From Pembrokeshire to the USA and back again… Jeff and Colleen Richards’ story of how God called them to Wales is an amazing tale spanning four generations that shows the depth of God’s heart for His people.
The beginnings of their story can be traced back around 150 years ago to rural Pembrokeshire. Jeff’s great-grandfather was a farmer in Pembrokeshire, and like many others of that time, earned his living on the family farm.
In 1886, he left with his four children and pregnant wife for a new life in the USA. However, the family did not leave behind their Welsh roots, joining Welsh-speaking communities in Nebraska. What changed though in their lives was pivotal in setting the scene for God’s work in generations to come. Although he had been a deacon at Hebron Baptist Church in Saundersfoot, Jeff recounts his great-grandfather’s biography describing how God in fact “chased him down” in the USA, and how he had a radical experience of surrendering his life to Jesus.
This propelled him into ministry, while still farming, and in time he became the state evangelist for Nebraska and South Dakota. At least two thousand people could have given their lives to Jesus through his ministry. Incredible family stories don’t always mean that others around will follow suit, however, and Jeff shares how later generations departed from following Jesus. Jeff’s father joined the US Navy and “blew away completely” from the family.
“I was also as far away as you can get!” Jeff says. “I was not interested, and didn’t want anything to do with faith.”
Jeff married Colleen in 1982, and she joined him in Montana. Jeff had a good job working as a mechanical engineer, and they began to raise their family. However, Colleen describes how it “wasn’t all roses”. It was difficult for her as someone who had come to faith as a teenager, while her husband was not at all interested. However, a college friend of Colleen’s who was also an evangelist came to stay with them, and his interactions with Jeff started to soften his heart.
The real change came when this friend shared something that Jeff knew only God (and himself!) could ever know about him. “It was as though he had been given a word of knowledge that there was no way he could know on his own – it was like God was letting me know gently that He saw me, and He knew me.”
One evening, he was at a meeting led by his evangelist friend, and he simply prayed: “God, if you’re real, I will believe in you.” That moment, he had a powerful encounter with the presence of God. He described the experience as being as though ‘someone had hit him in the back of the head with a 2×4’, and in tears, he heard God’s voice calling him into a new life. That marked the beginning of a new season, and like his great-grandfather, Jeff was eventually called into ministry.
Jeff and Colleen felt God’s call to minister in a church in Montana where they saw God moving powerfully and healing lives. However, during this time they were also reminded of how they had both previously felt a call to mission. One year recently as they were feeling that God was calling them to bring their time as pastors at the local church to an end, they attended the national conference of their denomination, where three people came up to them – independently of each other – asking ‘have you heard about what the Lord is doing in Wales?’.
This stirred something and led them to re-discover the story of Jeff’s great-grandfather. They sought, and prayed, and increasingly felt God was calling them to come to Wales. In time, they connected with the BUW family in Wales, who also recognized God’s call on their lives to come to minister here. Jeff and Colleen arrived in Pembrokeshire this year, 138 years after his great-grandfather had left, knowing that God had called them back to this land to seek Him for the healing and renewal of His people in Wales.
“We personally feel like such unlikely people,” Colleen smiles. “And we know that is often how the Welsh have felt through history. But we really feel that God sees and knows Wales so well and has a beautiful plan for how He wants to work through His people in Wales.”
Currently serving Bethel Baptist Church in Pembroke Dock, they are excited for the future as they seek God’s next steps and are ready to follow God’s call how ever He leads them here in Wales!