Dallas, Texas
Who We Are
Hi, we are the Storbakkens, our names are Cate and Ian. We have three children, two on earth with us and one in heaven. God has done SO many miracles in our lives and we are radically grateful and obedient to Jesus. We are a true testimony to his transformative power as individuals, as husband and wife and as parents. We were together for eight years before we believed in Jesus.
We were only 17 and 18 when we had our first daughter and life had not been easy for either of us up to that point. Our daughter passed away when she was two and a half years old because of a genetic abnormality. After she passed we tried to manage the pain by numbing ourselves with alcohol and eventually drugs. Things went from bad to worse in that time and we lost hope and both had contemplated suicide. Our marriage fell apart and was so damaged we could hardly talk to one another without fighting. We were hopeless and broken and couldn’t find a purpose for life. But God had a different story for us.
One morning in 2016 God changed our lives when Cate had an encounter with Him. The good news was too much for her not to share and Ian believed her. Shortly after that we both believed and followed Jesus. Since then we have been in a process of surrendering everything to Jesus.
We celebrated the birth of our 2nd daughter in 2017 and our son in 2019.
In 2020 we felt called to missions and surrendered everything. After we counted the costs we were led to be trained before we entered full-time ministry as a family. After a series of miracles(traveling in 2020) we trained with the missionary organization Youth With A Mission (YWAM) at Grimerud in Norway through summer of 2021. We received training in discipleship and in family ministry. We joined the Pioneer Project in Slovenia the fall of 2021 for three months and ministered to the homeless and the peoples in Slovenia throughout the country.
While we were training we learned more about what God placed in our hearts. We began to see our lives as miraculous evidence that not only is God real but He is able to heal and transform even the most broken, and even more importantly that others could see it too. We believe this healing and transformative power has been made available for all people at the price Jesus paid on the cross and we want to display this with our lives. Our mission is to inspire desire and hope within others that this is possible for them too, and that the Lord is seeking after their hearts. We want to come alongside people and teach them how to worship their Father in spirit and truth, breaking off any spirit of performance in the church. Isaiah 61 is the passage of scripture that God has spoken over our family. Instead of what the world offered us, shame, ashes, mourning, despair, we have received what God has promised us, comfort, beauty, joy, praise and the double portion from Him.
God has placed a strong heart for Japan in both of us since we were children. We believe we are called to teach the Japanese people about Jesus and to work in Japan long-term.
We have been accepted as staff at YWAM Yokohama and are now fundraising to meet the visa requirements!
Contact us if you want to know more or have questions. Please consider partnering with us and joining our support team as a donor and prayer partner!
To put giving into perspective, if we needed a case of water and we asked, would you be willing to buy it for our family? Water would cost around $5.00 USD. Although this amount seems insignificant if 35 people partnered with us at 5$ a month this becomes 175$ a month! Our God is a God of multiplication and every single blessing and commitment make a difference.
Thank you for reading our story and taking part in it!
Prayer is the most powerful work that we can do because Jesus reconciled us to the Father so that we can intercede for others and speak to and hear God’s voice.
Some prayer needs for our ministry:
To apply for our visas as religious workers in Japan we are required to have a minimum of 220,000 yen per month as a family. This fluctuates from $1,483 - $1,550 USD per month. The recommended amount is 320,000 yen a month which is between $2,147 - $2,250 USD. We need prayer and people willing to partner with us monthly for our long term commitment.