Steve & Marilyn Walden:
"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." Ph. 4:13

Who would have thought that Steve and Marilyn Walden would be working with Jewish people from former Soviet republics? Back in North Platte, Nebraska, where Steve grew up, he knew very few Jews and they were sort of a puzzle to him. Apart from "dosvidanya", he never heard a word of the Russian language while growing up. Surely, the Lord knew that Steve would have to lean on Him very hard. Steve refers to Saint Paul's scriptural perspective when he says, "In my weakness, God's strength has been realized perfectly."

Steve became a believer in college. He was discipled by two fellows loosely associated with the Navigators. Immediately after making a decision to follow Christ, he was taught how to witness and memorize scripture. Steve took advantage of this training for about two years before being drafted into the U.S. Army and serving for over a year in Viet Nam. Shortly after that period, he took his pastor's advice and headed off to Bible college. It was there that Marilyn and he met and married, and there that God challenged them to serve the Lord with people from foreign lands, and in particularly, people from the Slavic world. While preparing to work with people from a Russian cultural background, Steve was often meeting Jews and trying to introduce them to their Messiah. This was all orchestrated by the Lord of the Harvest and would play a major role in future ministry.

Marilyn's upbringing was quite different from Steve's in that she spent the first six years of her life in India. Her parents were missionaries there and she was the middle one of five daughters. She attended Bible college in both Portland, Oregon, and Kansas City, Missouri, where she and Steve discovered each other. Marilyn expected that she would likely serve the Lord as a missionary like her parents, and she was right.

The young married couple, together with their first baby Joel, relocated to a western suburb of Chicago to attend Institute of Slavic Studies. The curriculum called for study-ing the Russian language, Marxism, Contemporary Soviet Thought, Russian Religious History and Russian Literature. Six months of deputation followed the institute prior to Steve and Marilyn taking their first overseas assignment the Slavic Gospel Association.