Corporate Convert --
Family trades corporate comforts for village ministry

By Emily Peters

BURKINA FASO, West Africa--Before he started eating rice out of a bowl with his hands, before he spent nights on mud-hut floors with goats and chickens, before he helped his friends endure religious persecution, Stephen Haber wore a suit to an air-conditioned skyscraper every day in downtown Atlanta.

Just a few short years ago, Haber was regional head of operations for a major cell phone company. He earned six figures convincing people to buy the latest wireless phones that can show music videos while trading stocks and downloading grandma's recipe for apple jelly.

"Life was good," Haber said. "It would have been real easy for me to sit back in Atlanta fat and happy, but I really felt like God was telling me, 'This is not what I have for you.'"

In 2002, Haber took a rare break from the corporate world to join his church, Eastside Baptist Church of Marietta, Ga., on a mission trip to Africa.

"As soon as I got off the plane," he recalls, "I heard the Lord say, 'This is where I want you.'"

The calling confused Haber.

"I had no religious training, so I had no idea of what I would be doing on the mission field," he said. "And then I had a very comfortable corporate position. People would think I was crazy."

But the Lord made it clear that he was calling the Habers to sacrifice all they knew.

"I realized that this earth is not meant for us," Haber said. "We feel like we have a right to be comfortable, but the truth is that everything we have is a bonus. As followers of Jesus, we need to look at life as a temporary assignment. We need to be dead to all those other things."

So Haber and his wife, Elaine, applied for the International Mission Board's associates program for a four-year term. That's the start of a career overseas, and they'll get the seminary training they need as they go.

"And then the four of us moved over the ocean with just 16 suitcases," Elaine said. "How could we not get out of our comfort zone and do what God was asking us to do after everything He has done for us?"

The Habers moved to Burkina Faso, where their hearts were stolen by their Jula neighbors.

They found the Jula people hospitable with an admirable reverence for family. The Jula live off their crops of millet grain and trades like weaving. The Habers learned it is rare to find Jula who can read, or who live past the age of 50. One million Jula live in West Africa, and less than one percent is Christian.

"I was just affected by the lostness and the bondage that the Jula are under with Islam," said Stephen, who is now a village evangelist and church planter.

These days, he goes to work slathered in sunscreen and mosquito repellent to share the most important message of all time. He seeks out Jula villages, trekking in his truck through untamed terrain that offers a glimpse into why it has taken 2,000 years for the Gospel to reach this far. He builds relationships with village chiefs and elders, sharing the Gospel and setting up sites for future ministry and evangelism.

When his wife isn't homeschooling, the Haber girls join Stephen on his village visits. His daughters Elizabeth and Alex enjoy teaching the village children how to play limbo or hot potato.

And after some adjustment, they have finally found some comfort.

"If you had told me four years ago we'd be out in the bush in the literal middle of nowhere, I would have thought you were crazy," Stephen said. "Now I can't imagine doing anything else."

Now, the Habers challenge others to take a more radical approach to their faith.

"For me, there is no gray," Elaine explains. "It is black or white. If God wants you to do it, you do it. It may not be the picture you had painted, but your joy will come in obedience. Ours did."

Watch Stephen and Elaine share their compelling testimony on video.