Denna Busenitz is not an unfamiliar name here at Flowers. She is the co-founder of the Flowers ministry, and you’ve read her posts here on the Flowers blog. You’ve heard her heart through the notes she’s shared with readers through our Flower Vase emails over the years, and you’ve seen her Facebook posts come up frequently on our Flowers Community Facebook Group.
Come later this month, however, you won’t be hearing as much from Denna here. Though she is staying on as a Board of Reference member, because of changes in ministry life, she will be stepping down as director of Flowers for the Pastor’s Wife.
She and her husband Kurt are now serving full-time with their home mission, Rural Home Missionary Association (RHMA), an organization they’ve been a part of for over twenty years. Starting out as church planters in the Sandhills of Nebraska and then landing in the heart of central Illinois to serve at RHMA headquarters, they are now living out their passion for church planting by raising up and training other missionaries to go into the most unreached areas of rural America.
It’s fitting that Denna concludes her full-time service with us at Flowers by sharing her story through this pastor’s wife interview. It’s because of her vision to encourage, equip, and connect pastors’ wives that Flowers exists. May you be encouraged by the ministry journey of my dear friend and co-laborer in serving pastor’s wives.
Where did you grow up?
I was born in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, just two days before my mom’s 30th birthday. My parents were both first-generation Christians. We moved to Culpepper, Virginia, when I was 2, and I fondly remember the six years spent growing up with the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance–running barefoot, making mud pies studded with pinecones, and fun homeschool days with my 3 brothers and our mom as the best teacher. I gave my life to Jesus as a 5-year-old sitting on the basement steps and guided by my mom who had been doing the family laundry. I’ll never forget how she set down her laundry basket and sat by me as I asked her what Romans 3:23 meant. I wanted to know what sin was, if I had sinned, and if so, what in the world I could do about it. She answered my questions and showed me Romans 6:23. I was excited to accept God’s free gift of eternal life, thankful that He could forgive my sins. I was baptized in a river by my pastor while my church family from our small country church cheered me on in my young faith. It was a great childhood jolted only by the news that we were moving to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. At least we’d be close to our grandparents now.
How did where you grew up contribute to preparing you for life in small-town pastoral ministry?
Leaving everything and everyone familiar at a young age had a profound effect on me. After leaving Virginia, I attended a public school in Ohio with many students who clamored to be the first to climb the monkey bars at recess. I missed climbing trees. I learned that new places and cultures can be an exciting adventure and that new friends are surely one of God’s greatest gifts. Welcoming new people became one of my favorite things to do as a small-town pastor’s wife.
How did God bring you to a place of serving in small-town/rural ministry? Did you have any sort of “calling” in this? If so, describe the circumstances.
I recall asking the Lord back in junior high to spare me from a life of boredom; adventure is what I wanted as I followed Him! A church-planting pastor’s wife in an isolated context wasn’t on my radar, but it was surely on the Lord’s. My call to ministry came during the years we attended a very large church in Akron, Ohio, where they budgeted generously for missions and had a strong heartbeat for the Great Commission. I went on a missions trip every year from 8th-12th grade. My life verse became Ephesians 3:20, “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to His power at work within us.” I spent spring break of my senior year with about 50 high school seniors on an overseas missions trip. Two things impacted me on this trip. First, we were able to pass out Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes to kids in need as the boxes had not cleared customs in time for Christmas. I recall vividly the precious smile of the young girl I got to sit with as she opened her box and exclaimed over each item. God birthed a love in me for serving at-risk kids that would help fuel our ministry to kids in the Sandhills of Nebraska and nearby Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Secondly, this trip broke my heart for unreached places. A local pastor took our group to the top of a mountain and said, “There are people down there that have never heard about Jesus. Who will go and tell those who’ve never heard of Jesus?” It seemed God was asking me that question. I answered, “I will.”
How did God bring you and your husband together to serve in this way?
