By Brittany Ramirez

In fall of 2019, we sat outside the coffee shop in the unique area of our city in China, a blend of an active ancient Chinese Buddhist monastery now surrounded by new modern shops like Gucci and Tesla.  

The Asia team was tasked earlier that year with creating a possible service assignment for new CBF field personnel. After prayer and assessing the needs in our ministry contexts, the Asia team decided the greatest growing need in Asia was for someone called to work with the ever-increasing Chinese population that was moving outside mainland China to other parts of Asia. My husband Casey and I along with two others who served in Macau, China were tasked with getting the specifics of the service assignment together to submit.  

 As we sat working and discussing the specifics of this assignment, I turned to Casey and joked, “We better make this a good one just in case we need to fill it”. After serving as a GSC’er in China previously and moving back to China in 2017, we had seen the changes taking place in the country. Religious activity was becoming more closely watched, and many foreign ministry personnel from other organizations were getting kicked out or not getting their visas renewed to stay in the country. We were not too worried, the kind of ministry we were doing was not as sensitive, and the Chinese church we worked with was small and seemingly off the radar. So, it truly was a joke, but one I did not know would be so prophetic for the trajectory of our life and calling. 

Little did I know that a little over a year later we wouldn’t be getting kicked out of China, but instead would have to evacuate in the early days of the pandemic. We left our home and community in China on February 1, 2020, expecting to only be gone a few weeks. We did not realize we would never return to that home or ministry. 

Here we are five years later, after a long journey being stranded during the pandemic in Southeast Asia and then back to the U.S. We experienced God’s guidance, grace and a broadening of our hearts and calling for ministry among the Chinese. We are fulfilling that service assignment we first dreamed about with our Asia Team in 2018. 

Today I sit working in another coffee shop on the opposite side of the world in Atlanta. Making connections and working on preparations of visa and schooling options for our family to return to Asia to work with the Philippine Baptist Theological Seminary in Baguio, just a few hours north of Manila. I sit here amazed at how God has led us, sometimes in ways that were challenging and very much unexpected, but to a new opportunity to reach the overseas Chinese who have found themselves in the Philippines. 

I never expected five years ago how prophetic that little joke to my husband would be. But I am so thankful that God knew, and God had already started preparing us for this calling. 

Brittany Ramirez is a Cooperative Baptist Field Personnel serving alongside her husband, Casey, in partnership with the Philippine Baptist Theological Seminary in Baguio. Click here to learn more about their ministry.