7 Questions for a Couple of Missionaries
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Andrew and Mary Marshall are two young missionaries who are based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Mary is a Ukrainian native, while Andrew moved there as a missionary kid at the tender age of four. They were married in June of 2021 and chose to stay in Kyiv as long-term missionaries. Here they discuss some of the ideas and habits around being a missionary couple and how they make it work.
NAOMI JOHNSTON: How did you both meet?
ANDREW MARSHALL: My parents are missionaries in Ukraine, and one of their main ministries is a conversational English Camp. I was volunteering at English Camp and Mary was one of the students. Our English camp is all about conversation and getting people to meet each other and practice English. Throughout the week, we're always trying to make different people mix up to avoid cliques, so I had plenty of opportunities to talk to Mary. We realized that we had a lot in common, and we clicked!
MARY MARSHALL: Yeah, I think we liked each other. But we were young, like 18, and Andrew was about to leave Ukraine and go study in the US, so we didn’t take it any further or develop that. I mean, we went for a walk once. After that, every summer and winter Andrew would come back to Ukraine. We’d meet up once each time, and have a good conversation, but we didn't talk otherwise.
AM: For six months we wouldn't communicate whatsoever, and then I would visit Ukraine and Mary would find out, and we would hang out.
MM: He waited for me to figure it out! His Instagram would have pictures of Kyiv.
AM: That’s what happened for a couple of years. And then on one occasion, things changed.
“Now, after three and a half years, i can say that individually walking with God is the core of everything. There’s no way we would be doing the things we’re doing if I was not following God.”
MM: Up until this point, I was not necessarily walking with God in my everyday life. I wouldn't even have called myself a follower of Jesus. I knew there was a God and that Jesus existed, but I wasn't following him. We had different interests in life — slightly different worldviews. Then one time we started chatting, and at that point I had come back to God, and was genuinely seeking God. We started talking about the foundations of our thoughts and choices and views of all kinds of things, especially dating and marriage. We talked about it in a pretty straightforward manner, and it finally lined up because we were both seeking God.
AM: I had actually been praying that she would become a Christian, because that was the only thing that was standing in the way from my perspective. I told my brothers that if Mary was following Jesus, she’d basically be perfect! Those weren’t my exact words, but it was something like that. So, one year I’m back visiting family in Ukraine, and I find out Mary is following Jesus. Everything was great with Mary before, and we enjoyed talking, but at that point, when we were on the same page, we decided to go ahead and do this together.
MM: I believe that matters a lot. Now, after three and a half years, I can say that individually walking with God is the core of everything. There's no way we would be doing the things we’re doing if I was not following God. It would be too different; it would be chaotic, and there are a lot of things that could have gone wrong, especially with the war right now. We started a long-distance relationship that went on for two years. Andrew would visit once every six months, but now we would hang out more. And during the year I actually spent a lot of time with his mom and dad. By the time we were married, we knew each other really well.
NJ: Were there any cultural differences you had to go through, or any long-distance challenges you faced?
AM: There have been some cultural differences, but I don't think they were so apparent while we were dating because I spent 15 years growing up in Ukraine. I’m part of the culture, and I really understand it. I would say American culture is probably somewhat more foreign to me than Ukrainian culture, although with the four years I spent in college in the States, I've now got the hang of America as well. During our long-distance relationship, the biggest challenge was only having phone calls and not being physically in the same place. It was a challenge being committed to the relationship no matter how hard it was.
MM: I think long distance is a very valuable thing. It teaches you to commit and devote yourselves to each other, even when you can’t be physically present. You learn to sacrifice stuff in your life for the relationship to work, and that means a lot. I'm very thankful to God for the long distance, because it was really helpful for developing growth in both our relationship and with God. After we were married, while living in Ukraine, we didn't necessarily see any cultural differences, but when we stayed in America for a while, it became more obvious. America was very new, and while there, Andrew had to take on a different level of responsibility. I think sometimes we do have misunderstandings about family traditions, and how our family should operate. Our parents both place a high priority on family. It's the best thing, because that means we are both very family oriented, and we care more about our relationship than about our careers. But there's some things in daily life that you see are different. I started to notice how I’m very much like my mom in a lot of ways. Andrew takes some stuff from his family that's different from me, but then we kind of figure it out and make it work. We notice more of the different family influences on our lives than the cultural differences.
