The joy of ministry, for me, comes from the wonderful partnerships with so many great people that give so generously of their time and talent to the Lord and his Church. It’s a great privilege to introduce to you Wes and Tanya Robinson who are co-directing this year’s drama musical community outreach presentation, A Christmas Carol … Revisited! Thank you, Wes and Tanya, for your leadership and your openness to sharing how God is working in your lives.
– Pastor Alan De Vries
Family History and Background
Although “high school sweethearts,” we came from extremely different backgrounds. Tanya came from a mixed race missionary family and spent the majority of her life growing up overseas. Wes was born and raised within a two-mile radius in Pasadena. We did, however, both come to Christ at fairly young ages. We met at Maranatha High School in our junior year after Tanya moved back to the U.S. permanently. We became friends through the drama program at school, dated during our college years at Azusa Pacific University, and were married after we graduated from college. After getting married, we settled in Pasadena and started renting the house in which Wes grew up as a child. Tanya taught high school and Wes got a job at a public relations firm.
Spiritual Journey to PazNaz
We were very involved in our previous church. We were part of the drama ministry, helped with the children’s choir, volunteered in Sunday School and VBS, and did service projects. It was our home, and it was very difficult for us when we felt God calling us somewhere else. We mourned deeply the loss of our community, but we came to live out more strongly something we had always believed: the church is more than just a building at a specific address. As missionaries, Tanya’s parents were very much a part of the church universal; the denominational lines were blurred as people reached across cultures and location barriers to help spread the love of God and the Gospel of Christ. Although we had always believed in this, we now live it more than we ever have before. For example, our children participate in service ministries that are run by a couple of different churches, and we know that God is glorified every time they touch someone for him. Even our small group Bible study is made up of couples who attend several different churches. We want God to use our lives and talents for him, wherever that may be.
We started coming to PazNaz a little more than three years ago. Wes was involved with the drama ministry here even before we became regular attenders. And since Pastor Scott Daniels was our youth pastor while we were in college, we were drawn to his preaching, as we felt both spiritually fed and intellectually taught by him.
Throughout the years, it has sometimes been a challenge to continue to trust in God. Because, if we are forced to admit it, we are all Israelites who forget the ways God has delivered us in the past. We spend all our time worrying about the next challenge that we face.
Life’s Challenges
God has sustained us through some hard times in our lives as well. Wes was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease about 10 years ago, and that has been a daily challenge, both physically and emotionally! Although he will need to manage it throughout his lifetime, we are so thankful for the way God has protected his body and diminished the pain, enabling him to remain almost as active as ever. We do not take this for granted; there were days when the pain was so great he could hardly walk or turn his head.
Health issues also touched our lives through Tanya’s family. Both of her parents died within a year and a half of each other (her dad of heart disease, and her mom of breast cancer which had metastasized into her liver after almost 10 years in remission). Less than a year after her mom died, her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy, but thankfully she is currently in remission. It was difficult to see good in all the loss, but her parents’ joy at being able to finally meet God in person was a powerful testimony and helped us to see that we do not walk alone, even in the valley of the shadow of death.
We have had some hard marital issues over the years. We hit rock bottom in our relationship and came extremely close to ending our marriage. Through the help of both professional counseling and Godly friends, we have learned much of God’s grace for us as individuals and as a couple. We have made tremendous strides as God has taught us to hold up our lives to his light. This past June, we celebrated 20 years of marriage!
God is Working
We feel like the more we know, the more we realize what we don’t know. It has been a joy to serve God in a variety of ways within the Church and without. Although we have been involved with the drama ministry over the years, this is the first year that our entire family will be involved in this year’s Christmas program. We will be co-directing this year for the first time. It has been a blessing to collaborate on such a powerful outreach ministry that has the potential to impact our entire community at a time of year when people are seeking “something” to fill the voids inside of them. All three of our kids will be acting, managing props, and being our general backstage crew.
In addition to the drama ministry, our family has recently started serving at Church in the Park on a monthly basis, and we have been blessed to see how God is touching such a variety of people at different stages of their lives. Outside of PazNaz, our eldest daughter has been working with the special needs ministry of a church in Monrovia, and this last summer our two eldest kids visited an orphanage in Mexico as part of another church’s missions trip.
Throughout the years, it has sometimes been a challenge to continue to trust in God. Because, if we are forced to admit it, we are all Israelites who forget the ways God has delivered us in the past. We spend all our time worrying about the next challenge that we face. We are easily distracted with the cares of this world, and start to get sucked into the “me world” that surrounds us. But we know that we are in a spiritual battle and we must daily bring our needs to him and thankfully praise him for his blessings.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:37-39
– Wes & Tanya Robinson
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