Joanie Feuerstein

<<<  This is a new Asian greeting expressing love. I love Jesus and couldn’t have served Him for over 23 years in missionary work without the care, prayer, and financial support of FACE 2 FACE partners. I’m so thankful. Husband Will went onto Heaven unexpectedly in 2022 yet God left me behind and strong. Though ‘officially’ retired in Sept. 2023, I continue to listen and follow God’s leading to serve with gladness though a little less risky than in the prisons of The Philippines and mountains of Boquete, Panama.  

I agree with the song lyrics by Casting Crowns: “I don’t want to leave a legacy. I don’t care if they remember me…only Jesus. I only have one life to live.”  At my age, I’m on my last rodeo and I try to live daily for the Lord.  

I was saved at 35.  In 2001, at 53, we sold everything, kissed the grandkids goodbye and moved to the Philippines, sight unseen but sure that God ‘called us.”  This sounds spooky and magical but Creator God knows how to fan the flames of our hearts.

Crazy some would say!  Shucks, those naysayers should have seen us walking through the national penitentiary in Manila, home to 14,000 of the worst of the worst…place of the living dead!  We were part of God’s plan when criminals and alleged terrorists accepted Jesus Christ. Again, we were humbled when we were personally invited by the Bureau of Corrections to launch a women’s prison ministry on the southern island of Mindanao.  Yup…still looking crazy, but we said “Yes, Lord,” and continued the great adventure following Him. 

God grew our joy for serving Him and increased our faith through crazy risk-taking experiences. After 16 years of ministry on different islands in the Philippines, and after the death of our Son, I was 70. Still, God called us in 2017 to begin a unique mission in the mountains of Boquete, Panama.  In 2021 we repatriated and moved to a missionary village in Bradenton, Florida with small homes and lower rent. Less than a year later, Will went onto to Heaven sooner than we could have ever imagined, nor planned for. I had to shut down for a while. 

I know that the Lord is still moving on my life as I serve in my church and in my community as a leader of a volunteer team and on the finance committee of our village. I continue to network and recently connected a new ministry for foster children to our village on whose land a home for kids in critical transitions will be built.  I had the opportunity to help ACTION contextualize my Being Prepared manual for use by new missionaries overseas. I pray to continue to be a witness to what God has done in my life, to tell my story and the good news that Jesus is real and is the way.  And… I’m still crazy after all these years and so thankful. “If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit.”  2 Corinthians 5:13 (NLT)