Tom & Leigh Ann | Omaha, Nebraska

MEET OUR FAMILY

We were both raised in eastern Kentucky and still love to get back to our roots through southern food, Appalachian music, and down-home hospitality. Tom loves a good celebration of any kind, working out, and trekking in the Himalayas when he is ministering there. Leigh Ann loves a good quiet afternoon, books, classical music, and taking walks. We both love exploring creation and spending time with family!

Over the years, we've been privileged to serve in widely varied settings. For the first summer of our life together as newlyweds, Tom served as interim pastor in the small eastern Kentucky church he grew up in. While we both attended Bible college in Texas, we served at a church mainly reaching out to the Mexican immigrant neighborhood around us. After graduating, we spent 16 years back in the foothills of the Appalachians in an interdenominational youth center where we also helped plant a church and Christian school. It was in that youth work that the Lord ignited our hearts for the rest of the world through the missions focus of the founder. After serving 8 years at Trinity Church (now Lifegate) in Omaha, we spent 14 years in Scotland where we planted a local church and tried to embed in our community the desire to reach the world through regular short-term trips throughout Europe and Southeast Asia. We returned to Omaha in 2022, where we love having our daughter, son-in-law, and 2 sweet, funny granddaughters only a mile away!

We are currently serving at Waypoint part-time while Tom devotes extended time multiple times each year traveling to partner with nationals in Southeast Asia to share the gospel among unreached people groups there. Along the way, in every single one of these places, we have been blessed to work with amazing people and to see the Lord do amazing things. We are grateful for the life He's given us!

OUR HEART AND MISSION

Tom travels to 3 countries in Southeast Asia regularly every year to support national Christian workers on the ground there to reach unreached people groups. This can look like trekking days into remote mountain villages to share Jesus, or speaking encouragement to underground churches meeting in urban high-rise buildings in a city of millions, or helping local leaders strategize how to meet the spiritual and physical needs of people around them in their war-torn setting, or holding a retreat to refresh translators who work tirelessly to get the Bible to people in their heart language. To see the commitment of these workers in their extreme and difficult circumstances brings to mind Hebrews 11:38. These are people of whom the world is not worthy, and it is humbling to be able to know them and work with them.

LIFE IN OUR CORNER OF THE WORLD

Culinary delicacies in the areas where Tom travels include crispy fried chicken feet and yak tea (yak milk, melted yak butter, and tea mixed together!).

In one of these areas, brides are expected to frown during the wedding ceremony so they will not seem so happy or eager to leave their parents' homes.