Jerry & Nancy Novak - Serving in Kenya

Jerry started attending Cleveland Baptist Church as a boy and at age 18 received Christ as his Savior while reading Romans 10:9-13 in his bedroom. After being baptized, God called him into full time service the same year and led him to attend Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. After arriving at school he felt impressed to take the missions course.

Nancy was saved as a girl at age 8 at church camp and afterwards faithfully attended Bible Baptist Church in Lawrence, Kansas where she was baptized. The Lord spoke to Nancy about being a foreign missionary as a young person (Romans 12:1). In 1974, Nancy also felt God leading her to attend college at BBC.

Nancy and Jerry had been attending the same church in Springfield and enrolled in almost the same classes at college before they met. Through a church activity they met and God led them to be married the following year.

They graduated together in 1977. Afterwards they continued to work in different ministries at their church in Springfield. They believed that God was leading them to work in a local church full time to serve their missionary internship. Through a friend they met the pastor of Kishwaukee Baptist Church in Rockford, Illinois in 1978. The same year they went to work in the church and the school of Kishwaukee. While they were serving at Kishwaukee they met another couple already planning to go to Kenya. God used their testimonies to impress them and He called them to go to Kenya also.

In 1980 they were approved to be missionaries to Kenya with the BBFI. They started their deputation and then finally arrived in Kenya for the first time in 1982. In April 2002 they celebrated the 20th anniversary of their arrival in Kenya as missionaries. It has been an exciting and rewarding journey as they have seen God at work in changing lives through His Word.


"The work is the Lord's, we are just His tools," said Jerry.



Throughout their time there, God has used them to start 5 churches, and train the leaders and lay-people of those churches. Many have come to know the Lord as Savior of their lives. The Novak's heart’s desire and purpose is to impress upon any person they come in contact with the message and power of the Word of God.