Chuck and Diane Phippen left behind a 250-acre organic, grass-fed dairy farm, ten children, sixteen grandchildren, and sixty-five cows when they boarded a plane in 2023 to become missionaries in Malawi — one of the world's poorest countries. Rather than easing into a quiet retirement, the couple packed twelve suitcases, brought their two youngest children, and relocated to serve through the Evangelical Free Church of America's ReachGlobal mission. Their story, published by EFCA this week, captures a pattern of mid-career missionary calling that continues to characterise the free evangelical tradition.
Both Chuck and Diane grew up at Wethersfield Evangelical Free Church in Connecticut, where they were formed by a congregational culture that regularly hosted missionaries and celebrated global mission. "In my home, missionaries from ReachGlobal were held in the highest esteem," Chuck recalls. The couple met as teenagers, married in 1984, and carried a shared sense that God might one day call them into overseas missions — a conviction that stayed with them through decades of dairy farming, raising twelve children, and embedding deeply in their local community.
The Phippens' transition from upstate New York to the city of Lilongwe represents a significant personal cost: leaving behind children, grandchildren, a thriving farm business, and the church community that shaped them. Their move reflects the EFCA's ongoing commitment to long-term, incarnational mission in Africa, where ReachGlobal maintains partnerships focused on church planting and leadership development. It also illustrates a broader current in the free church world — where missionary calling is understood not as a young person's pursuit but as a lifelong openness to being sent, at any age, to anywhere.
Source: Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) — blogs.efca.org
