During her senior year at Houma Christian School in 2000, Candace Bourgeois told her parents she wanted to enroll at The Honor Academy in Texas after graduation.
A Christian school for teenagers and college students, the Academy would have given the 20-year-old Houma resident the necessary training to pursue a Christian ministry and impact the lives of many with her skills and faith.
“I was so set on going to bible school, and I was really going to go,” Bourgeois, a junior, said. “But my parents were like, ‘Oh no! You need to get a degree at Nicholls before you do anything else.'”
Like many concerned parents when their offspring leave for college, Bourgeois’ parents would not let her go knowing there would be a chance Bourgeois would be away from home for the rest of her life. Yet, their reason was different than most.
After enrolling at Nicholls in the fall of 2000, Bourgeois changed her major four times during the next two years. Then in 2002, she discovered that the nursing field best suited her. Through nursing, Bourgeois knew she would have the opportunity to impact lives — in more than one way.
Bourgeois is not only chasing a nursing degree to help patients with health needs, but to fulfill her dream of becoming a full-time foreign Christian missionary and make a spiritual impact on people in nations across the world where Christians are persecuted and sometimes killed daily for their beliefs.
“I’ve had a heart for missions for some time, but I just wasn’t sure what that would look like,” Bourgeois said. “When I gave nursing a try, I knew that’s where I needed to be, and it was a way for me to help meet the needs of people both physically and spiritually. Nursing is an avenue to get into nations where Christianity is unknown.”
Bourgeois first seriously considered becoming a missionary during her ninth grade year and again in eleventh grade after she attended a teenage Christian conference in New Orleans. But a conversation with her sister-in-law sparked the reality that she would be a missionary. It was the conversation that persuaded Bourgeois to change her major to nursing.
“We were chatting, and the light bulb went off, and I went from saying, ‘I want to be a missionary’ to ‘I’m going to be a missionary!'” she said, excitedly. “I just sat there and laughed and cried. I just knew that’s what my purpose in life was. It’s what I was created to do.”
Bourgeois said being a nurse will allow her to help people in many nations where health care is poor and many doctors and physicians are not well trained. While attending to the health needs of people, she believes she will have many opportunities to share her faith.
“I once heard a minister say that before you can share your faith with anyone, their physical needs must be met first,” she said. “I feel that’s important if you will ever truly reach the people in these nations.”
Having been on four short-term mission trips, Bourgeois already has experience on the foreign mission field. Two of those trips were to El Salvador and the other two were to Mexico. Despite knowing only a little Spanish, Bourgeois said the trips have been life-changing experiences.
“Even though you can’t speak much of the language, showing love is a language that everyone can understand,” Bourgeois said, admitting she can carry a basic conversation in Spanish. “To know you are impacting someone’s life although you can’t say much is amazing.”
Bourgeois met a physician named Dr. Boris, a medical missionary and perhaps her biggest inspiration, during one of the El Salvador trips. “He was phenomenal, and he was so caring of the people,” she said. “He was a great and smart doctor, but his love for the people and his faith made more of an impact on people than anything.”
Bourgeois said participating in short-term mission trips has not only allowed her to reach out to others, but they have helped cultivate her faith as well and have spurred her on even more to become a full-time missionary. Going on such trips forces her to leave distractions of everyday life behind, she said.
“I grow so much spiritually during those times because you have to completely rely on God and your faith,” she said. “You have almost nothing except basic necessities, and it’s really okay.”
Bourgeois is not exactly sure what she will do when she joins the mission field full-time, but believes in praying and trusting God to guide her when it comes to specifics. She does, however, have a vision to help build churches and orphanages for abandoned children in poverty-stricken nations.
As of now, she plans on working in the United States as a traveling nurse for a year or two after she graduates from Nicholls in the spring of 2005. Traveling nurses journey from city to city helping hospitals across the country for three or six month periods before moving to another city. Bourgeois believes the experience will prepare her for the challenges of the foreign mission field.
“I may do that for a while, then go overseas for a while, then come back for a while,” she said. “I could be something where I go back and forth. But my main goal would still be to reach people with the good news of Jesus.”
When Bourgeois is not at Nicholls, hanging out at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry building, studying for class or working, she’s involved with the activities of her young adult group at the non-denominational Living Word Church in Houma. For her, Houma and the Nicholls campus are her mission fields right now.
“Sometimes it can be hard to be content with where I am now,” Bourgeois said. “I want to go into the mission field so bad right away, but if I can’t share Jesus here, how will I be able to do it on the mission field out there? So, where I am right now is important.”
Bourgeois acted as the main character Kim in the reality production “Final Exit” two summers ago at her church. “Final Exit,” a Christian walk-through drama depicting scenes of how daily choices can affect lives, drew more than 13,000 spectators, mainly teenagers and young adults, during the past two summers.
Christian Samaha, freshman from Houma, said she believes Bourgeois will be successful in the mission field because of her genuine desire to help people both physically and spiritually. “It’s her compassion that makes her great in my eyes,” Bourgeois’ friend said. “Her passion for God and her compassion for people is so strong. She has the potential to impact millions of lives.”
Joshua Manning, a classmate of Bourgeois’ throughout high school, agrees with Samaha. “She’s one of the hardest workers and [most passionate] Christians I know,” the English junior from Thibodaux, said. “She will have a big influence wherever she goes and whatever she does.”
Bourgeois, also a small group Bible study leader, was planning on going back to El Salvador on a church mission trip during Thanksgiving break, but because many people couldn’t go, it was moved to March. Instead, she will be helping her church with various programs, skits and outreaches to the community that will prepare her for her future.
“I have a heart for people here and a great desire to reach them for Christ,” she said, “but my true passion is to reach out to the nations.”