I was born into a family (Don and Laura Stertz) who was surrendered to and involved in foreign field missions. I received Christ as my Saviour during family devotions in June of 1982, baptized shortly thereafter, and surrendered to full time Christian service 11 years later on my first missions trip to Eastern Europe (Hungary and Romania). Following my pastors direction, I began working in the Junior Church ministries at Wyldewood in 1993 and continued to work in various ministries of the church for the next 27 years. After graduating from Wyldewood Christian School, I enrolled in the Wyldewood Baptist Bible Institute and graduated from it in May of 2000. I met Kelli Phillips at her church missions conference in the spring of 1998 and married her in August of 2000. God has blessed us with four children whom we consider our first ministry. While on a missions trip to the Czech Republic in 2010, I felt the Lord calling me into the youth pastorate. I began serving in that capacity and was ordained by Wyldewood in the summer of 2013. The Lord blessed me with the training and skill to build houses, and I owned a construction business with another man in our church for 16 years while working in the ministries of the church and throughout my youth pastorate. It costs financially to go on missions trips and I was proactive in setting aside money to take at least one trip per year. In 2017, on one such trip to Europe, God called Kelli and me to join the Couriers For Christ ministry. We were commissioned in November 2019 as representatives of Couriers For Christ, sent out of Wyldewood Baptist Church.
Joshua & Kelli Stertz