I headed to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago to major in music and prepare for ministry. “Moody Bridal” would ring true as well. Kurt and I were in the same 8:00 AM class on our first day. He remembers me as the girl who raised her hand whenever the professor asked if anyone had someone or something we could pray for. We didn’t date until our senior year, but we wrote letters the summer before as Kurt fulfilled his pastoral internship, serving with a church-planting missionary couple with RHMA (Rural Home Missionary Association) in the Sandhills of Nebraska. We officially started dating when we came back to Moody in the fall of 1999. I knew at that time Kurt felt the Lord leading him back to ministry in the Sandhills after graduation. Kurt encouraged me to seek the Lord and see if He would lead me there as well. God indeed gave me a peace, reminding me of a vision He’d given me my freshman year (1996) where I saw myself running barefoot across rolling hills of sand with joy on my face and freedom in my heart, knowing I was called to serve wherever this was. I had thought for sure God was sending me to Africa…until 3 years later when Kurt told me about the Sandhills. Kurt proposed after our last exams, and we were engaged for one year long distance. He worked on the family farm in Kansas, and I fulfilled my 5th-year music internship at the international church we’d been attending. We married a week after I graduated on May 19, 2001.
Where have you served in ministry?
Kurt and I have enjoyed ministering together from the start–teaching the missions time at Camp Good News in Ark City, Kansas, not long after our honeymoon, helping start an outreach kids club in a nearby small town, and teaching kids’ Sunday school classes at church. We lived in a fixer upper on the family farm our first year of marriage, hosting people of all ages in our little home. Hospitality isn’t my strong suit, but we’ve always enjoyed having people over and Kurt does the dishes. Kurt worked on the farm, but his dad encouraged him to take off as often as needed so we could travel and share our call to rural ministry as we raised our missionary support. I helped teach 4th-6th grade girls on Wednesday nights literally right up until I went into labor and had our son early on Thursday morning March 14, 2001. We had the blessing of our sending church– Emmaus in Whitewater, Kansas–and a tearful goodbye to Kurt’s family as we pulled out of the farm and moved to Mullen, Nebraska.
We lived, loved, and persevered by God’s grace through the next twenty years of church-planting ministry in the world’s largest stabilized desert– the Sandhills of Nebraska.
We first joined Pastor Mark and Cindy Danielson in Mullen, where Sandhills Community Bible Church had been planted. They mentored us in Sandhills culture and the necessity of prayer as we “planted” a youth group. Kurt helped with construction on the church building, day-worked for ranchers, prepared weekly Bible devos for the youth, and was ready to preach for Mark as needed. I played piano or flute for church services, started a church choir, joined the ladies’ Bible study, and met with my prayer partner who was also new to the area. Kurt did his first funeral for someone who passed away when Mark and Cindy were on a rare family vacation. One day Kurt came back from his weekly prayer time with Pastor Mark, saying, “Denna, you might want to sit down. As we’ve prayed about sharing Jesus in more rural communities, someone called to ask if Pastor Mark would help with a Bible study in a country gym about 80 miles from here. I need to tell you this rural area is not even on a map and Walmart is several hours away.”
I’ll never forget the day we drove 80 miles (one way) to a country gym on a Sunday evening in the winter of 2003. I was pregnant with our second child. God quickly knit our hearts together with this group of ranchers in Cherry County. They found a place for us to live on the Ravenscroft ranch, and we moved our family just before Christmas 2004. Sandhills Church of Hope was birthed and planted in the years to follow with a second location in the town of Cody (population under 200) started through a kids club ministry we helped our friend Amy Cheney with. Sandhills Church of Hope became “one church in two locations” about 42 miles apart.
Can you describe the particular culture in those areas and how that affected your ministry there?
The Sandhills culture is a mixture of independent, determined, hard-working, and fun-loving ranchers who greatly value taking care of the land that sustains their livelihood of raising cattle. Their main cash crop is cow/calf pairs with all hands on deck during the months of calving season followed by the social highlight of the year, branding season. I admired the women coming together to help each other serve a large meal to their branding crew. Our whole family enjoyed branding season, and the kids can all wrestle calves. (It’s not pretty when I try!) The Sandhills were one of the last areas in America to be settled through the Kincaid Act, with the government basically giving you a land grant of 640 acres if you stayed and made a living for the specified time. The Sandhills people had to be adaptable, innovative, and just plain stubborn to survive. They appreciated whenever we thought outside the box to minister most effectively. There was also a funeral culture–remembering someone well with stories, memories, poetry, and even humor made the passing of loved ones very special. Some of the memories I hold most dear to my heart are the times the community from near and far came together to remember those we all loved and would miss together.
Did you have any particular areas of ministry in which you served in your church and community, and what led you to those decisions?
