Reverend Marie Miller was once a high-flying businesswoman, working for a major airline and enjoying luxurious trips around the world.

Then one day a short stay in Mumbai, India, interrupted her life for good.

While there she saw the huge disparities between the rich and the capital’s six million slum dwellers — most of whom survive on less than $2 a day.

She realised she couldn’t go back to living her life as she had before, so she quit her job, went to Bible College and started Foundation Ministries. These days Rev Miller travels the world looking to awaken people to the call and cause of Jesus Christ.

The evangelist will be on Island for a free three-day event hosted by Evening Light Pentecostal Church Inc called The Invincible Woman of Prayer, Power and Praise from June 26 to 28.

She spoke to The Royal Gazette about the moment that caused her to step outside her comfort zone and start impacting lives for God’s glory around the globe.

I read in your biography online that you spent ten years working for Air Canada. How did you know that God was calling you to step out from that comfort zone and venture into ministry?

It was a God-driven moment. It wasn’t something I had planned on doing. I worked in the marketing department with the strategy group of Air Canada so we had to take different trips to do routing analysis. One trip I took with some Air Canada colleagues to India really changed my life. I got off the plane in Mumbai and was shocked at the disparity between opulence and poverty. I’m Jamaican born and was raised in Montreal and had never seen such level of poverty. It overwhelmed me for the days I was on the trip. I couldn’t function well. Within a year I decided to quit my job and go to Bible College in Rhode Island. I had no idea what that would mean, but I knew I wanted to do something greater. I didn’t set out to be a missionary. I just left that trip thinking “This isn’t what life is all about — making money”. I believed that life was about more than that. It was about loving God and serving people at all levels of society. That was what my transition was all about. The rest of the journey worked itself out. I was 27 at the time and only returned to India 20 years after that event.

When you enrolled into Bible College did you just find that the road to evangelism work unfolded pretty easily?

To walk away from my career was difficult, but looking back now I wouldn’t have changed it. I had a ten-year career with a major airline. It was a very difficult position for a black person and a young female to get, so I was at a place where everyone in my family and circle was proud I had made it through the ranks. Still I was very much at peace when I made the decision to go because I knew that it was the right thing to do. The big thing was I didn’t know where it was going to lead me, but I had faith. I had actually already done a major switch prior to that when I finished high school and was starting out at Air Canada. I was involved in sprinting professionally and was training to get to the Olympic tryouts and missed by one. They accepted eight runners and with my time I was the ninth. I was extremely devastated by that. So when I had to walk away from Air Canada I wasn’t as disappointed this time.

How did God reveal that you were on the right path?

God just began showing me different signs. There is absolutely no blueprint in life for what comes next. But I have always been a multitasker so I kept in close contact with people in Canada during my time in Bible College in the US. Quebec is only one or two per cent evangelical Christians. A lot of my colleagues at Air Canada were not believers or churchgoers. They were Catholics, but not practicing the faith. One thing that reaffirmed me during that time was I had friends who had never been to church who would take me to lunch to sit and talk with me about my faith. I kept seeing that God would put me in a place where I was helping and I didn’t even have my degree yet. These were the kinds of God confirmations that show you where you need to be and reassured me it was going to work out.

Were there any challenges along the way?

Yes, at first it was a very difficult season in my life. I was a mature student and most of the people that were coming in that Bible College were kids. I had left a career, sold my condo and was now living in a shared dormitory. If anything could have killed me that was probably it. It was hard, but I knew that God had led me to that school. There were moments when I thought “God have you made a mistake?”. But I kept going. My message to people is there are times on your journey when it’s so hard and you think God has left you and you took a wrong turn, but you have to push harder. If life is always easy you won’t really grow. I have to move beyond one obstacle and the next and then you see the ray of hope and sunshine peaking from beyond the clouds. I think I bring that philosophy a lot into my mission work. Had I not gone through tough times I wouldn’t have left my comfortable life. I had a competitive position at Air Canada, was flying around the world and staying at nice hotels and it was all luxurious. I left that to live in a dormitory with young “bebop” students who hadn’t learnt to make their beds yet and ate out of a cafeteria, but that prepared me for the mission field where I am sleeping in obscure places, eating things you couldn’t imagine and doing it with joy because you know this is a part of my journey.

