Tim Mills

It was 2004. After teacher training, I’d walked straight into a great job in a top-quality school, bought a new car, and to everyone around me it looked like I’d made it. The children were so smart they’d pass their exams regardless of my efforts. Many staff stayed on until retirement, one teacher staying so long the outline of his body was imprinted in his staffroom chair!

Time was flying by, and I was making the most of everything – long nights out drinking and socialising, free ski-trips abroad, what was there not to love?

But one day, another young teacher referred to me as a ‘Lifer’, and I suddenly thought – “Is this really what life is all about? Is this really what I’m here for?” There’s nothing wrong with being a teacher, of course, but I wondered if God, who I’d believed in since I was a child, had something more in mind for my life.

Well, that night helping at the church youth group, I saw a magazine about hundreds of opportunities to serve God abroad.  An advertisement for a gap-year in Zambia called ‘African Quest’ immediately took my interest. Within moments of my talking about it the next day, a teacher whom I hadn’t realised was a Christian, said, “Oh, you should see the school administrator, he knows all about AQ.” Intrigued, I went to see him and discovered photos of young people on African Quest all around his office. He immediately said I should think about going. Even the head teacher encouraged me to go, offering to keep my job open. It was amazing!

Within months, I’d gone to Zambia and finally started to understand what God was doing. As I learned more about Jesus and what it means to trust and follow Him, I realised that the things I’d been living for and all the compromises I’d been making had been harmful, damaging me like a bird that’s grounded because of broken wings.  Yet, as I turned to Jesus, leaving my old ways behind, God began to restore my strength, filling me with a new sense of His life and joy and purpose.  My family, friends and colleagues at home could all see the difference in me.  I lived in Zambia for 10 years, setting up Kapumpe Christian Primary School for orphans.  Its name means ‘eagles’ because just like me, God wants all of us to learn to trust Him, put our hope in Him and to soar on wings like eagles.