Get To Know Clint and Leigh Ann Trebesh

Clint and Leigh Ann have served on staff with The Navigators since 2004. They have worked in camp and conference ministry, led disciple-making work among university students, and laboured with multiple city teams, before moving to Melbourne earlier this year. This is the unabridged version of their interview that first appeared in Compass Summer 2024 issue.

How did you (both) come into relationship with Jesus?

Clint – Growing up, my aim in life was to make enough money so that I could really spend my time playing and pursuing recreational hobbies. This soon proved unrealistic and unfulfilling when I went to university in Colorado and tried searching for significance in all the wrong places. Some uni friends regularly invited me to study the Bible with them, and after a few months of turning them down I finally gave in. The Bible was something totally foreign to me but I was compelled by their authentic faith. It only took a couple of months of investigating the Scriptures to determine that Jesus is Lord and that He was offering me the gift of forgiveness and salvation. Reading Isaiah 40:28-31 made me realise the everlasting God of the universe gave up everything to come to me so that I could be with Him. Those friends helped this 19-year old uni student understand that a relationship with Jesus was the only way to find the true fulfilment, satisfaction and purpose I had been searching for.

Leigh Ann – I received Christ and came to faith at a young age. Being raised in a Christian home in South Carolina, much of my youth revolved around having a relationship with Jesus. When I was a young teen, the Lord put Psalm 115:1 on my heart as a guiding verse that I wanted my life to be about.

How did you get involved with The Navigators?

Clint – My friends who introduced me to Jesus were in The Navigators campus ministry. That was where I met Kyle, Phil, Roger and a few other Nav staff who met with me one-to-one to help me grow deeper in my faith. Those relationships inspired me to take advantage of every opportunity I could to get more involved as a labourer. Soon, God gave me opportunities to help lead other friends to faith in Him and to disciple them. After my third year at uni I participated in a Nav summer training program where the Lord put on my heart a desire to fully give my life to advancing His gospel and raising up disciples who would make disciples. This led me to begin working for The Navigators, both on campus and at Glen Eyrie Conference Center where Leigh Ann and I later met.

Leigh Ann – My first involvement with The Navigators was when I got a job working at Glen Eyrie in Colorado Springs. This was so unique because right away I had the opportunity to meet Navigators from all over the world and see the organisation’s global impact. I was really drawn to their heart to bring the gospel to the nations. An older woman at Glen Eyrie began meeting with me regularly for one-to-one discipleship, giving me a vision for personally investing in others. There was also this boy I met working there who recruited me to get involved with him at the local campus ministry and youth camp.

In what ways have Navigator communities shaped your journey? How have Navigators helped you grow and develop your vision?

Before moving to Melbourne, we’ve had the incredible privilege to be part of numerous Navigator communities in multiple cultures and contexts over the past 20 years (including Glen Eyrie and Eagle Lake Camp; student ministry throughout Colorado, New Mexico and Georgia; city ministry in Albuquerque and Atlanta; short-term mission trips to multiple countries). In each of these places we’ve teamed with amazing Navigators who have consistently invested in us, as well as those who we’ve been able to invest in. They’ve helped us develop a refined vision for generational life-to-life disciple-making as a process that includes personal evangelism, becoming established in the faith, and then becoming equipped to disciple others. These many men and women have faithfully pointed us to Jesus and His word, helping us to grow in greater Christlikeness. They’ve cared for us, helped us persevere in labouring, and grown our vision to keep spiritually reproducing our life.

How did you come to the decision to come to Australia? 

In 2022, sensing God was moving us into something new, we spent an extended period of time asking the Lord where He wanted us to invest the next season of our lives. He put four focuses on our heart during that time: (1) pioneer a new disciple-making work, (2) invest in the next generation of uni students, (3) go overseas to reach the nations, and (4) do it as a family with a healthy team.

We considered a number of good opportunities but an exciting invitation to come to Australia rose to the top. It most aligned with all four focus areas God had given us. Clint was then able to take an initial vision trip to Melbourne later that year to visit local labourers and staff, get a feel for the campuses and the city, and hear first hand about how God was on the move. Speaking to us through multiple scriptures (Ps 67:1-4; Isa 6:8; Isa 42:5-10; Isa 49:6; Mat 24:14; Heb 11:15-16) and people, God made it clear that moving from Atlanta to Melbourne was where He wanted us to go.

What do you think are the realities and cost of discipleship (in particular for your family) in sending people?

We know that following Jesus ultimately leads to peace, joy and life. Often these things come in ways counterintuitive to the world. Every Christian must decide whether or not to really follow Jesus by denying themself and taking up their own cross. This could very well mean giving up our comforts and conveniences in order to walk the path God has for us. Sometimes it means making a hard decision to move and say goodbye to family and friends. Sometimes it’s pausing or ending the pursuit of a life’s dream. Sometimes it quite literally costs more money and energy to follow Jesus where He’s leading us. Sometimes it requires persevering through suffering and enduring through opposition.

The cost of discipleship, every time, requires surrendering our own desires to God, believing that His desires for our life are even better. Every time it’s seeking His will above our own, believing His will is good, pleasing and perfect. Every time it’s listening to His voice above all others, knowing that He will counsel us, instruct us and teach us the good way to go. The real cost of discipleship is trusting that God’s plans, purposes and provision for our life are all far better than our own could ever be. Even when we don’t fully understand what He’s doing and where He’s leading.

These are all realities we wrestled through as a family. We believed God asked our family of five to step out in faith and trust Him as he sent us to establish new life and ministry here on the other side of the world. It pushed the boundaries of comfort and ease for us in every arena. It required saying a lot of goodbyes to our dear family and friends, raising a lot more money, selling almost all of our possessions, leaving the Atlanta community we had laboured hard to build over the previous decade, and learning how to do life with people in a new culture and country. Why? Because we believe following Jesus is worth it!

 

 

 

 

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