Where Are They Now: RA Chad Reynolds

Do you remember where your love for missions began? Did you read about a missionary, or did you meet one in real life? Maybe you learned how giving and praying for missions is part of a much larger, God-sized picture, and it captured your heart.

For Chad Reynolds, the seeds of a missionary calling were planted when he was a child living in the growing town of Broken Arrow, a suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The church his family attended owned two mission houses for International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries to stay in while they were on furlough. Reynolds says his Royal Ambassadors chapter helped work on the property the houses occupied, and they also welcomed the families who stayed there and befriended their children — missionary kids.

“Meeting and serving visiting missionaries through RA was so inspiring to me,” shared Reynolds.

So inspiring, in fact, that Reynolds has gone on to become an IMB career missionary, on the field for 21 years. Reynolds is currently in Mexico City, Mexico, serving in a support role as a Logistics Services Coordinator for Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and the Caribbean islands.

“RA certainly prepared me for a life as a missionary, even in the very basic sense in that without RA, I would not have known much about missions or missionaries,” he says.

He also implored RA leaders to take their role seriously: “You may never know the impact you and your lessons and activities will have on your kids.”

Life as a missionary certainly hasn’t been easy for Reynolds and his family, especially because of the pain that comes from living away from their family in the US and the ability to be present for important events. He and his wife, Crystal, have two sons in college, and he says living apart from them is very difficult. “I trust the Lord to take care of them, and I am grateful for the family of God that helps out in so many ways with my sons at college, far from our families.”

Reynolds reminds himself and us that God’s call to share His gospel with others, and to disciple them, is of utmost and present importance: “But how will people call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher (messenger)? And how will they preach unless they are commissioned and sent?” (Rom. 10:14–15 AMP).