Kurdistan

Eric and Tiffany have been serving in missions with Living Faith for the past 15 years! They met in 2003 while attending an eleven-month leader development course (ConneXions) that the Lord used to deposit in them a lifelong calling to the nations. As they prepared to be married in the fall of 2007, the call to serve on the mission field grew stronger and stronger. However, after receiving wise counsel from their family pastor not to attempt culture shock on two fronts ‒ foreign missions and marriage ‒ in the same year, they decided to stay stateside for at least that first year while they waited for the Lord to make their calling clear.

In January 2011, the Richardsons were sent out to partner with Shelter Now International, serving in Peshawar, Pakistan. Having previously visited this organization and city for three months, they were eager to see what the Lord was up to in the region. But only two months after arriving and the day before they were to move into their own place for the foreseeable future, everything changed. The most wanted man in the world was found and killed 100 miles away from where they were living. That same day, they evacuated the country and have not been able to return since.

Not easily deterred, they quickly jumped over the Khyber Pass and began language school in Kabul, Afghanistan while their team assessed the situation and came up with a plan. That plan came in the form of shifting the entire team from Pakistan to Tajikistan. These types of transitions have several moving parts and as a result, Eric and Tiffany spent the next eight months focused on language studies with a plan to meet up with their team in Tajikistan in the late summer of 2012.

On August 5th 2012, 15 months after they were forced to leave their team and evacuate the country they had expected to serve for years, Eric and Tiffany and their team arrived in Dushanbe, Tajikistan to set up a new Shelter Now International team.

By September 2013, after not being home in the USA for over two years, it was time to make a visit. A "visit"... that produced two children, multiple clear assignments from the Lord, several grey hairs and one deep longing to return to the mission field. That "visit" is now coming to a close. They are excited to now be returning to the mission field with their two children, Ryan and Vega. They will once again be partnering with Shelter Now International, this time serving the Yezidi and Kurdish people of Northern Iraq.