Sean Brizendine grew up in Modesto, California, in a Christian home with a praying, godly mother who led him to Christ at the age of five. She taught him about the biblical Sabbath and to look forward to the soon coming of Jesus, which led to his baptism in a river at the age of 10. Though his father died when Sean was 12, and his mother died when he was 15, it was while attending Pacific Union College that an email came to him about finding the top 20 reasons to be a student missionary. After learning more, Sean joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 2007 at the age of 20. Later that year, he experienced God’s call on his life to be a pastor, serving on various mission trips and gaining ministry experience through canvassing and, in the following years, non-profit ministry work.

It was around 2008 that Sean first sensed God putting Papua New Guinea on his heart, though he did not know if or when he would serve there. In 2015, he began serving as a pastor in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and was ordained to the gospel ministry in 2020. Having gladly served for over eight years, Sean has seen fruit from lives transformed by the gospel.

Already familiar with the work of Adventist Frontier Missions, Sean expressed more interest in AFM at the 2023 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting. After reading an email sent to him by Kyle Tumberg on August 24, 2023, Sean experienced a deep sense of conviction regarding the needs of the unreached and applied with AFM to become a missionary. On December 19, 2023, Sean was elated when AFM invited him to accept the call to minister to the animistic Ama people of Papua New Guinea. He sees this as God’s clear leading and looks forward to how God will open the way for each step in the journey to reach the unreached. Sean seeks to help hasten Christ’s return through prayer, giving, his personal effort and influence, and the joy of composing and singing songs to glorify God as he prepares to minister to the Ama people.