, invited them on a survey trip—a tour across East Asia, including the area where they planned to serve. On that trip, the Greggs met missionaries of all stripes: businesspeople, teachers, coffee producers, doctors, moms and artists. The diversity of these gospel workers inspired Zach and Denise. Surely God had a place for them as well.

At the very end of the trip, in a final conversation a half-hour before Zach and Denise left for the airport to fly home, they heard about 33 people groups clustered around a city called Daiji in the one area of the country they had not visited. Not only were those people groups unreached, no one had yet begun attempting to reach them. At the airport waiting for their first flight back to Georgia, Zach and Denise had another awkward start to a conversation. “So…those 33 people groups…”

One of the traits of God that the Greggs love is that He often stands His followers on a precipice. We know He will work and be faithful and put us right where He wants us, but we never know how He will do it. Zach and Denise were both ready to step off the precipice and move to Daiji.

Zach told the Lord, I am all in for as long as You have me there.

This is it, Denise agreed. God told us. I’m committed until I die.

Ready, Set, Go

Before Zach and Denise could leave for the field as missionaries, they had to build a team of prayer and financial supporters to sustain them in ministry for the long term. They spent about a year in the U.S. sharing their ministry vision with family, friends and churches. They planned to focus on one or more of the 33 people groups that did not yet have a gospel witness in the area around the city of Daiji. As they built relationships, they hoped to share the gospel, disciple new believers and help them form new churches.

To the Greggs, it was obvious this would be a long-term project. It would take years just to learn the language to a high-enough proficiency to engage people on a spiritual level. But not everyone understood that. People often asked them, “How long are you going for?” Zach and Denise would answer, “We don’t know. Until the Lord re-directs our steps, but we’re going for the long haul.” Even so, many seemed to expect them to come back after a year or two overseas.

During the preparation and support-raising process, the Greggs realized God wasn’t just shaping and growing their own hearts in preparation for ministry to the unreached. He was also working in their parents, who shed a lot of tears as they let go of their dreams of having Zach and Denise and future grandkids close by. Just before the Greggs left for the field, Denise’s mom expressed the bittersweetness. “You want your kids to follow the Lord and go wherever He takes them, but I didn’t think it was going to be around the world.” For Zach, it was an important reminder. “When you embark on this cross-cultural journey, sometimes you don’t think about the impact God is having on so many other hearts and souls.”

Zach and Denise left for the field a few days before their first anniversary, ready for a lifetime of service, sacrifice and adventure.

Taking the Leap

The Greggs set about establishing a life in Daiji, home to half a million people—a tiny, obscure town by East Asian standards. A common saying about Daiji went like this: “There are no three days of sunshine together, no three honest men together and no three pennies to rub together.” The city had a reputation as a dreary, backwoods place with dishonest people trapped in perpetual poverty. Zach and Denise planned to study the national language at a university there for two years before moving into full-time ministry in a more rural area nearby.

Daiji lay in a narrow river valley compressed from both sides by lush green mountains. The entire city seemed constantly under construction. With no room to expand outward, it strained upward. Ornate historic buildings were systematically torn down to make room for concrete tower blocks. Daiji illustrated the chaos and extreme economic disparity of rapid modernization. It had skyscrapers, but no airport. Widescreen TVs glowed from the open windows of thatched huts. Donkey carts vied with Maseratis for parking spaces. To Zach and Denise, “It was awesome. We loved it.”

At least, they loved it eventually. The “country comes to town” atmosphere of Daiji meant most people had never seen a foreigner. Zach and Denise’s white skin and light hair shocked people. They were stared at constantly. Every conversation began with the same questions: “Where are you from? Why are you here? How much money do you make?” The entire city smelled like tofu. The first apartment they saw as an option to rent was dirty, dimly lit and overrun by rats. They eventually settled in a reasonably nice place but struggled to make it home.

Since Zach and Denise planned to move overseas even before getting married, they had never really set up a house and didn’t know how to do that, especially in the podunk-village-turned-concrete-jungle setting of Daiji. Denise felt guilty spending money on anything but necessities, worried that people would judge her. She cried a lot in the first year. Zach was terrified he wouldn’t be able to learn the language. Some days he wanted to chuck his notebook off the balcony in frustration. Zach and Denise both love going deep with people, but until they learned the language and culture, they couldn’t. The isolation of Daiji wore on them. For years they never even heard airplanes pass overhead. “God brought us to a very obscure place,” Denise remembers, “He was tearing us down to build us up in Him. There was a lot of good, just for our souls, in moving to Daiji.”

Fortunately, Zach and Denise had each other. When one of them felt discouraged, the other could offer perspective. They shared their hurt and frustration without feeling ashamed. About a year after arriving, the Greggs went to a conference. An experienced leader made a passing comment: “You’re never married to East Asia. You’re just married to Jesus.” For reasons Denise can’t explain, that statement gave her an immediate sense of relief. She finally felt free to make Daiji home, realizing It’s okay to put down roots even though it’s painful to pull them up sometimes.

Sticking the Landing

Zach and Denise finally began to settle. They realized that cooking was an essential part of hospitality for Denise, so they invested in kitchen items. Over time, they decorated their house with comfortable furniture and an abundance of pillows. They developed a date night routine, made pancakes every Saturday morning and watched Remember the Titans to celebrate the start of football season.

