Pauline is an author, writer, and former founding co-pastor of the
Abundant Life Fellowship in New Waterford, Ohio. She has regularly
counseled, taught and contributed into peoples’ lives during her times of ministry, and continues to care for her friends and family.
Pauline was born into an Amish family. After her family left the Amish, in her teen years she worked various jobs, including at the Kresge’s store. She was a homecoming queen in her local high school.
Pauline’s professional career started in 1962 when she was contracted to work in the Central Intelligence Agency through the U.S. Department of State as Foreign Service Officer. Living in three countries on three continents (Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Miami, Florida; Athens, Greece, and Karachi, Pakistan), she performed secretarial work, financial budgets for the U.S. consulates and embassies she worked in, as well as intelligence and logistics. Using her talent with a camera, she was instructed to operate surveillance in urban areas at assigned posts. Pauline was evacuated, along with her two children during the India-Pakistani War of 1971 and returned to her consulate post after a cease-fire.
After the war, Don had an experience with the Lord Jesus in Karachi and became determined to change his life.
After Pauline and her husband Don resigned their contracts with the CIA and State Department, they came back stateside to their family home in Ohio. Soon after they were part of a church launch called New Life Tabernacle.
It was at this phase of life Pauline and Don pursued a calling to launch a church ministry in New Waterford, Ohio, called Abundant Life Fellowship, which grew over forty years and continues on to
this day. During this time, Pauline earned two degrees through Vision International University; a BS in Theology and MS in Christian Education. She also did outreach ministry to prisons, hospitals,
rest homes, youth, seminars on healing and temperaments. Due to an illness, and after a successful 27-year run, Don and Pauline gave the pastorship to another minister friend and moved to Florida to
live out their later years.
Pauline is a widow from her marriage to Donald A. Stevenson when he passed away in 2017. They were married for 60 years. She has one son, Mark who resides in Canton, Ohio and one daughter, Kim Harris
who resides in Kissimmee, Florida. She resides with Kim and her husband Martin. Pauline is grandmother and great-grandmother. She is an active member of Cornerstone Family Church St Cloud, Florida. You can currently find her on social media. Pauline is currently 87 years old.
Imagine being raised Amish as a child, marrying the love of your life as he serves his country in the Navy, being trained, and deployed as United States diplomats with CIA clearance in countries such as Honduras, Greece, and Pakistan, living through a war, coming back stateside, resigning from the State Department, and becoming founding pastors of a successful church plant that continues to thrive today. Hard to picture, but that account is found in the pages of this book you hold, From Amish to Central Intelligence Agency, and pastoring, Our 60 Year Journey of Purpose and Destiny. Written by Pauline (Borntrager) Stevenson, she weaves her life throughout these pages. The whole time, her faith in Jesus Christ was her guiding influence. You will be kept on the edge of your seat in places of high drama and know the intensity of being brought to death’s door. Being raised Amish, Pauline will share with you how it set the tone of her life with exemplary morals and simple ways of living. Yet, her life would take on change after marriage. She was contracted to serve in the Central Intelligence Agency to work in US embassies, consulates, and military installations, along with the opportunity to live in foreign countries, see the sights, live among nationals, and meet interesting people from other walks of life. However, she will tell you there were the downsides of catching diseases like meningitis, malaria, and amoebic dysentery. While there were times of doubt, moments of uncertainty and crossroads of decision, there were also the high reward moments, and she came through it all. Clichéd as it might be, this narrative will be difficult to put down, not knowing how the next page turns out. It really is a story like no other.
Hello Everyone, I am so excited as the time is so close for my trip to Ohio. My son, Mark has been so busy setting up book signings for me so I will be busy. I have spoken to several friends on Facebook, and they will be attending the Sunday…
BIO: Pauline is an author, writer, and former founding co-pastor of the Abundant Life Fellowship in New Waterford, Ohio. She has regularly counseled, taught and contributed into peoples’ lives during her times of ministry, and continues to care for her friends and family. Pauline spent her early formative years…
Even with the simplest lifestyle, life can throw difficult, challenging circumstances at us. I know I have experienced this. One thing that is in my book, Our 60 Year Journey, I recall a time when we experienced being in the war between East Pakistan, India, and West Pakistan in 1971.…
