CULLMAN, Ala. – If you asked Lyndsie Camper what her heart loves most, she would say without hesitation, “To serve others.”
Camper, her husband Micah and their three children have opted to serve in a position in East Africa, which they will take in January 2024.
“Our family will be partnering with a nonprofit organization called ONE30 for this mission work,” Camper said. “Micah and I have traveled to East Africa numerous times over the last seven years and every time we go, it has always felt like home to us. Though the people we have worked with in East Africa face daily realities of poverty, hunger and sickness that most of us in the United Stated will never know, they are always so hospitable, full of joy and gratitude. They carry so many attributes that we desire in ourselves and for our children, that when the opportunity fell into our lap, after prayer and consideration, there was no way we could say no.”
Camper said East Africa has held a special place in their hearts for a very long time.
“After our family had a nine-month stay in Guatemala, we returned home where Micah became the missions and outreach pastor at Temple Baptist Church,” Camper said. “We rented a house and purchased the necessities to get by during our time in the States but refused to buy a home and ‘plant roots’ because we wanted to remain faithful to God and return to the mission field when the right opportunity came along.”
About 16 months after they returned from Guatemala, in a birthing class the Campers were attending to prepare for their third child, a local pastor’s wife mentioned an organization their church partnered with called ONE30 that operated in Uganda.
“She let us know that they were in need of American missionaries there and a couple of weeks later she told us we were going to be their first missionaries to live in Uganda, we just didn’t know it yet. A few months later, we began to realize she might be right,” Camper said. “After I gave my life to Christ when I was 18 years old, I remember telling the Lord, ‘I will live the rest of my life for You’ and I absolutely meant it. That next year I felt a calling to go to Africa and I went on my first mission trip to Kenya. After that trip, I was sold out to the mission field. I knew God had forgiven me so much, that He deserved all of my life and I wanted to live it for him in a radical way that most won’t. I knew moving forward that one day I would move to the mission field to share the Gospel, make disciples and help ‘the least of these.’”
Camper said when she met her husband, Micah, and they started dating he told her there was no way he was going to be a missionary.
“Shortly after we got married he went on his first mission trip that happened to be to Africa,” Camper said. “He ended up going back to the same place multiple times and shortly after, he began picturing himself moving to the mission field as well. We felt the Lord urging us to go in 2020. As we began praying and exploring options to go to the field, the Lord opened up an opportunity for us to partner with a mission family that had an organization in Guatemala. We moved in March 2021 with our then 1 and 3-year-old. We lived there for nine months, and during our stay the Lord affirmed our call to missions; we knew we were doing exactly what He had designed our family to do.”
Camper said Kip and Cheryl Potter have served on staff as directors of missions ministry of their local church since June 2014.
“Caring for children in Africa, among other aspects of overseas missions operations, was a primary focus of the ministry at that time,” Camper said. “As an organized way to connect families to the hearts of children and the needs of people in Africa, Kip designed an initiative entitled Heart for the Kingdom Kids which allowed families in the local church to sponsor a select child for $30 per month in efforts to improve their quality of life and meet their essential, educational and economic needs.”
Camper shared that the Lord began to expand the influence of the local church and opportunities for ministry into other countries. It became exciting to imagine that if one local church could be so generous, certainly a network of churches, corporations and families was nearly unstoppable.
“The Potters began to pray about ways to creatively unite people everywhere in efforts to attend to the children within their circle of care,” Camper said. “So it happened that on a trip to Africa in January 2020 when Kip held a little girl named Gloria who was wearing a ragged, brown make-shift dress, that he was inspired to start the ONE30 Network. The ONE30 Network was born out of a desire to have someone dream BIG DREAMS over these orphans and seemingly forgotten children just like good parents everywhere are dreaming for the future of their children. All children deserve a ‘hope and a future’ that is bright and full of promise. All children should have someone praying over them and working to safeguard their future.”
In 2017, with the Heart for the Kingdom Kids initiative, its first boy named Rooney, a child living in Kasese, Uganda, was sponsored by Kip and Cheryl’s 16-year-old son Jaron.
Since then, the ONE30 Network has grown to support over 1,500 children in five different countries. In March 2022, the ONE30Network became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
The network now has multiple orphanages and schools in its care, as well as a growing network of churches, corporations, families and individuals working together to make the dream of a better future for many children become a reality.
“One child for $30 per month is ‘ONE30’,” Camper said. “By donating $30 a month, our sponsors help to provide the essential, educational and economic needs of their chosen child. Our sponsors provide clean water, food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Donations go towards ensuring an education that is Christ-centered and founded on Biblical truth. Finally, we seek to provide career training for older students that will positively impact the lives of their families and their communities for generations to come. Bridging TWO Hearts. Building ONE Future.”
Camper said the vision of ONE30 is to seek to support children suffering from generational poverty.
“Since its beginning, they have positively impacted nine impoverished communities in five countries by providing food, clothing, shelter and career training within a Christian environment,” Camper said.
The Camper family will be going for a minimum of two years to help meet the needs of the orphans and children in multiple schools across Uganda that ONE30 helps support.
“We will help ensure that they are being provided with three meals a day, their medical needs are met and that they have what they need to flourish in school,” Camper said. “We will also be focusing on discipleship among the locals, equipping them to share their faith on a regular basis and have a deeper personal walk with the Lord. Our goal is to live a life in obedience to Christ’s departing words when He said, “Go and make disciples among all nations , to every people tribe and tongue.”
Camper said if readers want to follow along their journey as they return to the field, they have a Facebook page called Tribe and Tongue.
“We named our page after the vision our family follows, giving our lives to see Revelation 7:9 fulfilled: “I saw a great crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb.”
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