Have you ever wondered why did your parents choose that specific name to you? What’s the meaning behind it? Valentina Leighton’s name means “brave” in Spanish. For most of her childhood, it felt like a cruel joke.
She grew up in southern Chile in a broken home, her parents separating two weeks before she was born. Neglect, abuse, loneliness, OCD from the age of four. Her world was small and tightly controlled, because everything outside its edges felt dangerous.
“I was very, very fearful,” she says simply.
At 14, desperate and starting to have suicidal thoughts, a friend invited her to a youth ministry. She almost didn’t go. Christians seemed perfect to her, and she was not. But she was out of options.
The pastor that night preached on prayer. At the end, he invited people to talk to God. Valentina decided to try.
“I said: I don’t know if you are real. I don’t know you. But if you are real, I need your help, because I’m dying.” And that prayer changed everything. And then something else happened: God told her who she was.
“God changed my name from fear to brave. And my name in Spanish means brave. So it just made so much sense to finally own it and say: that’s my identity. I’m a brave person.”
The Long Way to Norway
Years later, working as a nurse, Valentina received a persistent invitation from her mother’s best friend to visit Norway. She said no for five years. Too busy with school, too cautious, too… well, still a little fearful if she’s honest.
Then she had an accident with boiling water and spent a month in bed. God used the stillness.
“He said: I’ve called you to be brave. I’m calling you to go to Norway.”
She quit her job. Took a two-month crash course in English. Got on a plane to a country she knew nothing about, whose culture was a complete mystery, where a coffee cost the equivalent of a week’s salary back home.
Somewhere in the layover in Brazil, the fear crept back in hard. She nearly turned around.
“God spoke to me so strongly on that plane. He said: you have to go. And that became my mindset… I know that I know that I know that I have to go.”
She went. And Norway, against all odds, started feeling like home.
Chile vs Norway: Passion Meets Structure
The contrast between the two cultures still makes Valentina smile.
“In Chile, we follow God with so much passion. But in Norway, it’s about vision. There’s a plan, there’s structure. Chile is maybe more messy, because with passion you can still do things… but not always in the most efficient way.”
Friendships in Norway work differently too. In Chile, you’re best friends instantly, hugging by the end of the first conversation. In Norway, nobody invites you for coffee after church for months. It took Valentina five months to feel genuinely connected after moving to Kristiansand.
“But once you make friends in Norway, they are friends for life. That was a completely new concept for me.”
And the food? “They could use more spices. A lot of boiled things. I need a bit of deep fried and coriander.”
A Dream, a Visa, and a Job on the Same Day
Meeting her husband Simon was its own story: a Chilean introvert and a Danish musician, crossing paths at a YWAM base in northwestern Norway, eventually finding their way south to Kristiansand together. They moved without jobs, without connections, without knowing a single person there. People around them said it was dangerous, that it could ruin a new marriage.
“But we knew it was the right thing, because it was so clear for both of us.”
Finding a church was harder. In Norway, you attend church near where you live, so visitors from other neighborhoods raise eyebrows. Eventually they found Hanes Free Church and felt at home immediately.
Two weeks after that first visit, Valentina woke up on a Sunday morning with her family reunion visa approved. She went to church to celebrate. At the coffee time after the service, she mentioned she was looking for work.
Øivind Augland was sitting across the table. He looked at her and said: I’m looking for a PA.
“Two weeks before that moment, I had a dream where Jesus told me: you’re going to get your visa and you’re going to find a job. And two weeks later, on the same day, both happened.”
She started as Øivind’s personal assistant. Then took on more communication work with M4. Now she’s involved in events, newsletter, and a growing role across the M4 Europe team.
What’s Actually Happening at the Church
The church Valentina is part of has been around for over 20 years, but the last three years have been something different. Sunday attendance has climbed to around 250. The youth gathering on Saturdays regularly brings in 70 people.
“For Norwegian standards, that’s a big group.”
The secret, if there is one, is intentionality. When new people walk in, the response isn’t just a handshake and a bulletin. It’s: what do you like to do? Who can we connect you with? Which small group fits you?
Valentina worked with the youth for a while and watched 19 and 20-year-olds make radical decisions: stopping drinking, stopping drugs, reorienting their entire lives around following Jesus. She came to it with honesty rather than expertise.
“I said: I don’t know anything about what it is to be a teenager in Norway. Please help me. I’m open to hear, no judgment. And for them, that was: wow, that’s a new way to connect with someone older than me.”
Prayer as a Relationship, Not a Ritual
Valentina leads M4 Europe’s prayer ministry, and her reason for caring about it deeply is personal.
“I met God through prayer. That will never leave me.”
She notices something in the church planting world: activists are often the worst at stopping to pray. Everyone’s moving fast, solving problems, building things.
“Imagine you’re married. Imagine going two weeks without talking to your wife. That’s what we do with God sometimes. And then instead of just having a normal relationship, you have to catch up.”
The M4 prayer team meets every other week, five people gathering to work through prayer requests together and send personal encouragements back to those they’ve prayed for. Small, relational, intentional.
“M4 is a very highly relational organization. We want prayer to be a relational activity too. Not a programme. Something we do together.”
Her hope is that M4 becomes known as an organization that prays, not just an organization that plants.
“If You’re in His Will, That’s the Safest Place to Be”
Ask Valentina about her vision for the future and she laughs a little, because her personality type tends to run ahead into the next decade before she’s finished with today.
She’s learning to trust the present. The people around her at M4 are shaping her in ways she couldn’t have arranged herself. Simon is getting drawn in too, studying and praying about what’s next for them as a couple. They host M4 guests when events come through Kristiansand, weaving their home into the work.
“The normal job doesn’t let you invite your family into the environment. For me, it’s so beautiful to be able to tell my husband: hey, come and join. You can also bring something to M4. We can even serve together.”
Her final words, the ones she’d offer to anyone watching: the same word God gave her at 14. The same word that got her on a plane to a country she didn’t know, with no money and no plan.
Be brave.
“If we live by fear, we won’t get too far. But if we believe in God, and we have this conviction that… I know that I know that I know this is what God is calling me to do… everything will come to the right place. He provided on the way. He always does.”