“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth, . . .” (The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost).

No doubt you’ve stood there many times already—at that fork in the road with two or more life-altering decisions to make. When Christopher set out to choose a career, the sky was not the limit, but the goal. For though his parents had read mission stories to him from infancy, just one viewing of the movie “Top Gun” was all it took to make Christopher want to be a fighter pilot, blowing the enemy out of the sky. So much adventure and excitement, danger and glory! (There’s a testimony to the power of television.)

Shannon, raised in a pastor’s family, helping her mother with cooking schools, and selling Magabooks from age 12, was always interested in mission work. But which type of mission work? She was sure of one thing: she did not want to be a nurse or a teacher. During her second summer of literature evangelism, a friend told Shannon some stories of her parents’ ongoing mission experiences, how nursing was a perfect entering wedge for the gospel. So, two weeks before enrolling at Southern Adventist University, Shannon changed her mind (which she insists is a “woman’s prerogative”) and took nursing. That was the summer of 1999.

So how does an aspiring Air Force pilot join up with an aspiring missionary? At a Michigan Pathfinder Teen Mission Orientation, Dr. Jon Dybdal asked the kids, “How would you like to be an undercover agent like James Bond on a secret mission behind enemy lines?” That got Christopher interested—another television hero! James Bond lived such a life of adventure and excitement, danger and glory! Then Dr. Dybdal led everyone in a game that simulated entering another culture as an undercover missionary. To Christopher, this was like “cracking a code” and discovering a strategy to infiltrate and conquer the enemy. This was a new thought—working for God could also be full of adventure, excitement, danger, and glory (though he would learn that the glory can never be his own, but God’s).

The two-week Teen Mission trip that followed was Christopher’s first taste of mission work. Later he attended the Go ‘91 Mission Rally, meeting AFM missionaries, and seeing John Kent’s video on Papua New Guinea. Each of these things helped push him toward choosing missions for his life career. At the end of Go ‘91, with much prayer, Christopher buried his dream of flying jets and signed a commitment card to be a lifetime missionary. “Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back” (Ibid).

After three years of testing his missionary call through AFM in Cambodia, Christopher returned to Southern to complete a theology degree in 1999. At a Friday night vespers program, Shannon and Christopher met and quickly discovered their mutual passion for missions. In the year that followed, they began courting and went on three short mission trips together to Mexico, the Czech Republic, and Cambodia.

On December 9, 2000, Shannon thought she and Christopher were about to be mugged by three bums (really friends in disguise helping deliver Christopher’s engagement puzzle-gram proposal.) Fear turned to shock and finally joy as she agreed to be his wife.

Six months (or should we say “blinks”) later, they were married before God, family, and friends!

Now the Sorensens are looking forward to going back to the Far East, to work among the 1.3 million Northern Khmer who live in Thailand. The Northern Khmer practice Buddhism and animism. Their dialect is similar but distinct from Central Khmer which Christopher speaks. According to the Thai SDA Mission, the Northern Khmer are unreached and untargeted.

That’s our story. Please pray for us as we train with AFM this summer. Pray that God will give us wisdom to “crack the codes” of language and culture, and also give us His love which is the key to all hearts. We look forward to communicating with you all for the duration of our project, and beyond. We do not know what the future holds, but in God’s hands, we will be able to say (without a sigh), “I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference” (Ibid).

Jesus, You are the Way! And oh, what a difference You’ve made in our lives!

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