Faith Bible Church

Faith Bible Church in Oklahoma runs an active missions program with field work in Dawnu and among the Tarahumara people in Mexico. Most of the design work I did for them grew out of those missions programs and the prayer-card cadence that Tonya Zunigha ran for the congregation. The engagement spanned about ten months, from May 2023 through the end of March 2024.

How we started

The first month invoice went out at the start of May 2023 covering May 1 through June 1. By that point, the church was already brand-refreshed (I noted in the invoice email that the look would be a little different because we had just gone through a re-brand with a new logo). The arrangement was a monthly subscription billed to Ricardo Colon in administration, with Jay Risner on copy. The project briefs came from Tonya on the missions side and from Emily Brittain (Tonya's assistant) on smaller items.

The work

The prayer cards were the recurring core. Tonya would brief me on a missions focus, send over photo galleries and prayer points, and I would design front-and-back cards plus matching presentation slides for when she taught.

The Tarahumara card was the bigger lift. Tonya needed a card for the new missions focus launching on a Sunday in June, with QR codes for two different giving links, prayer points with seven staff members, and references to "the Colonia" rather than "the community." The card iterated through a few revisions across June 8 and 9 (changing "personal care" to "personal hygiene," updating the prayer point copy), and then in late August I rebuilt it as individual missionary profile cards for the seven staff plus a group slide for Tonya's teaching presentations.

The Dawnu prayer card ran on its own track. I designed a summer card in May 2023 ahead of a June print deadline, then refreshed it again in late August as part of a three-project bundle (Dawnu prayer card, Tarahumara prayer card, and the individual missionary cards) targeting a September 7 deadline.

Beyond the missions work, the smaller throughput came from Emily Brittain. A two-project drop in late September with a Tuesday turnaround, a single project the next day with a 3 PM deadline that I caught late in the day and got across the line. A request the following April to reopen a 2021 file (which I had unfortunately lost to a computer hard drive failure earlier in the engagement). Slides built from the missions card content for Tonya's presentations.

A specific moment

The Tarahumara card request came in at 3 PM on a Thursday with a Sunday launch. Tonya opened the brief with "I know this is very last minute, so I understand if you can't do it." I sent back a first round inside three hours. Her response: "amazing! thank you so so much!" with two small copy revisions I turned around the same evening. That thread shows up in my head whenever someone asks how missions communication actually works at speed. The window is small, the stakes feel real, and the cards have to be ready for the bulletin spot on Sunday.

In their words

"amazing! thank you so so much!" Tonya Zunigha, Missions Director, June 2023

Where things stand

The Faith Bible engagement closed at the end of March 2024 when the church moved graphic design in-house. Jay confirmed the cancellation directly: "Yes. We discussed the cancellation recently. I think it's time." He covered the first two weeks of April as a transition payment. The handoff was clean and the door was left open for one-off projects during busy seasons or holidays. The prayer-card library, individual missionary profile cards, and presentation slides are still in rotation for the Dawnu and Tarahumara missions programs.