How a Weird House (and a Bunch of One-Time Profs) Are Slowly Saving the World...

At many colleges, you’ll find exactly one house on campus. (Although I’d actually call the University of Illinois’ 14,000-square-foot residence a mansion.) At Harvard, this house is called Elmwood. At Indiana University, it’s Bryan House, and at the University of Missouri, it’s called Providence Point.

University of Illinois President's Residence

The one house many colleges build on campus is…the president’s residence. It’s usually large and handsomely historic, with big pillars, hardwood floors, glass chandeliers, a ballroom, and a manicured lawn.

I get it. University presidents do a lot of entertaining—alumni, big donors, powerful politicians—and a campus house gives them a beautiful, spacious place to welcome guests and host events. I do get it, but I’ll be honest: I’m glad Katie and I (and our six kids) didn’t get a fancy house on Ozark’s campus.

The Proctors are a rowdy bunch, and in our home, we’ve rappelled out second-story windows, snow sledded off the roof, and left drywall holes after errant baseball throws. We park a tractor in our carport, built a pool out of a grain bin, and our donkey breaks into the backyard, pooping everywhere. I saw a four-year-old once wearing a T-shirt that said, “I am why we can’t have nice things,” and if the Proctors had a “president’s residence,” we woulda wrecked that place like the kids in Cheaper by the Dozen.

Back to where I was: let me tell you how Ozark is different than other colleges, and maybe you’ll help us stay weird…

Ozark Christian College also has exactly one house on campus, but it’s…the Missions House.

Since 1982, OCC has welcomed a new “missionary-on-campus” each semester—a visiting missionary family on furlough who live on campus, teach missions classes, and build relationships with students. We’ve hosted missionaries from Taiwan and Tanzania, India and Italy, Germany and Japan, Costa Rica and Kosovo, St. Vincent and Sudan, and almost everywhere else in between.

OCC's Missions House was constructed in 2003.

In 2003, we built a beautiful campus home to bless these missionary families, simply called the Missions House. It’s not a mansion, but it’s often nicer than where the missionaries live in the countries they serve. We sometimes call these families our “VIPs”—Visiting Intercultural Professors—and if we treat anyone on campus a little bit like royalty, it’s them.

A campus house for a missionary, but no house for the president? To a lot of academia, that just sounds…weird.

OCC has no desire to be strange for the sake of being strange, but if our gospel convictions make us different, we don’t mind being “odd for God.” We sometimes call it being “good weird,” and I love it that our unique campus housing choice spotlights global evangelism, not college administration.

And I want to ask your help to keep Ozark weird.

We do have—on our regular faculty—several profs who served as missionaries: Dr. Wade Landers in Haiti, Darrin and Chrissy King in Honduras, Brice Wurdeman in Barbados, Dr. Aaron Wheeler in China, Jon Kehrer in the Middle East, Mike Ackerman in Japan, and Steve and Rhonda Hayward in Papua, New Guinea. Sometimes faculty meetings feel like missionary conventions!

So why do we also invite a visiting “missionary-on-campus” each semester? And why give them the only house on campus? Keep reading to find out why…

Very simply: OCC wants to train Great Commission leaders, and we don’t think you can have too many professors who have been (or currently are) taking the gospel to the nations. (Matt 28:19-20)

When choosing Ozark faculty, a proverb we live by is: “You can teach what you know, but you reproduce what you are.” We believe in academic preparation, but we don’t just hire ivory tower eggheads. We prioritize firsthand ministry experience in our profs, because if our faculty have actually been preachers, youth ministers, church planters, and missionaries, those are the students they’ll reproduce.

So each semester we welcome the “VIPs.” Someone said, “You can impress people from a distance, but you only impact people up close,” and we’ve seen the power of their physical presence on campus:

· When Derek (last name withheld for safety) joined us from Southeast Asia for Fall 2022, he had students over to the Missions House all the time, and now OCC graduates Grayson and Taylor (last name withheld) are serving alongside him in the same closed country.

· Mac and Olivia Johnson serve with a ministry in Poland, and when they came to teach in Spring 2023, they too welcomed gobs of students into the House. So no surprise: Mac recruited six students to intern in Poland that summer. (The ministry told him he’d hit the intern limit for that summer and couldn’t recruit any more!) More OCC students are going this summer.

· Alan and Janet Bemo spent decades taking the gospel to Southeast Asia, and as missionaries-on-campus in Fall 2023, they stoked a fire in the hearts of OCC students Marshall and Hannah Schreiber to reach the unreached as well. (Last year, Alan performed their wedding.)

It might be weird to have a Missions House instead of a President’s Residence, but at Ozark, we think it’s “good weird.” And I need your help to keep us that way. Here’s how…

Our Missions House still has the original 2003 roof, and it’s time to replace it. Unfortunately, the roof has started to leak and has even caused ceiling damage (and other damage) inside. This summer, while no missionaries are living in the house, we’d like to replace the roof and do some fixing up inside. Would you consider a gift to our general fund toward this $35,000 project?

We want to be good stewards of our campus, and we especially want to give our missionaries a great place to live as they teach our students. (We’re putting on what’s called a “StormFighter Flex” roof—sounds powerful!) For a Great Commission college like Ozark, the Missions House is a powerful teaching tool, and I wonder: how many missionaries might be recruited underneath that roof?

Ozark students enjoy spending time in the Missions House.

Would you prayerfully consider a generous gift to our general fund today? You’ll help us replace the Missions House roof (and do some inside fixing up) this summer.

I also wonder: How many lost people might be reached because of those missionary recruits? The Missions House is no mansion, but because of what happens there, many others might find a “heavenly mansion” someday. Best of all, they will meet the mansion’s Owner face to face.

Thanks for considering a gift to our general fund toward this $35,000 project…and toward keeping Ozark different. Other colleges might think our campus housing choices strange, but if our Missions House helps more folks meet Jesus…then we’ll just keep being weird.

Yours in Christ,

Matt Proctor 
President

P.S. Wow! That’s what I thought when I saw how folks responded to our last letter. We asked for your help to purchase one new van for our summer camp teams…and because of your generosity, we purchased two! Those vans are on the road right now, taking OCC students to summer church camps. Thank you!

GIVE ONLINE ADDITIONAL GIVING OPTIONS

Your gift is a sacred trust. We promise to honor your generosity by using your gift in the most effective way to train men and women for Christian service. The project described here reflects OCC’s ministry needs at the time of writing. Your gift will go to the general fund to be used where it is needed most when received to prepare students to take the gospel to the world.