NJ: So how were you both called into a life of full-time ministry?
AM: After we started dating, while still long distance, I was going through a lot of things, trying to figure out what our future would be, what career I was going to pursue. How am I going to provide for us when we get married? And what is that going to look like? Actually, God had to change a lot of things in my heart. That's a pretty long story, but at some point, I realized that the only thing I was passionate about was sharing the gospel with people, and I didn't know what that would look like. But I was like, “Okay God, I guess it's ministry.” In the meantime, Mary was going through her own process.
“I grew up as the son of two missionaries here and Mary is a local. We feel like God has been preparing us to serve Ukrainians our whole lives.”
MM: I didn’t even know what it meant to be a missionary. I thought you just share your life and faith with people. I started to spend time with the OMS team here, and that's where I started to better understand what it meant to be a missionary. It was exactly the same way I had been living, just fulltime. At the time, I was working as an event manager, a sales manager, a personal assistant, and at McDonald's. I did a lot of things, but I was never truly passionate about any of them. I liked event management the most— I liked to gather people together, so they would have a good time together. But when I started following God, it brought a different depth to that, it made sense that I would want people to come together, and I understood where that desire came from. As I was seeking God and talking with Andrew, I realized that my passion is for God, and for people to know him. I am passionate about people, and for people to find God, and by finding God, to find that true potential that God has placed in them. It’s so special to watch people open up wherever they are. That's what I was really interested in. So, as we continued talking, the most obvious thing to do with our lives was to become missionaries.
AM: We didn’t initially think that we would do this in Ukraine, because it was comfortable for both of us. For me, it was like home and for Mary it was home, so we assumed that God would probably want us to go somewhere new, somewhere strange. But then everything just came together, and it was Ukraine. I grew up as the son of two missionaries here. Mary is a local here. We feel like God has been preparing us to serve Ukrainians our whole lives. So that's where we ended up feeling called to.
NJ: I think some people think they have to go somewhere new and different, and that’s good! But it's important to note that we also have great potential to serve where we are most comfortable—when we remove the need to be comfortable. What are some of the practices that you have worked at incorporating into your lives in order to keep your relationship with each other strong while you minister full-time to other people?
AM: Especially now, with what's going on [the war in Ukraine], we're working on what else we can do. But we have set aside time. Every week, we try to take a day that is our day for each other, we go for a walk and have a good talk. There's a big emotional toll when you’re always there for other people. We love what we’re doing, but we also need to be there for each other.
MM: We pray together. First thing in the morning, we individually spend time with God and then we discuss it together and share our thoughts. We do devotions and prayer time together. We also read and watch the same stuff, and then we talk about it and share our thoughts with each other. And honestly, we do a lot of things together—like just being in the house together. We’re aware of each other's presence.
AM: We're very thankful because we get to work together in ministry. Mary does have meetings with girls individually, and I have meetings with guys individually, but a lot of times, we're together doing the clubs and Bible studies. Or we're working on stuff in the same room at the same time. We're not struggling to find a time when we're actually in contact with one another. We're thankful that God has provided us with that kind of opportunity, but we still have to take intentional time to converse together, because it's really important to just share what we're feeling. Mary is really great about telling me how she's feeling.
MM: Sometimes people struggle being together all the time, and it showed during Covid especially. People felt like they were pushing on each other's personal space. But for us, it’s weird not to be together. Early on, we did the Enneagram, and we discussed how we respond in different situations. We asked questions like, “Do we need personal space?” and we learned some new things. Of course, we're not perfect. Sometimes Andrew would be in the middle of something and I’d run into the room, and get disappointed when he wouldn’t make time for me right away. We’ve had to learn to navigate things, but overall, I think we're not intruding on each other’s personal space, even when we’re around each other a lot.
