Rosemary Fischer’s family joined the Adventist church when she was seven years old, and that family decision changed the trajectory of her life—and the lives of her hundreds of future students.

Before she knew she was meant to be a hometown missionary serving in Adventist classrooms and schools, Rosemary’s dreams were of far-away places. “In Sabbath School class, the teacher told stories about missionaries that filled my soul with awe and then with longing,” she shares. “From the first story on, all I wanted to do was read about missionaries and hopefully become one someday myself.”

But there was no Adventist school in her town, so Rosemary’s only option was attending public school. When she enrolled in high school, her interests shifted, as do those of many teenagers. “The idea of serving as a missionary was not so high on my priority list,” she recalls. However, serving others was still part of her core value system. She says, “After high school graduation, the social work program at the University of Victoria became the new goal.”

However, her family again influenced her decisions and her future. “My bags were packed, and I was ready to leave for university, when my brother came home from a summer of working at Canadian Union College (CUC; now Burman University),” she says. “He talked so much about his campus experiences there that, by the end of the week, I knew I wanted that family type of experience myself. CUC became my new destination for my first year in social work.”

Then, mission work caught her imagination again. “I went to Friday night afterglow programs, and it was at one of these programs that I was introduced to a family that had just returned from the mission field,” she explains. “Their stories reopened my longing to serve as a missionary. The following year, it was my joy to begin my mission experience teaching as a student missionary in the Marshall Islands. The experience was so powerful that upon returning to college, I quickly changed my degree from social work to education.” 

Rosemary would later return to the same island to teach for another year before embarking on her education career back in Canada. “Since graduating from college, it has been a blessing to teach so many wonderful students, to guide them and to share the joy of learning and the joy of a relationship with God,” she says. “It has been such a blessing for me!” 

Such a blessing, in fact, that when she was offered the opportunity to work toward a master’s degree in educational administration, she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave her classroom for an administrative role. “But God has an amazing way of knowing best,” she says, “and it became clear that that was His plan.”

Still, knowing it was the right path for her didn’t take away all of her nerves. “When starting this new role of principal, I felt so inadequate, daily begging God to help me accomplish each day what He needed me to accomplish,” she shares, adding that she also asked for wisdom, mercy, and grace. 

Through all of this petitioning and hard work, God heard and answered her prayers. “It has been an incredible journey,” Rosemary acknowledges. “I have watched miracle after miracle in the ways He has changed me, in the ways that He has been there for the school, in the ways that He interacts with the school board and the staff, and in the ways the parents of the children have shared their own challenges and God-filled relationships with us! I absolutely love being a principal.”

Rosemary admits that life as an educator isn’t perfect, but she embraces her entire experience. “Oh, yes, there are ups and downs, but as someone once so wisely pointed out to me, ‘How else are you going to recognize the blessings of miracles if you don’t have the ups and downs to compare them to?’” She says that her belief in God, the changes she sees in her students, and loving words of wisdom have keep her moving forward during the hard times. “As another wise soul said, the lows teach us how to exercise our faith. So even the downs are ups now. God is good!”

After dedicating her career in Adventist education and seeing how God has led her, Rosemary invites others to experience that same blessing: “If you are thinking about serving God in the capacity of an educator, with the right dependence on God and the right attitude, your faith will grow leaps and bounds,” she encourages. “Just watch for the miracles!”