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Sometimes it just makes sense.

Grady Fleming’s parents, Rob and Kathryn, raised their three children in Japan where they have served with Fellowship International since 1994 as church planters and disciple-makers. Grady, along with his sister, Tess, attended high school in the Philippines at Faith Academy, an international Christian school which offers K-12 education for missionary, national, and international students.

While we might think that an international boarding school is a “bubble” that protects children from a real world, Faith Academy students are involved in “real world” ministry. For Grady this included, along with other students from the school, helping to dig out, and make provision for, families affected by a devasting typhoon that decimated Tacloban, a city on a neighbouring Filipino island, in 2013. The needs of that community, and the initiative of the Flemings, sparked a ministry that has continued to bring gently used, much needed clothing and other materials from Japan to the Philippines to be distributed to needy families.

Grady’s experience as a “missionary kid”, and his time at Faith Academy, left impressions that God has used to bring him back to the school. Grady discovered that he enjoyed teaching while finishing his Master of Arts degree in Global Governance. Brittany earned a Master of Education degree and has ministry experience with Athletes in Action, an organization she worked with in Edmonton, AB. As a couple, they prayed about what God wanted them to do with the gifts He had so abundantly given them. As they prayed, their focus honed in on service overseas.

Schools like Faith Academy are always in desperate need of teaching staff and when Grady and Brittany discovered just how well their training and background fit into the needs of a school Grady was already familiar with — and that had such an impact on his own life — well, the decision made a whole lot of sense. They applied to Faith Academy and were accepted as high school teachers.

The Flemings were appointed in 2020 to serve as missionary teachers under the Fellowship’s LAUNCH program.

Faith Academy’s Mission and Vision Statement says much about the people who invest their lives into the youth who attend the school and who leave impressions on those students that last a lifetime.

Vision: To see God’s Kingdom and the Great Commission advanced through transformative, Christ-centered education.

Mission: Forming Christlike, lifelong learners through a dynamic, relevant education, especially for the children of missionaries.

As high school teachers, Grady and Brittany will both use their backgrounds and skills to work toward seeing those goals met in the lives of the students who will become part of their sphere of influence.

LAUNCH is a program that sends individuals into cross-cultural ministry for up to two years and gives participants the opportunity to develop their skills as they serve, and to actively discern God’s direction for their lives. To learn more about LAUNCH go to: fellowship.ca/Launch.