NJ: Every missionary has different phases of life. There’s being single, dating, getting married, married with kids—all these different patterns of life. What do you think is one of the strengths in being missionaries that are married to each other? What do you think you bring to the table that people in other patterns of life maybe can’t bring, or can’t bring as strongly?
“When we live with God as an intentional part of our relationship, we reflect God, and help others to realize you need God in order to have a healthy marriage. You also need intentionality, because you can’t just say God will fix everything. Combining those two things is a new idea for young couples we reach out to. ”
AM: The most obvious is that we have a circle of couples that are around our age and we just fit into that group. However, they all just got pregnant, and we're the only ones who aren't. So, that is probably going to need some adjustment. But there are always more couples, so a strength would be that we fit in with people like us. I guess that's a human thing; people who are similar gravitate to each other. We have shared experience with young couples, and so we can reach out to young couples.
MM: I also think a strength is that we're married, young, we both love Jesus, and we ask God for wisdom in how to treat each other. I think it's a big witness to Ukrainian young adults that you can have a good marriage, you just have to acknowledge God first. In Ukraine, there's a big problem with marriages and families, it's a mess. Sometimes it’s the way you see your parents treat each other, sometimes it's even a generational thing. Some families are great, but when talking to people, most of them have some big problem in their family. I think the fact that Andrew seeks God and I seek God, and we both support each other, is noticed. When we live with God as an intentional part of our relationship, we reflect God, and help others to realize you need God in order to have a healthy marriage. You also need intentionality, because you can't just say God will fix everything. Combining those two things is a new idea for young couples we reach out to.
NJ: What would you see to be a weakness of being in this pattern, in terms of how you relate as missionaries? Do you think there is a weakness, or is it pretty good?
AM: Maybe the other side of the obvious coin is that we're not at the same stage of life as the students who are single. For example, I don't just have myself to think about, now I have someone else I have to think of in every decision that I make. Single students are making decisions mostly based on themselves. I'm not necessarily saying we don't understand students anymore because they're not married, it's just that we’re a little bit different, and that's fine. But I don't know if that's a weakness. An actual weakness would be that with the risks that we take in ministry—like being here in Ukraine—we have to think of each other. I can't just be a courageous man who heads off into a warzone. I also can't be a scaredy cat who runs away, because I have someone else to think about. We have to think of each other and that's good because we're a team but it's also one more thing to think about.
NJ: In the Bible, Paul does say it's better to be single for this very reason. You don't have to take into account a partner and kids. Once you marry someone, your life becomes about that person as well as about God, there’s a sacrifice there. Sometimes it pays off, but it is still a sacrifice.
MM: Yeah, I see that actually as a good thing, because before we got married, we were pretty self-sufficient. We have very strong personalities, and I had to learn not to have the attitude of doing it all myself or that I know how to do it best. I actually have to ask Andrew for his thoughts. I’ve had to learn to slow down with my decision-making because sometimes I’m too fast, even for myself. So again, I wouldn't say it's a weakness to have another person to take into account. It helps you see that you’re not perfect, and that you have to work on yourself.
NJ: What advice would you give to couples who are in your pattern of life and are thinking of doing overseas missions?
MM: I think you have to be intentional about your marriage before you leave for the other country. You have to be intentional about the two of you, and it really is a ministry. Your marriage is the ministry that God most wants you to take care of, and if you aren’t working well together, when you get into a new environment it will just get worse.
AM: Your marriage is your first ministry, because everyone you interact with is going to be watching you and possibly judging your motives, your actions, and the things you say, based on the things they see in your marriage. Working on your marriage can be a huge witness to people. Marriage is not a problem that you have to deal with, it's an opportunity that you get to use.
MM: Luke 16:10-12 says, “Whoever can be trusted with very little, can also be trusted with much; and whoever is dishonest with very little, will also be dishonest with much.” For me that means if you can't take care of the person that you have, then how are you going to be entrusted with other people and other lives?
