Bio

Julia Garst grew up in a Christian home and accepted Christ as her Savior as a young child. After high school, Julia visited a Bible-teaching camp where she had a personal experience with Christ. He became very real to her, and since that time, she experienced the continual working of the living Savior in her life. 

During her time studying at Bob Jones University, Julia heard many sermons emphasizing missions. She felt convicted and yielded to “go …into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” Once she graduated, she sensed it was not time to go to the mission field yet, so she began teaching at a Christian school. This teaching experience proved to be a valuable foundation for her later ministry. 

In 1970, the time was ripe. She applied for full-time missions work at GFA, raised the necessary funds, and later the next year, she journeyed to the harvest field of Mexico. Upon her arrival, she worked at Mount Horeb Bible Institute in eastern central Mexico. She served there for 11 years before moving south to work with a fellow GFA missionary, Diana Boss, in the Berea Baptist Church in Tamazunchale. Together they taught Sunday school, worked in VBS, and did visitation. Julia also distributed and sold Christian books and Bibles and supplied correspondence courses to strengthen new Christians.

In 2004, with the Tamazunchale ministry well established, Julia and Diana felt the Lord leading them to the next ministry opportunity in Tampamolon. Roughly a year later, however, the Lord re-directed Julia to Tennessee. The pastor of her home church saw the need to start a Hispanic work near where her parents lived, who needed extra care. The small ministry is growing. They have a full-time Hispanic pastor, recently moved to a larger facility, begun holding mid-week services, and took on their first missionary.