Note: this article contains mention of child abuse and suicide
Amanda Epperson has faced trials of many kinds in every stage of her life. But instead of being crushed by them, she now tells a story of God using her suffering to shape her into a messenger of the truth that transcends hardship.
Epperson was saved at six years old at a Christian summer camp. As she tells it, her conversion was a lifeline dropped into the deep, dark hole of a life that had been characterized by a broken home, sexual abuse, and emotional trauma. Or rather, it was the beginning of knowing a God all too familiar with suffering, meeting her in its depths.
“It was like nothing else was around me, but it was just me and the Lord,” Epperson said.
But as a child, she began to understand a truth that has clung to her since: salvation doesn’t mean an end to suffering, but the presence of a Savior who sustains in and through it.
Hear how Epperson's story of suffering led her to know God's kindness and called her to a life of mission work:
The abuse continued until age 16, continually unraveling Epperson’s reliance on her own strength. An inflection point came just two years after she was saved.
“When I turned eight, I actually tried to take my own life,” Epperson recalled. “I remember thinking, after that bubble had burst of 'everything’s going to be better' – that it’s not actually. I learned that it doesn’t matter what I’m going to walk through, the Lord was always still going to be there with me.”
It was a lesson learned across many years, and one Epperson says she is still learning. And within the struggle, there was blessing.
One such blessing was the influence of Epperson’s stepmother. She guided, encouraged, and cared for the young Epperson, reorienting her toward a new trajectory. Years later, Epperson would become the first in her family to graduate from high school, then college with a teaching degree.
“That’s how I grew up and got to know the Lord more,” Epperson said of her stepmother’s influence. “I think all of that encompassing her encouraging me to go to church, her encouraging me to do well in school, and all the things that come with that was just really a pivotal point in my life.”
Epperson set out to use her life experience to care for young people in the classroom, the only place where she had felt safe as a child. But the going got tough again. Marriage, miscarriage, and divorce once more returned her to full dependence on God’s providential sovereignty.
This time, her struggle was the catalyst for a new call.
A unique opportunity arose in 2024 to join an education mission trip to Uganda. Epperson remembers feeling apprehension, fear, and even selfishness. More lessons to learn.
“I went into that mission trip to Uganda feeling two different ways,” Epperson said. “The first was very, very flesh. ‘What can I do? Who am I going to heal?’ I, I, me, me, me, me, me. That’s not how it works. At the same time, I felt very much stick in almost shame. ‘Lord, why do you even want me to go? What value am I going to bring?”
But the Lord worked through her nonetheless. Dozens of sixth and seventh-grade girls were saved after Epperson shared her testimony with them through a translator. More than 50 more were saved via the testimonies of her teammates in another classroom the same day.
Later, after another short-term trip to Africa, Epperson felt the push to give more of her life to missions. A mountain of prayer would eventually lead her to resign from her steady job, sell her house, and yank up every other root for the sake of long-term mission work.
“When the Israelites were carrying the Ark of the Covenant through the river, they had to get in the water first for the water to stop. He just kept bringing that back to my mind,” Epperson said.
“I need you to get in the water first, and then I’ll let you have a clear path to walk through. It was crazy, but God can do all of it.”
Epperson joined One Collective and has since been preparing for a 3-year mission to Zambia. A late change in plans will send her to South Africa instead, where she will work with One Collective to serve unemployed youth at a mission-run recycling center, helping them cultivate a new life for themselves.
Additionally, she will serve young women experiencing similar abuse that she did as a child, working with vulnerable young women involved in sex trafficking or similar circumstances. The long-term goal is to create a safe house for victims, helping to offer Gospel hope, both spiritual and practical.
In all of it, Epperson holds fast to the faithfulness God showed her as a young girl who was desperate for love, rest, and a new future.
“Growing up, I think it was little touchpoints where the Lord was just so evident in my life that it kept me like, ‘Okay, Lord, you see what I don’t see,” Epperson said. “You’re protecting me from things that I don’t know, or you’re having me walk through them... The pain will never be wasted. Every tear – it will not ever be wasted.”
To keep tabs on Epperson’s mission work in South Africa, check out her Facebook page.