Gradually, the Greggs developed the deep relationships with local people that they had longed for. One afternoon, Zach sat at the kitchen table with one of his best friends, a local believer, reading 1 Peter 3 and discussing what it meant to live with their wives “in an understanding way” (1 Peter 3:7). The thought struck him, Man, I love this so much! You could pull away our nationalities, and we are just two brothers loving the Word and wanting to apply it to our lives. Denise remembers sitting at that same round, wooden table studying English from the Jesus Storybook Bible with students. They had so many questions about what they read. A friend who taught at a local preschool had always displayed a gentleness that Zach and Denise loved. She came for dinner one night and began asking them about what happens after we die. It’s a topic that isn’t usually discussed in East Asian culture, so the Greggs were surprised at her interest. A week later she came to know the Lord through another believer.

Denise often wrote Bible verses on the tile walls of her kitchen using a dry-erase marker. One day an unbelieving friend told her, “I want to know what that sentence on your wall means: Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” She asked Denise if they could discuss it in her coffee shop so her employees could listen in. Another believer later led her to the Lord and then she invited her mom to read the Bible with Denise as well.

The Greggs realized that God had already prepared people long before they arrived in the obscurity of Daiji. As Zach describes it, “You think about the glory of God and how He is working in so many different dimensions and people and aligning everything in His timing—it just blows my mind at how amazing He is.” In His graciousness, God allowed the Greggs to be a part of a lot of stories in Daiji.

After two years as full-time language students, Zach and Denise finally felt ready to step into more direct ministry. They had always planned to move to an area north of Daiji with even less of a gospel witness. One of the challenges of the move would be arranging new visas. Most countries require foreigners to apply for permission to live within their borders for a particular reason, such as study or business.

Zach and Denise didn’t realize that for more than a decade, the believing community in Daiji had been asking the Lord to place Christian teachers in the university where the Greggs had studied language. God chose to answer that prayer through Zach and Denise. The university leadership approached them and asked, “Would you stay and teach English here?”

Zach and Denise decided immediately to refuse the offer. While they might not have said it out loud, deep down they felt that to be real missionaries, they had to go to the hardest place and do the hardest thing. With a handful of believers in a city of 500,000, Daiji was unreached, but not as unreached as the villages to the north. Staying would be too easy. But as they prayed, Zach and Denise realized one of the main reasons they were refusing the teaching jobs was pride. They confessed that to the Lord, changed course and stayed.

It’s hard to overstate the value of the work visas the university provided for Zach and Denise. They had respectable jobs, a reason to live in the city and a life that their friends and neighbors understood. They taught the English language and Western culture, and the university left the details of the curriculum up to them. A lesson about British landmarks, for example, provided an opportunity to tell historical stories with a gospel flair. Discussions about cultural values easily drifted into conversations about grace, forgiveness and eternity.

The Greggs even developed an unexpected relationship with Han, the police chief responsible for all the foreigners in Daiji. Zach first met him in the cafeteria of the police station and thought, “I don’t have any reason to be afraid of this guy. We could even be friends.” So, he asked for his phone number, and over time Han and his wife became close friends with the Greggs. The two couples had their first babies just two months apart. Zach and Denise welcomed little Joel into the world right there in Daiji. When both Joel and Han’s daughter were almost a year old, Zach snapped a photo of Han with one baby on each knee and reading from the Jesus Storybook Bible. He texted it to Han. Two years later, Zach spotted that photo framed in Han’s office at the police station.

In his role as police chief, Han had seen a difference between foreigners who talked about Jesus and those who did not. Local believers also had a solid testimony in the city. Han even told Zach, “Once I retire from being a policeman, then I’ll become a Christian.” His hesitation to make such a change any sooner was understandable. While in theory, individuals could believe what they wanted, in practice, the government and society severely penalized people based on their religious convictions. Han could lose his job and retirement benefits. He might not be able to get a loan for a car or an apartment. He would certainly lose the respect of his friends and would probably be cut off from his family. Han counted the cost of following Jesus and decided Not now.

The risks weren’t as high for foreigners, but Zach and Denise knew that a few specific things could cause the government to revoke their right to live and work in Daiji. For example, they were not allowed to distribute religious literature or talk about faith with anyone under the age of 18. The Greggs never hid their faith or lied about their activities. They did take care not to share information that could cause trouble for themselves or others. With some coaching from experienced missionaries, they didn’t find it very difficult.

In Western culture, we often feel that we have to answer every direct question directly. Anything else feels dishonest. But East Asian culture doesn’t have that expectation. People commonly sidestep questions as a polite way to keep personal information private. So, when Han asked directly if the Greggs had been sent to East Asia by a mission organization, Zach reframed the question the way a local person might: “Well, if you’re asking if I’m a Christian, you know I love Jesus. And if you’re asking if I want people to know about Him, of course I do. He changed my life.” Han probably knew the answer to his original question, but he didn’t push Zach for a yes or a no.

For five years, Zach and Denise navigated the social and political currents of Daiji with relative ease. They had good relationships with the university, local government and police. None of their students ever complained about their professionalism in the classroom or expressed concern that class discussions often drifted to spiritual topics. During that time, Denise gave birth to their second child, a daughter. The Greggs became team leaders and welcomed new missionaries who shared their love for the community and longed to see the people know and follow Jesus. Missionary life was playing out in much the way Zach and Denise had hoped—it was hard but worthwhile. They didn’t realize that their journey with God would lead them to more than one precipice, and they would have to keep deciding whether to step off.