Chris and Sabrina Miller were students at UT when they first heard about YOKE. They were both active in the Baptist Collegiate Ministry and were looking for an opportunity to serve together. They joined the team at West Valley Middle School where they would serve together for three years.
Chris and Sabrina married in 2003, partly, they admit, just so they could spend some time together. Their lives were always busy (Sabrina was pre-med), but they also wanted their marriage to be “missionally minded.” With this priority in mind, they continued to serve together, helping with the banquet, participating in club each week, attending YOKE camp, and investing in middle school kids.
After graduating in 2005, they moved to Johnson City for Sabrina to attend medical school. They were blessed with three biological children, but God expanded their hearts and their home for kids in need of adoption. Over the course of the next three and a half years, they would adopt 3 newborns from around the US. More recently, God brought them five new children from the Philippines. The adoption process has helped them to continue to be a “missionally-minded” family and their family photos now look more like a global gathering of the family of God. “We’ve been so blessed!” added Sabrina.
Chris and Sabrina still live in the Tri-Cities area where Sabrina serves as a physician and Chris as a hospital administrator. Their 11 children – aged 6-19 – keep them running. “Our time with YOKE definitely equipped us in parenting these middle school students,” Sabrina explained. More than 20 years later, they are still close with their YOKE teammates and often gather to celebrate new babies, weddings, and birthdays. They also manage to keep up with many of their YOKE Kids via social media.
“YOKE was much more than ministering to middle school students,” recalled Sabrina. “As Chris and I discipled them, we also experienced community and developed relationships that have lasted our lifetime. YOKE provided us with a tangible understanding of inter-generational community within the Body of Christ.”
