Growing up, Hannah Zirbel was involved with Girls in Action (GA), One Day Acts 1:8 Missions Experience, and more. Missions was just part of life.  

“I was fortunate to grow up in a scenario and circumstance where I had people around me who loved the Lord. It was how they lived, so it was how I lived. It was the culture,” she said. Now, as the director of college ministry for Woodland Heights Baptist Church in Conway, Zirbel is continuing that culture.   

One thing she does each year is take a handful of college students from the church to the One Day Acts 1:8 Missions Experience. She urges them to participate in door-to-door evangelism with her. She recalled two girls who had been nervous at first, worried they would mess up, but once they did it that nervousness turned to excitement. Eager to share what they had seen and heard, they asked Zirbel if they could do more evangelism at their church.  

“Yeah, we can,” Zirbel said.     

Zirbel saw her students become more confident in their faith and sharing the Good News.  

“If we are not living our lives in the community and sharing the gospel then we are completely being disobedient to the Lord and His word and what He commands of us,” Zirbel said. “It’s a form of discipleship and a form of helping people grow and spurring on to what the Lord calls them to do.”  

Zirbel attended college in Conway, where she got involved with the Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM). Her experiences with BCM helped her grow in her faith and fueled her call to ministry.  

“When I felt the call to ministry, a lot of it was because I had been given opportunities to lead through the BCM. That helped show me this is what I am passionate about,” she said. “It’s opened a lot of doors.”   

By supporting Arkansas Baptists, Zirbel said people are helping to reach every college campus, “and if you are reaching every college campus, you are reaching the nations. Why wouldn’t we be a part of that?”