AMBASSADOR SPOTLIGHT: DEREK SMITH*
DEREK SMITH* ALL ABOUT JESUS
HOW ONE AMBASSADOR SERVES A WORLD AWAY
Amy Storms
“I didn’t go to church much as a kid,” says OCC grad Derek Smith.* Derek’s parents divorced when he was just two years old, and Derek lived with his mom in a small Missouri town. But when Derek was in sixth grade, a friend invited him to a play—a drama—performed at a church. “I didn’t know what I was going to,” Derek recalls, “but the play was all about Jesus. At the end, I heard the gospel for the first time. I knew what I was hearing was good and true and for me.” “So, I responded. I became a believer. At age 12, I said, ‘Well, I think I’m supposed to go to church now.’” Derek chose a church near his house and walked there alone every Sunday. “After attending a while, I had seen people get baptized, so I thought, ‘I should probably do that, too.’ It was a Baptist church,” Derek smiles, “but even then, I guess I was a Restorationist at heart.”
All About Jesus
And ever since, Derek’s life—like the play he had seen in church—has been all about Jesus. From attending church camp to leading in his youth group, to preaching his first sermon at age 16, to attending Bible college and now serving overseas, Derek has remained devoted to the Jesus he loves. “My senior year of high school, I decided I wanted to study theology and God’s Word,” Derek remembers. “I wanted to really understand what I believed and why I believed it. I didn’t know Bible college even existed. When I found Ozark, they told me their focus was on hermeneutics—the process of
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TO INSPIRE
*Derek’s name has been changed to protect his identity.
At that moment, something hit me. It struck my heart that there were actually real people in all those countries, and many of them had never heard the gospel.
learning how to interpret the Bible and how to understand it. I said, ‘That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do!’” Derek enrolled at Ozark alongside two of his high school classmates. “In our years at OCC, I had such a growth of knowledge—the growth of experience, serving in several areas till I knew the direction I wanted to take, and of course the growth in my skills and character as I matured and pursued Christ as the main thing.” “In class, I learned so much from Kenny Boles,” Derek says, “the most brilliant professor who could teach even the hardest subjects in a simple way I could understand. And Chris DeWelt was the professor who impacted my life the most.” As Chris taught about global outreach, Derek was fascinated. “Growing up in rural Missouri,” Derek admits, “I was pretty much unaware of the rest of the world…and I was unaware that I was unaware of the rest of the world.”