So where has your mission work taken you?

I’ve been all over Asia and Africa. I’ve been to the Congo where we slept in places that weren’t good; and was there when there was an uprising and wars in Liberia, when the hotels weren’t even up and running again yet. I was there in Turkana, which is at the Horn of Africa, I went in there to help a single woman who’s a missionary there. She has build a little township in the middle of the desert so that nomadic people can stop and feed their children. She is a medical practitioner and these people might be dehydrated or sick. She gives them water for their animals and then ministers to every facet of their lives and is also now teaching their children as well. She has built four or five townships now, so we go in and I just highlight her ministry and minister to the people and then go back out. She’s been there for 30 years, however, and lives in far worse conditions than I do. There is no electricity and no running water — nothing. I also went to Sri Lanka right after a tsunami with a team to minister to the pastors over there because they had to bury so many people and they were themselves feeling the pain and needed to be encouraged. I’ve learnt that if you can make it through tough times in the beginning of your journey the other ones that come up aren’t so difficult.

What’s been the most memorable moment during your time travelling and speaking with people across the world?

I minister a lot in Thailand and have been there probably around 12 or so times now and some of the people from Laos have to cross the border and ocean to get there. They risk their lives to hear me speak because they are still persecuted for their faith. I think whenever anyone asks me this question there are three places that are memorable to me and Thailand is one of them. To see these women worshipping, taking everything in and listening to them pray freely is so rewarding. I don’t sacrifice anything close to them so that humbles me when I’m facing challenges. Liberia is another place close to my heart. The first time I went there I saw extreme hopelessness and I kept going back and doing crusades there. The youth crusade, there are thousands of the street children there with nothing to do. The country has a very high rate of unemployment. I visit there from time to time and minister a word of hope and have watched the transition. Even with Ebola, which came and ravaged them, they still have hope. You can’t put money on that.

What’s the third place?

Zambia. I preached there a number of years ago and preached a powerful message and I returned and they told me in the service they would add in this one African lady because she had a powerful message and they wanted me to hear it. I was excited about it and she got up to preach and the message she shared was exactly word for word like the one I delivered years earlier. I was confused and thought “Are they serious? This is crazy”. But then at the end she applied that same message to the women in her country and what many of them were going through. For a minister what’s fresh is how you turn it and apply it to the lives of the people. She took my message and had a different ending. She used my message to tell the women in Zambia how to fight off the enemy from their husband and children and would travel all over sharing that message. When she was finished there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, including mine.

How has this experience changed you and impacted your life for the better?

I would say that it has changed my perspective on life from when I was a big business woman. My goal then was to be successful and to have this beautiful life and that has been far from my goal since my ministry took over. My goal now is to touch as many lives as possible and see as many people changed as possible. I don’t compete for accolades. If you come to preach I’m very unorthodox. I don’t preach to impress or get a second booking. I preach for change.

The world needs change — our young people and churches need to change.

How did it come about for you to visit the Island? What can local women expect from your speech on the invincible woman?

I have been to Bermuda a number of times. I used to minister at West Pembroke Church. This time I am coming back after developing a close relationship with Marilyn Lambe of Evening Light Church.

I am just going to be preaching a series of messages that’s driving or calling the women to become passionate women. You can’t be invincible unless you are passionate for God. My message is a driving force to renew your passion.

When you are passionate about God you will find it easy to enter into the impossible realm and that’s where you find the invincible person rising up.

What do you hope they would learn or glean from your teachings?

I would say that my goal is to challenge them to change. I mean, of course they will be empowered and the message will enlighten. Of course it will enrich, but at the end of the day will you change? All of this is meaningless without change. Everything comes back to obedience to God. It’s not about how I preach the word, it’s about what the word says. It’s not how sweet and rich the delivery is, it’s what the word says. Do people really think that Jesus is coming back? Then they need to love God.

Useful websites: www.elpcbermuda.org; www.foundationsministries.org/