At church, I served as worship coordinator, Kids Club/SS teacher/VBS director, Moms in Prayer leader, and taught ladies Bible studies.
In the community, I was a substitute music teacher plus taught in many other classrooms in our local school, a part-time music teacher at Rosebud Indian School, founded Glory Be music studio to teach music lessons and directed free community musicals, and served as VP/secretary/treasurer on 3 boards: GRIT (innovative community project support), Circle C Market (student-run grocery store partnering with our local school), and booster club.
What has been one of your greatest challenges in this ministry context and how did you persevere in it? What did God teach you through it?
The greatest challenge is a lack of God’s Word in the hands of the children and youth. One day, the Gideons traveled way out to the one-room schoolhouse where I was the music teacher. They gave a Bible to the 4 rural school kids right before I came. This ended up being the Gideons’ last stop for the day as they received word to stop giving Bibles to any other rural schools. One of the boys did not know what a Bible was and said the last time he brought one home, his grandpa (his main caregiver) had thrown it away. I told him this was God’s Word and he should keep it in his backpack, then take it with him when he rode his horse and read it in the pasture. I shared John 3:16 with the kids and then carried on with my music lesson. The teacher was a believer who lived next to us on the ranch during the week. She said, “If anyone gets upset with the music teacher talking about Jesus, I’ll tell them, ‘She’s the pastor’s wife and can’t help herself!’” I shared the Gospel using Resurrection eggs with the children during Easter one year, and a mom told me she’d never heard the Gospel and placed her faith in Christ! God taught me the power of prayer–we prayed often for God to raise up the children and youth to boldly follow and share Him around the world.
What has been one of your greatest blessings in this ministry context, and how has that affected your perspective of small-town and rural ministry?
The greatest blessing over 20 years of rural church-planting has been (and still is) hearing God’s voice and sensing His presence in my daily life, especially when I felt isolated, alone, or rejected. I struggled with not wanting to move off the beautiful ranch we lived on for 5 years so that we could be in between the two church locations. One night, we had supper in the town of Cody at the family’s house who had started the kids club ministry. As we were standing underneath their porch light telling them goodbye, the wife asked if we’d pray about helping with the kids club. I wanted to say no, but Kurt beat me to it and said we’d pray for wisdom to see if God wanted us to start driving those miles to help at the weekly kids club. As we drove back to the ranch that night, I wrestled with God! I did not want anything to change in my comfortable and familiar routine. I did not want to give more of our time to reaching more people. The stars were brilliant that night as we drove down the long ranch driveway and into our little parking spot by our mailbox. Kurt handed me the mail and started carrying sleeping kids inside to put them to bed. I opened a letter addressed to me but with no return address. The letter began with “Dear Denna,” then listed verses like Isaiah 43:1b-2, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine. I will be with you when you pass through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. You will not be scorched when you walk through the fire, and the flame will not burn you.” At the bottom, the letter said “Signed– God.” I fell into my husband’s arms and said, “I don’t know what God is doing but I say yes!”
If you could give a piece of advice to other rural and small-town pastors’ wives, what would it be and why?
The best marriage advice is to walk, talk, and pray together outside on as many days of the year as weather permits. Stay unified while allowing for uniqueness in decision-making.
The best pastor’s wife advice is to remember who you are in Christ and take time to slow down and abide in Christ, relying on Him alone for daily wisdom and joy. I would encourage my younger self to say no to one thing at a time so I could say yes to the one thing that matters most. “But the anointing that you received from Him abides in you.” (1 John 2:27a)
The best parenting advice is to see the big picture of parenting PK’s in an isolated context and not be overly concerned about image. I can raise kids for God’s glory, not my own or my husband’s.
Lastly, it’s been a humbling privilege to serve as the Flowers Director for the last 6 seasons on the blog, along with my dear friend Wendy McCready who was there from the seed of an idea to prayerfully plan “all things Flowers.” I, the helium balloon, ever ready for the next adventure, and she, the steady string keeping us tied to true reality, equal a steady and strong team! I’m thrilled to complete the baton pass this month to Wendy as the next director of the Flowers ministry even as she passes assistant directorship to Marcy Ardis. A big thanks to the entire Flowers Team and our readership through the years. It’s been great to bring mutual encouragement to those serving as ministry wives in their unique locations.
Blessings, Denna
