Almost eight years ago, Mary Scibiur stepped off the plane in Vanuatu to participate in her Outreach portion of DTS.
Little did she realise at the time, perhaps, how significant this country would be in her life.
After completing her DTS, Mary committed to serve with Marine Reach for a year. Part of that year ended up being in Port Vila, helping run Grace House, a guest house for missionaries and teams coming through the city.
Those early days of Mary’s service in Vanuatu involved wearing many hats: financial administrator, cook, guest relations, housekeeping, and any other variety of odd-jobs that needed to be done. Additionally, as her time continued to extend, she was naturally appointed into leadership roles to help coordinate other staff and develop strategies and vision for the long term.
Once the FCC Training Centre structure was completed, Grace House closed down and Mary transitioned to managing all aspects of food service at the FCC, as well as continuing her involvement in the dental clinics each week. Since then, she has also served as DTS staff as well as joining the Core Leadership Team to help oversee the logistics of the day-to-day runnings at the FCC.
Gifted in organisation and problem solving, and a willingness to do whatever job is at hand that needs to be completed, Mary has proven to be a huge asset to the FCC team.
Reflecting on her six-and-a-half years of staffing, Mary shares about the highlights so far in Vanuatu: “I have enjoyed meeting and getting to know such a diverse assortment of people, and finding the things that bring us together. I have been able to see weddings, and children born while I have been here. And I also have taken great pleasure in seeing young people grow to new understandings of who God is.”
While there may be times of stress, monotony, exhaustion or heat, Mary believes she is exactly where God has called her to be. And because of that, she truly feels that she is living out her dreams using the skills with which God has equipped her to serve.