Ready to be Launched 
Meet our newest United Brethren missionary, eager--and almost
ready--to go to Haiti.
Steve Dennie
Note: Luanne Brooks went to Haiti in the spring of 2003. This
article was published in September 2002.
Luanne Brooks is the newest United Brethren missionary. Since
we don't currently have a place for her on one of our own mission
fields, she will serve with OMS International in Haiti. She's still
a UB missionary, but we're letting them use her for three years.
Luanne, a Registered Nurse, will work at OMS's medical clinic in
Cap Haitien.
Luanne is currently raising her support. She hopes to relocate
to Haiti by early 2003. She recently stopped in the UB office and
talked to Communications Director Steve Dennie about the road which
led her to the mission field. Here, in her own words, is Luanne's
story.
Luanne Brooks
I was born in Detroit, Mich. I didn't grow up in a Christian
home; my father was an alcoholic. However, I started attending
church in Detroit with my uncle, a Baptist minister. It was through
Pioneer Girls, a children's ministry, that I first met missionaries.
I thought, Missionaries have the coolest job in the world!
When I was real little, I remember wanting to be a nun. At that
age, obviously, there were a lot of things I still didn't understand.
All I knew was that I wanted to be close to God, and to me, nuns
were close to God. I eventually learned from my grandfather, an
Irish Protestant, that I couldn't be a nun. So I switched over
to wanting to be a missionary.
We moved to Florida when I was 14, and I began attending a Baptist
church. I finally became a Christian in 1973 at Camp Winona in
Ormande Beach. It was a struggle. With nobody to mentor me or show
me what it meant to be a Christian, it was play-it-by-ear. I knew
I had to go to church, and that's about all I knew about Christian
living. Then, about seven months later, a friend told me about
a church down on the corner that had a great youth ministry...and
that had really cute boys. That was the Daytona United Brethren
church.
I began attending, and that's where I met my husband, Pat Farmer.
We were married later that year.
I still wanted to be a missionary. We came to Huntington
College so Pat could prepare for the ministry. I used to beg
him to take classes in missions, hoping that God would touch
his heart and give him a call to missions. He kept saying, "I'm
not called to the mission field, Luanne." I would cry and say,
God, if I'm not called to the mission field, why is this such
a burden on my heart?
Pat was so much against it that I finally gave up, thinking
I must be wrong. After all, why would God call me to the mission
field, but not my husband?
Pat graduated from Huntington College, earned a Masters degree
at Wheaton College, and then we moved back to Florida so Pat
could become associate pastor of Daytona UB. But then Pat became
involved in an affair. Our marriage ended and he married the
other woman.
Getting over the divorce was not easy. After all, I
had been married for 25 years. I floundered for four or five
months. But I tried to think, What can I do?
I had an education and was a Registered Nurse, so I could support
myself. I thought I could become a traveling nurse and travel
the world with secular agencies. Or, I could return to school
and become a nurse anesthetist.
Missions never entered my mind. I think God didn't allow it,
because I wasn't ready for it emotionally. I was still feeling
very rejected and unloved.
I don't know how I could have gotten through it without Vicki
McKeown, our pastor's wife. On the day of my divorce, she said,
referring to Pat, "He didn't destroy you. He launched you." I
thought, This woman's crazy. Didn't she see what he just did?
But Vicki reminded me that in Genesis, Joseph said that what
men will mean for evil, God will use for good. That really stuck
with me. I thought, God will bring something good out of this
disaster.
A few months later, Vicki gave me a card with a little rocket
sitting on a launch pad.
The turning point came when I went on a Walk to Emmaus. For
someone like me, who was feeling so awful about herself, so unloved,
it was a wonderful experience. I saw that God loves me, and I
was able to let go of a lot of the pain and hurt that my divorce
caused. And I was able to forgive. I think that until I was able
to forgive, God wasn't going to let me go minister to other people,
because I still needed too much ministering.
I went on my Walk to Emmaus in October of 1999. In November,
Pastor Chuck McKeown started a series on missions. He had no
sooner opened his mouth that first Sunday when it was like God
hit me upside the head with a two-by-four. I realized, Of course
that's what I'm going to do. That's what I've wanted to do all
my life. I have the opportunity. Nothing's holding me back.
The next day, I called Donna Hollopeter in the UB mission office.
We looked into my going to Macau, but we were told that in Chinese
culture, a divorced woman wouldn't be accepted in a position
of church leadership. Again, I felt rejected and I took it personally,
though I shouldn't have. But God healed me and assured me that
he still wanted me on the mission field. It just wouldn't be
in China.
Early in 2000, I got onto the computer and did a search on
South American missions, thinking maybe God was leading me to
South America. I found SAM--South American Mission. Through them
I went to Brazil for two months. I fell in love with the Brazilian
people and the Indians. It was probably the most exciting time
of my life.
I taught healthcare, first aid, and anatomy at the school and
ran the school clinic. But mostly, I went to scope it out and
see if I wanted to come back as a fulltime staff member.
Before I went to Brazil, I sent an application to OMS
International. They contacted me about going to Haiti, but I
felt uncomfortable about it and said no. But the whole time I
was in Brazil, I felt God nudging me to not close the door to
Haiti.
Then, one of the missionaries I was staying with in Brazil
told me, "I'm not sure this is where God wants you. We want you
here, but I'm not convinced God does."
I felt that, too. I loved Brazil. But when I left, I knew I
would never return--at least not as a missionary.
Back in the States, I didn't know what to do. Then I ran into
Julie Hollopeter, who worked at the OMS headquarters at the time.
God then started knocking down every wall I had put up against
going to Haiti.
I started doing traveling nursing and moved to the west coast
of Florida, partly to start distancing myself from my children;
we were so close, there is no way I could have left them. I checked
out churches in the area. Three churches had missionaries from
Haiti either the Sunday I was there or just before.
After the third one, I just sat in my pew and said, Okay, God,
I get it. I give up. I'm going to Haiti.
"My passion is to reach people who have never heard the name
of Jesus, and use whatever gifts and talents God has given me
to do that. Here in America, people are so hard. They have this
picture of Jesus in their minds from the media and the way they've
grown up. I want to reach people who don't have preconceived
ideas of who Jesus is. I can do that in my nursing. When I'm
one-on-one with a patient, and after I've learned the language,
I can ask, 'Do you know my Lord? And if you do, is he your best
friend?'" --Luanne Brooks
As of August 2002, Luanne had spent three
weeks in OMS's cross-cultural training and had met all of the
OMS and UB requirements. So when the funding is in place, she
can go. She would love to move to Haiti in early December.
In Haiti, Luanne will work at the Bethesda Medical Center,
a medical clinic. It is one of five major ministries of OMS in
Haiti. The others are a school, the Emmaus Bible college, the
Radio 4VEH station, and a dental clinic. There is another nurse
at the clinic, a Haitian named Miss Prudence, but no doctors.
Some students from the Bible college receive training at the
clinic. They see 200-300 cases a day.
Luanne also loves drama. At Daytona, she was in every play
and even did some community theater. She hopes that the radio
station, where Aldean Saufley has served, may provide an outlet
for her drama.
Luanne will live on the OMS compound in Cap Haitien, along
with other OMS missionaries--three other single women, two single
men, one couple, and three families with children. But first,
she'll spend three months in Port Au Prince learning the Creole
language. Luanne has three children: Chalet Hull, Michael, and
Ricky. Chalet, now 27, is married and has a little boy, Dakota.
Michael, 25, is single. And Ricky, 23, and his wife, Jessica,
have two children.
Luanne, like all UB missionaries, has
her own page on the UB website .
