Zambia Hunt

On Sunday morning, Lori and I worshiped with the saints at Resurrection Church in Lincoln Park, Michigan. We traveled there for the commissioning service of Austin and his family.

Pastor David Doran Jr., the lead teaching pastor at Resurrection, was the driving force behind planting this church in the Downriver area in the summer of 2015. Austin was a part of the core team, a mixture of people from different churches, who joined Pastor David. The plant began meeting in a Veterans Association building on Fort Street in Lincoln Park and was constituted as a church in 2016. Shortly after, Austin and Rachel got married, and they moved to Lincoln Park to immerse themselves in the community and connect with their neighbors. A year later, the church purchased a building on Fort Street from another church. On May 19th, 2019, Resurrection Church and Friendship Baptist Church voted to merge into a single congregation, and the fellowship began worshiping in their current facility on Porter Avenue.

In 2021, Austin was ordained as one of the elders of Resurrection, serving alongside three other brothers. Throughout this time, he continued working as the lead developer for HailTrace, a startup company he helped build. During this period, Austin was also taking classes at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, where he graduated with his Master of Divinity in 2023 after six years of study.

The Lord burdened Austin and Rachel to serve as “sent-ones” to Zambia. On Sunday, Resurrection Church commissioned Austin and his family to serve as missionaries, focused on discipleship and training through Central Africa Baptist University. Their family will be moving to Zambia by the end of June. They are relying on the Lord for the necessary financial support. More information and the opportunity to join their partner team can be found on their website: zambianroots.com.

Five-year-old Caspian, recently told Lori (whom he calls Oma), “My daddy has told everyone in Michigan about Jesus, now we are moving to Africa so that he can tell everyone there about Jesus.” I smiled at the innocent perspective of the little guy, but in some ways, he accurately captured the vision. The goal is to facilitate obedience to the Great Commission until Christ has been made known through gospel-preaching, reproducing churches in every village, town, and city in Africa.

Proverbs 23:24 states, “The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him.”

May God be glorified!