October 1, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. (BP) — Amelie Fontenot has known she wanted to be a medical missionary since she was 15. Through life’s twists and turns, she’s realizing her dream nearly 50 years later.
The family nurse practitioner will be one of the few Black Southern Baptists in the field. While she grew up in church, she was an adult when she first met Black missionaries, she told Baptist Press.
“I met three little women who were triplets. And they wore little white hats and white outfits, but they were literally missionaries to Africa. They were the first people that I had seen of color that actually left the country and went somewhere. So it was really something,” she said. “I was doing street ministry. Never really thought internationally because I didn’t have anything to model. I didn’t have anything to show me the way.”
She first took short-term mission trips with a sending organization that required her to raise her own funds to cover expenses. Now a longtime member of a Southern Baptist congregation in Georgia, she is embarking this fall on a mid-term assignment with the International Mission Board, planning to serve in Europe.
At 62, she praises God for fulfilling her dream.
“God answers prayers. He hears the dreams, the little dreams that are dropped in your heart, maybe as a young person. God holds on to those,” Fontenot said. “He doesn’t let go. And if you would just surrender yourself to Him, a lot of those dreams and things that were just dropped in, little seeds that were dropped in, He’ll bring them back as a beautiful flower, a beautiful tree. And that’s what happened.
“So in my heart, I know that it isn’t too late.”
Quintell Hill, IMB’s Black & multi-ethnic network strategist, urges others to consider how God is leading them on mission.
“Is God calling you to put your ‘yes’ on the table? Your yes causes others to say yes. A yes looks different for everyone,” Hill said. “Maybe you’re a pastor who’s called to stay, but your yes is to call out those who are called to go to the nations. As the pastor, maybe your yes is to send from your church. Your yes may be to hold the ropes for those going through prayer or giving.”
Hill encourages obedience.
“Whatever your yes is, would you obey God’s call to reach the nations today?” Hill urged. “Let’s not delay, but say yes today! On the other side of your obedience, lives will be changed for all eternity.”
Fontenot is a pseudonym. She will serve in a mid-restricted security level assignment with significant risks to her safety and potentially with hostility from the local community.
“And my goal is to also get involved with the community,” she said, “join a local church and speak the native tongue, and be used to share Jesus.”
Fontenot traveled a jagged road to ministry. She strayed from God for a time, returning wholeheartedly about seven years ago. She cared for her mother in the last days of a cancer battle that ended in 2022. Fontenot entered Bible college in the Middle East just before the Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel, close enough to the violence to make bomb shelters a frequent retreat.
“So mama had passed. I left (home) frightened. I left the marketplace to go as a student. The war started six weeks later,” Fontenot said. “And I remember one of the other students saying, ‘You picked a bad time to come, didn’t you?’ And I was frightened. I was scared.
“I had been in the (U.S. Navy) reserves, but I had never been in a war zone. But I didn’t feel that I was supposed to leave. I didn’t feel like the Lord was telling me it was OK to leave. I felt like I could stay. And I was to stay, even with my knees knocking,” Fontenot said. “I was to stay.”
Her membership church devised a travel plan in case Fontenot needed to return to the States before completing her studies. Fontenot remained until she graduated in December 2025 with a Master of Arts in Middle Eastern studies and religion.
She sees her assignment as a critical service to others in the field, planning to provide medical care to about 700 units assigned to Europe. Nurse practitioners are advanced registered nurses able to perform many services otherwise limited to physicians, including diagnosing illnesses, ordering tests, and prescribing medications.
But Fontenot also sees a spiritual benefit to those she will serve.
“If folks are ill, they’re not going to be able to go out and spread the gospel. I believe total health is not just physical; it’s mental, it’s spiritual, and it’s physical,” Fontenot said. “And as nurses, that’s what we’re taught. That’s one of our nursing theories is that you’ve got to look at the whole person.
“That helps get the word out about the Lord Jesus Christ.”
As Fontenot pursued her calling, she suffered reticence in committing to international missions. She had worked diligently to attain a certain standard of living, owning a home, two cars, and other possessions, and was building retirement income.
As a single female, she questioned whether it was feasible to give up the life she considered secure.
“Lord, you know I earned this stuff. I worked hard,” she cried out. “I mean, I gave blood, sweat and tears as a single woman. And the Lord said, ‘This is all mine. This isn’t yours. Everything that you have has come through me and me blessing you.’”
Fontenot learned to trust God as her all in all. She cleared her house, rented it, put some things in storage and donated other things. Had she remained in her professional medical career at a Georgia hospital, she was on track to retire and live well, but she learned to dismiss such ides.
“Christians do not retire,” she said, quoting John Piper. “We don’t retire. You know, God does a repurposing. I think it came down to obedience and being obedient. And I tell people, you’ve got to follow where He’s speaking to you.”
She also wrestled with her age. Did she miss her moment?
“You don’t have to be 20 years old to go. You don’t have to be 18,” she learned. “I felt the call at 15. And it’s five decades later almost that I answered the call of what He told me to do. And I’m just grateful that God redeems the time. God is gracious and merciful, and He will use you if you’ll just put your hand up and say, ‘Here am I.’”
She encourages others to see possibilities instead of limitations.
“You haven’t missed your moment if maybe years ago the Lord dropped it in your heart to do something of this nature,” she said. “But surrender to Him and understand that sometimes it’s quick that you end up doing this, or sometimes it’s a slower process as He begins to just get you ready for what’s coming.”
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This article appeared in Baptist Press.
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