Grace Schmied

It’s not easy to summarize everything Grace is involved in. She grew up helping her parents in ministry as they have served as home missionaries for over thirty years. They have tried to keep Christ at the center of all they do and involved her and her four siblings in every aspect of ministry. Vacation Bible Schools, Neighborhood Bible Clubs, and summer camps were among the first outreach projects in which she was directly involved.

Grace is known as the captain of camp kitchen chaos since she has spent the majority of her summers cooking for Bible camps in Kansas, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Missouri. In recent years, she has been helping with administrative work for Camp JOY in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

Shopping for deals is another passion for Grace, these deals are for packing Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes, a project of Samaritan’s Purse. Shoeboxes are delivered around the world to children who have most likely never received a gift in their lives. The Gospel is presented with every shoebox, sharing that Jesus is the Greatest Gift of All. Packing shoeboxes for over fifteen years has built a fire for OCC within her. This ministry project of GraceWorks is called OCC Warriors.

A love for sewing evolved into co-ordinating various opportunities to support other Christ-focused ministries that share the love of Jesus in tangible, material ways. The project, titled Grace and Peace to You, encourages people to donate handmade quilts, burp cloths, knitted and crocheted blankets, and more. This project grew from the Baby Quilt Challenge that she and her mom Ruth would host to benefit their local pregnancy resource center. Grace is passionate about the sanctity of life, an important issue that is often swept under the rug, because we as humans are made in the image of God. 

As the Human Coalition says, let’s “Save the Baby Humans” who are more important than endangered sea turtles, eagles, or pandas, “GraceWorks” is more than a ministry title; God’s grace is what makes salvation work. God’s grace works! Our good works profit us nothing. In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Jesus tells Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Amazingly, Paul says, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” Grace desires that Christ’s power will rest on her, and that she will not boast in her works but rather in her weaknesses, as Ephesians 2:8-9 says “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of ourselves it is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” and Ephesians 1:7 "We have redemption in Christ through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace,” So Grace says as Paul did "I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of His power." Ephesians 3:7

Grace isn’t the only one in the family engaged in ministry. Her sister, Liberty Schmied, is on her way to serve as a horse trainer in Angola, serving Christ through SIM at Tchincombe Ranch.