All the Way, the Savior Leads: A Missionary Family’s Journey Through Life’s Questions, Twists, and Turns

The decision to move one’s family around the world and answer God’s call to serve in His global missionary work is never made lightly. Most new missionaries assume there will be problems and difficulties to figure out along the way. But when the curveballs, disappointments, and challenges are severe, some families wonder if it's best to pack it up and move back home.

For MTW missionaries John and Ellen Buerger, this was where they found themselves three years into their work serving in Bulgaria. Before he and his family moved to Bulgaria, John had attended seminary and served as a pastor for several years, so he and Ellen knew through experience that ministry life often includes difficulties and challenges.

But after three years in Bulgaria, it became clear that the lack of further educational opportunities for their special needs daughter would spark a season of seeking God. They decided to make a change. What makes these moments even more arduous for those on the mission field are the hard questions both internally and from others: “Did we somehow misunderstand God’s leading?”

God’s Initial Call to Bulgaria

John and Ellen Buerger first met at a Bible college in Omaha, Nebraska. After they married in 2001, John continued at Dallas Theological Seminary where the Lord gave him an interest in using his education to teach overseas. After finishing seminary, John served as a pastor in churches in Kansas and Texas. During this time John and Ellen adopted their oldest daughter, Aubrie.

Years later, the Buergers learned of an adoption agency in Bulgaria and pursued adopting for a second time. “The Lord had been doing a lot in our hearts,” John said. “By the time Emily [Emi] came across our radar, we knew she had Down Syndrome, and we also knew we wanted her.” While adopting Emi, the Buergers also got to know the MTW team serving in Bulgaria. In fact, when the Buergers traveled to Bulgaria to bring Emi home in June 2017, they also completed their vision trip with the MTW team in Sofia.

After coming back to Texas with Emi, John shared their opportunity in Bulgaria with the session of New St. Peter’s Presbyterian Church, where he’d been serving on the pastoral staff. The Buergers invited the prayer and counsel of the session as they considered the opportunity to join MTW’s work. After receiving encouragement from elders, friends, and family, the Buergers got the green light from MTW January 2018 and began making plans to move to Bulgaria.

Seeking the Lord as a Door Closes

The Buergers had enjoyed fruitful ministry in Bulgaria for over three and a half years when they began to wonder if they would be able to continue. “Emi was aging out of the school she had been attending in Bulgaria and there wasn’t a good next school situation for her there,” Ellen said.

So the Buergers faced a situation that many missionaries do. Should they stay and continue to ask God to provide solutions to these challenges, or were these challenges God’s way of moving them on to something else?

As John and Ellen sought the Lord, they decided to look at opportunities in other European cities and even considered returning to the United States. John said: “I began to think a lot about call and giftedness. While the place you serve is important, I don’t think it’s the most important thing.” John began to see that his call to use his gifts to benefit the body of Christ should also align with his callings as a husband and father. John explained that sometimes our call to a place and our call as parents can seem pitted against each other. “That’s sort of what we felt in Bulgaria. We had to put our options on the scales and weigh them with God’s help.”

During this time of seeking the Lord, the Buergers heard from Jason and Leonore Owsley, old friends from New St. Peter’s in Dallas, who had since moved to Lisbon, Portugal. John said, “They asked about whether MTW ever planted international churches.” An international church focuses on serving immigrants and expatriates in a country instead of nationals. Intrigued, John and Ellen started talking with MTW’s European regional directors, seeking their wisdom and advice. All the regional directors supported the idea.

Spiritual Hunger in Portugal

The Buergers took a vision trip to Lisbon in 2022. The trip confirmed that there was a need for an international church plant. This change would provide better educational opportunities for their children and would allow both John and Ellen to use a fuller range of gifts in ministry. It seemed to John and Ellen that God was answering their prayers and solving their unique challenges as only He could.

Upon arriving in Lisbon in January 2023, the Buergers planned to move slowly and prioritize language study. “We don’t need to know Portuguese to minister to English-speakers in Lisbon,” John explained, “but it is important as we seek to know our neighbors and to have good rapport with the Portuguese people.”

Ellen added: “Most foreigners don’t take the time to learn Portuguese, so when we speak Portuguese, it makes a huge difference in their response to us.”

While there are other English-speaking churches in Lisbon, John explained, “All the other English-speaking church options in Lisbon are either charismatic or liberal.” The Buergers’ church plant is called Bethany International Church of Greater Lisbon (Bethany, for short). They are working to “attract a multinational English-speaking population, which could include Portuguese people, because many of them have excellent English,” John explained.

When John and Ellen started this ministry, they instinctively watched for confirmation that God had prepared this work for them. “There was a Brazilian pastor who told us their whole church had been praying for an international church plant here for years,” Ellen said. “It was encouraging to know God had already been putting this work on people’s hearts.” The Buergers also saw God’s provision in the Owsleys, their friends from Dallas who already lived in Portugal and were well-networked. Ellen said: “God showed us we couldn’t do this alone, but that we could trust Him to provide what we needed.”

The Buergers and the Owsleys started worshipping together in their apartment in the spring of 2023. They sang and prayed together, studied the Bible, and had lunch. Through conversations with friends, the word about Bethany began to spread. And so without trying to grow, they soon had 15 people coming regularly by the end of their first summer in Lisbon.

Now in the summer of 2024, 20 to 30 people regularly attend Bethany and the church is praying for a new space.

Prayers for the Future

The Buergers are excited to see the work in Portugal grow. “We’d love to have a trained worship leader join the team,” John said.

They also see an opportunity for ministry among the children and young people. “There are many youth in the immigrant community. We have eight high schoolers coming and worshipping with us. They are looking for the church to be like a family to them. A lot of them are living life on their own and need the light of the gospel,” Ellen said. “We are praying specifically for the Lord to move among the youth, because we see they are spiritually hungry.”

John said there are also opportunities in Lisbon for someone with pastoral gifts who would like to share in the preaching and teaching ministry. He said, “We’d love team members with whom we could think through ministry strategy and develop a holistic [plan].”

The Buerger’s story is a wonderful illustration of the Christian life. We all naturally long for God to clearly lay out His plan for our lives, but He often chooses to lead us step by step, not wasting any of the stops along the way. As John said, “We loved our time in Bulgaria. Even though our time there was relatively short, God has not wasted that time and work.”

God calls us to follow His lead step by step and trust Him for the future work He’s “prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10). Our life and ministry may not always go as we expect, but as we walk with God, we can trust Him to lead us as we commit to fulfilling His purposes.

Visit the Buergers' profile page to support their ministry.