Availability Over Ability: Paul & Michelle’s Journey of Discipleship and Mission
When Paul and Michelle talk about mission and discipleship, they don’t begin with strategy, numbers, or success stories. They start with family—four children, one in a wheelchair, a calling that didn’t make sense on paper, and a quiet conviction that has guided their lives: God is not looking for perfect ability, but faithful availability.
Their journey moves from inherited faith to global mission leadership, showing how discipleship takes shape through everyday acts of obedience.
Both Paul and Michelle grew up in Christian homes where faith was part of everyday life. Yet for Paul, belief didn’t become personal right away. As a teenager, surrounded by friends of other religions and guided by a thoughtful youth pastor, he began to wrestle with what he truly believed—and why. Over time, faith shifted from something inherited to something deeply personal. Jesus was no longer just part of his family’s story; Jesus became central to Paul’s own life.
I really started to wrestle with what I believe and whether I believe it just because my parents believe it, or whether I believe it because I personally believe.
Paul
Michelle’s journey looked different. She can hardly remember a time when she didn’t believe. As a child, she was bold about her faith, eager to talk about Jesus. Over time, social pressure caused her to quiet that boldness, becoming more reserved but no less sincere.
When I think about who discipled me, there wasn’t any discipleship. It wasn’t a part of our upbringing. That wasn’t a part of our church culture. We had people who loved the Lord. But if we’d had people that came along and discipled us in that way, what would that have done to that child who became more fearful and pulled back and became more of a chameleon.
Michelle
Together, Michelle and Paul’s stories reflect a shared truth: authentic discipleship moves faith from the background of culture into the centre of personal conviction.
Discovering the Need for Intentional Discipleship
Despite their church upbringing, neither Paul nor Michelle experienced much intentional, one-on-one discipleship.
Culturally, faith was something that you had, but it was private. You didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t a public thing. And so though I grew up in a strong church family, I was never actively discipled. We didn’t talk a lot about faith at home… In terms of one-on-one, life-on-life, here’s how to be a young man, here’s how to be a believer, here’s how to stand up for your faith that really wasn’t part of our experience, or at least mine, which affected my effectiveness then on the mission field.
Paul
Years later, while serving in Asia, Paul found himself discipling younger believers—walking together, talking about faith, marriage, work, and obedience. Yet he often felt he was learning as he went, lacking a clear model to follow.
There was nothing very intentional about it. I wasn’t intentionally growing this young man in his faith nearly as much as I could have if I had been intentionally discipled. And saw the value of that and saw it happen in my own life, and how somebody grew me in my faith. I think it would have been positive for me to have experienced that.
Paul
Michelle saw the gap clearly—discipleship was talked about, but seldom practiced in personal, intentional ways.
We’ve given lip service to that. But the actual question is, What does it look like to disciple others? … it just wasn’t very intentional
Michelle
That sense of “we’re doing this, but we could be doing it so much better” would later shape how they lead and train others. That awareness became formative. It shaped their conviction that discipleship must be relational, patient, and rooted in everyday life—not just programs or information.
Discipleship in the Tension of Culture and Context
In Asia, discipleship became deeply real and deeply complex. Paul and Michelle walked with believers through painful decisions shaped by cultural pressures, family expectations, and social realities. Rather than offering quick answers, they learned to sit with people—opening Scripture together, praying, and trusting God in situations without easy solutions.
They couldn’t just hand out neat answers; they had to walk slowly with people through Scripture, prayer, and heartbreaking decisions.
Even basic biblical principles, like “leaving and cleaving” in marriage, had to be re-thought in a culture where parents—and especially mothers-in-law—often live with and effectively lead the younger couple.
How do you take those things that seem so clear to us… like leaving your mother and father and cleaving to your husband… when the mother-in-law often lives with you?
Michelle
For Paul and Michelle, discipleship became less about information transfer and more about guiding people to hear God and apply Scripture in radically different circumstances.
The culture and learning style were all about rote memory. ‘Tell me the answer. I don’t want to think it through.’ But you’re trying to get them to think it through. They call me teacher, but I want them to be thinking, and I began to realize that if I wasn’t there, they wouldn’t meet. So maybe I don’t need the words. Maybe I’m just the bait, to get them together, because when I’m there, they’ll meet together, and they have fellowship together. So maybe I just needed to direct them to the word. Maybe I don’t need to have the answers or have a style because that was part of my journey – is just letting them discover it on their own and, not having to worry about being able to say it well or explain it.”
Michelle
Even foundational biblical teachings required careful, thoughtful application within cultural contexts that viewed family, authority, and responsibility differently. Discipleship meant helping people learn not just what Scripture says, but how to hear God and live faithfully within their own circumstances.
Availability Over Ability: A Family That Witnessed
Perhaps the most powerful testimony was their family itself. Moving to Asia with four children—including a son who uses a wheelchair—they stood out everywhere they went. Simple, ordinary moments—eating at restaurants, navigating busy streets, laughing together as a family—became living illustrations of dignity, joy, and hope.
There was a restaurant close to our house, and the owner of the restaurant that we got to know came up to us one time at the end of a meal and said, ‘Your son is in a wheelchair. And for us, if we had a child who was disabled, we would keep him at home, because, you know, it’s embarrassing to have a disabled child, but you treat him like he’s just a normal child, and he seems really happy. Why is that?’ And so, just living life, even though we didn’t feel like we were doing anything special, we were just going for supper as a family. And yet, something about the way we lived caught people’s attention and had them asking.
Paul
People noticed. Conversations opened. People asked questions. Their lives quietly pointed others to Christ—not because they felt especially gifted or strategic, but because they were present, open, and willing. After someone told them that discipleship isn’t about your ability but about your availability, they looked at their opportunity to disciple through a different lens.
“Looking for those opportunities to disciple people where they’re at and just being available and not worrying about, ‘I can’t do this,’ ‘I’m not good,’ or ‘I’m not ready. I don’t have the answers for these things.’ – But just being available and seeing how God used that availability, we saw God move and change hearts and lives.”
Michelle
Paul and Michelle learned firsthand that God often uses what feels ordinary, even limiting, to reveal His grace. Availability—not ability—became their witness.
Looking Ahead: Mobilizing the Next Generation
Today, Paul and Michelle serve in regional leadership based in Seoul, working across Asia. Their hope for the future is clear: to see local churches not only receive missionaries but send them. As global realities shift and traditional pathways narrow, they believe God is raising up Asian believers to carry the gospel across cultures.
A big hope and encouragement… is seeing God calling our Asian brothers and sisters and giving them a call to cross-cultural missions.
Paul
Rather than seeing this change as a loss, they see it as growth—evidence of a maturing global Church. Their role now is to walk alongside local leaders, helping them envision and equip their own people to go.
At every stage, Paul and Michelle’s story has been shaped by a simple, faithful “yes.” From childhood faith to cross-cultural ministry, from parenting through limitation to empowering others for mission, their lives quietly testify to a powerful truth: God does extraordinary work through ordinary people who make themselves available to Him.
“And part of a mature church is when you have a vision beyond your own walls, your own people, and to look at the people around you that are different and say they don’t know Jesus, yet we do. They don’t, and how are we going to reach them?”
Paul
In the end, Paul and Michelle’s story isn’t about heroic strength. It’s about a quiet, persistent “yes” to Jesus—in childhood faith, in cross-cultural confusion, in parenting with limitations, and now in empowering others to go.
Their lives embody the simple truth Michelle quoted years ago and still believes today: ‘it’s not about your ability. It’s about your availability.’