My Family: Me, Alice, Becca, Dad, Mom, Kelsey, Tim
The Story Of Us:
Please read below for our histories before we met. We met in October of 2017 while I (Josh) was on Recruitment tour for JV. Alice walked into the room introducing herself and tripping over a toy into Josh’s arms. (Josh only remembers the hug). We began to talk and this led to chatting and Face-timing. We began dating January 2018 and Josh proposed in November of 2018 in Savannah Georgia. The years dating and engaged were difficult because we were doing it at a distance, but God was faithful and grew our relationship. We married in Georgia on August 10th 2019 and then did a second ceremony in Slovakia on the 17th of August. We currently our raising support and living in Georgia as Alice finishes school.
The Story Of Josh:
I grew up in a Christian home with parents who loved me and taught me about Jesus from a young age. When I was five I came home from a Church event and told my mother that I did not want to go to hell, so I wanted to become a Christian. She prayed with me and I began making the first steps in my walk with God. When I was about 14, I went on my first mission trip to Tunica, Mississippi. This revolutionized the way that I looked at God and faith. I realized at that point that faith was about walking and not only asking God into your life. It was then that I began to actively walk with God. This led me to other trips and put me into leadership positions I never would have wanted to be in before. God took me from a shy boy who could not even ask for a refill at a restaurant to a young man who was leading and living for God. It was then that I began leading and discipling a group of middle school guys. I was also being discipled by two older men. This really instilled in me a passion for Discipleship. In College, I studied Social Work at Taylor University. I was not sure what I wanted to do with this degree until I was introduced to Josiah Venture and to the country of Slovakia for the first time. The first year was kind of awkward for me, but I learned a lot! One of these lessons was that I was capable of serving God anywhere in the world. Over the next two years I began to fall more in love with what God is doing in Slovakia. Finally in the Spring of 2010 God confirmed in my heart that Slovakia is where He wants me for the near future. I moved to Slovakia in May 2011. For my first years I worked in the music program Fusion, starting youth choirs around Slovakia and in my local church. In 2016 I took on a new role as the Intern Director for the entire country of Slovakia, and then in 2019 became the Camps Director. I currently have lived in Slovakia for 9 years.
The Story Of Alice:
Alica, grew up in a typical Slovak family, knowing about God from a young age, but not fully giving her life to Christ until at a Josiah Venture English camp in Slovakia, she heard the gospel from Bryan Barton, a Church pastor who led his team to the camp, and who would eventually become her “American dad.” She prayed to receive Christ with him, which started an inseparable bond between them. This opened up the door for her to move to the U.S., finish high school, and now study at Kennesaw State University, in Atlanta. This is where Josh and Alica met in October of 2017 as Josh was recruiting teams for camps.