Moving Mission Fields
Jay and Linda Six’s Story of Trusting God’s Placement
Jay and Linda Six were married in 1976 after meeting each other at Asbury Seminary in 1975. Before Jay graduated from the seminary, the couple began their career with a 10-week trip to Haiti, building relationships in the local villages and staying with Haitian pastors.
“We had quite the experience in Haiti, and it was my first exposure to missions,” said Jay. “I never felt a definite call to missions, but it just made sense.”
Linda, however, had felt God’s calling to missions in her bones since her sophomore year of high school. While engaged to another individual before Jay, she felt a deep-seated desire for “God’s best” and prayed about her relationship, which ended two days later because of his refusal to go into missions.
“At that point, I said we couldn’t get married because I knew that God had called me to be a missionary,” said Linda. “God then led me to OMS, so I participated in various assignments, and later, Jay shared the rest of the story with me.”
They reapplied to OMS for full-time service and returned to Haiti in 1982 after pastoring a United Methodist Church and working through college debt. They began to experience tests of their faith under the mindset that they would be in missions for the rest of their lives.
As Linda was pregnant with their fourth child, the Six’s third child was found to be mildly mentally handicapped, which caused them to stay to the United States.
“I went through a period of questioning God because we wanted to be on the field,” said Linda, “It was hard, but God gave us a ministry with the families of special needs children.”
The family’s ministry location altered, and from 1984 to 2019, the Sixes served at the OMS World Headquarters until retirement. As Jay worked in the Finance Department (and Linda in various roles throughout the years), the Six family began building community with other OMS missionaries, which strengthened them through seasons of hardship.
“My wife was in a head-on collision, and it’s only a miracle that she’s sitting here today,” said Jay. “All of our friends at OMS and all around the world prayed for Linda and supported us, and we really felt loved.”
Linda recovered, and the couple continued their 32 years of ministry at the OMS HQ, a mission field that they never fathomed to serve in. Through their time in ministry, Jay and Linda learned the power of prayer that has carried them through various trials and the legacy of their missionary journeys.
“Satan always attacks the family first because he wants to break the mission,” said Linda. “So, pray to the Lord to prevent that.”