Meet Tim Sandvall
A True Passion – Tim Sandvall
Awana missionary
“I was invited to Awana at eight years old by some friends of the family, and I instantly fell in with the games!”
The beginning of Tim Sandvall’s story sounds similar to the stories of countless kids in Awana clubs around the world. Little did Tim know when he first stepped foot in that Awana club in San Diego, it would be the first steps on a lifelong journey with Awana that would one day lead him to become an Awana missionary and serve the very area where he grew up.
From being an eight year old boy in Awana through his middle school and high school years, Tim fell in love with more than just the Awana games. God began to grip Tim’s heart, camp experiences began to shape Tim’s passions for ministry, and would motivate him to become a Citation earner as Tim graduated high school.
That’s not where Tim’s story stops though, through his undergraduate studies, Tim kept serving as a leader in Awana. Then as he left San Diego to pursue Chiropractic school in Los Angeles, Tim sought out a local church where he could continue to serve as an Awana leader.
“Chiropractic college was intense. 23 to 25 credits every semester, three semester a year, but I wouldn’t give up serving at Awana. It was a nonnegotiable and the one thing I did through school.”
Tim would go on to serve in various churches of all sizes with Awana clubs ranging from 12 kids to hundreds of kids. As a volunteer, Tim was very involved with the Awana missionaries within California and felt called to become an Awana missionary himself and in 2014 Tim became the new missionary to serve in the very area where he grew up.
Now, as an Awana missionary, Tim hasn’t forgotten the journey that he started as an eight year old.
“We need to focus on impacting the individual child,” said Tim with deep passion and conviction. “Our actions, our calling, our jobs, no matter if we serve in accounting, as missionaries or wherever we serve within the Awana ministry affect kids. The work we all do is felt by individual kids in clubs around the world.”
Tim’s passion and desire to see kids come to Christ can be seen as a direct correlation to his own story. If it were not for Awana leaders, being trained by Awana missionaries, being equipped by those at Awana headquarters, Tim’s story may not have happened.
In churches around the world there are kids like Tim. Kids finding their way to an Awana club and having the truth of God’s Word being planted into their hearts, changing their lives forever. Seeing lives impacted like Tim’s, like thousands of other kids’ lives around the world is nothing we can plan, but it is something we can prepare and pray for. It is something we can work toward. It is something that excites Tim as he considers his role as a missionary.
“We need to realize that God wants to do so much more in and through Awana than we could imagine, and it is all going to happen in the lives of individual kids in each church and area we serve.”
