our story
Noah, Emma, and Jones Cox are so excited to move to Victoria to serve alongside Canvas Church. They are moving from Folsom, Louisiana, where Noah has been serving as the Youth and Worship pastor. Noah grew up in Gulfport Mississippi where his dad is the church planter/pastor of Crosspoint Church. In 2017 he began to help with another church plant on the gulf coast, Opportunity Church, where he led worship throughout college. He attended William Carey University and studied Christian Ministries and English. During his senior year of college, Noah married the love of his life and best friend, Emma Woodward.
Emma is from New Orleans, Louisiana and grew up on the campus of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) where her dad is the head of the Church Music Department. She moved to Hammond Louisiana to attend Southeastern Louisiana University where she studied Marketing. Throughout high school and college, she grew her hobby of photography into a thriving business and worked as a Wedding Photographer for several years. In college, Emma began to serve alongside Noah at Opportunity Church and has been a very involved ministry partner ever since both in youth and worship ministry.
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Currently, Noah and Emma are expecting their first child. Their baby boy, Jones, is due May 19. Noah will finish his first year of graduate school at NOBTS this May where is pursuing a Master of Divinity. He will continue his studies online when the couple arrives in Victoria this August.
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Below is a detailed story of their calling to Canada. The evidence of how God has been working in their lives for years to prepare them for this move is so clear.
Summers of 2015 - 2018
2018 - 2019
Summer of 2019
In July of 2015, I (Noah) went on my first mission trip to Victoria with a team from Crosspoint Church. Crosspoint partnered with Canvas Church to host Camp Create, a week-long summer camp for kids that focused on the arts. This was was the beginning of God giving me a passion for the people in Victoria. The next three summers, I returned with a team from Crosspoint to help host Camp Create for the kids in Victoria.
Emma and I started dating in May of 2018. God placed a passion for ministry and a desire to church plant in both of our hearts. We shared an urge to reach the unchurched and talked often about our hopes to one day lead or help with a church plant in an unreached area.
During her first semester of College, Emma felt an urge to focus on her calling to ministry. She became really interested in Gensend, a program through the North American Mission Board (NAMB) for college students to move to another city for two months and partner with local missionaries/church planters in order to serve, grow and learn live missionally. As she was praying through the decision to go, God opened her heart toward the Pacific North West region and she applied to Portland (Oregon), Calgary (AB, Canada), and Vancouver (BC, Canada). She spent her summer in Portland serving church planters and learning what it meant to be a missionary in a new context. Emma returned home with an even greater passion for missions and hoped to one day return to the area.
We both continued to work and attend school, me at William Carey University and Emma at Southeastern Louisiana University. In March of 2020, I accepted a position at First Baptist Church of Folsom as the Worship Leader, and later that month I proposed to Emma. The next few months were filled with the joys of wedding planning as well as falling in love with the community of Folsom. FBC Folsom very quickly became family and we became passionate about ministry in the small community. We were married in November of 2020 and moved into a parsonage across from the church in Folsom. In January of 2021 I also became the Youth Pastor and God began to grow our hearts for youth ministry.
The next several months were so special as we settled into married life and fell more in love with Folsom and our church family. We began to talk about the possibility that we were wrong about church planting, especially so far away from home. It seemed to us that the plan now was to settle in, we had no intentions of leaving for the next 5, 10, maybe 15 years. We both graduated from college, I started seminary in August of 2021, and in September we found out we were expecting a baby!
December 2021
Febuary 2022
August 2022
To be continued...
In December, we took our one-year anniversary trip to Portland, Oregon. We had a great time visiting the city. On our last day, as we were walking around downtown we laughed about how we used to think we would move to the area. It seemed crazy now to move so far from family as we were starting our own family and we LOVED where God had us in Folsom. I remember saying to Emma "The only place I could see us doing ministry in the Pacific Northwest with a young family would be Victoria." Emma agreed with a confident "yeah, probably not though." and we moved on.
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The next day as we were eating lunch in the airport, I received a text from Ashley Austin, the pastor of Canvas Church in Victoria. It read "Hope you are doing well! Could we schedule a call later today or next week?” I simply showed Emma the message and we stared at each other, knowing that this could not be a coincidence considering our conversation the previous day.
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After we returned home, I called Ashley and he informed me about a position opening at Canvas. The church was in need of a Worship Pastor. Ashley told me that he woke up in the night with my name on his heart. He was very gracious to say that this may not mean we are being called to go now but asked that we would pray about it. Maybe this was something in the works for several years down the line, maybe I knew of someone else who would be a great fit, but we knew this was not simply a coincidence. We had several ideas of what this could possibly mean but most of them didn't involve us actually moving anytime soon. Nevertheless, we began to pray.
So many events and moments accumulated to this point but the overarching theme was that God made it so clear that we were being called to Canada. He began to change our hearts to be willing to go.
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As we asked questions about what the move would look like, all of our practical concerns were met. As we sought to understand WHY, we heard sermon after sermon that opened scripture to focus on missional encouragement. As we voiced our concerns about moving away from family, COVID, and leaving our church family, God gave us unexplainable peace. As we tried to neglect the call and ignore it, God convicted us through the Holy Spirit that we were running.
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On January 26, we gave the official answer to Ashley that we were moving to Victoria.
We will be leaving for Victoria in August of 2022. This will give us time to acquire all of the documents needed as well as rejoice and recover from the birth of our sweet baby, Jones, due May 19.
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Although it's been a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions throughout the journey, we could not be more excited to serve in Victoria! We are both passionate about God’s mission and the work he is doing in and around the city of Victoria.
We ask that you will be praying for us during this transition but also that you will continue to pray for us as we serve in Victoria. Visit our prayer page to learn how to continue to hear our story once we move.