About Steve
Steve Mitchell (MS, University of Texas El Paso) is a retired petroleum geologist and a Christian. He spent thirty-eight years working for major oil companies, exploring for new oil fields, helping develop major discoveries and optimizing production of existing oil fields. In geology, he has strong expertise in stratigraphy, sequence stratigraphy, regional geology, and reservoir geoscience. He accepted Jesus as his savior at the age of nine and continues to experience God through the Bible and through His creation. He and his wife, Karen, have been active in teaching Bible classes to children, young people, and adults in the churches where God placed them around the world. He has served in many leadership positions including in their current church in Spring, Texas.
MY STORY
I was born the second time in 1965 in a small church in the small eastern New Mexico village of Dora. I was nine years old. I had been in church regularly since soon after birth, but I understood that that did not make me a Christian. When I knelt with our pastor, I prayed and invited Jesus to come into my heart. I was young, but I had already been collecting rocks for at least three years. Through my elementary and high school years, my interests in science and my Christian faith deepened. In high school, I was aware of the conflict that many saw between the two, but I was encouraged to pursue both. Scholarships, government grants, and work/study programs make it possible for me to go to college at Eastern New Mexico University in nearby Portales where I immediately chose to major in geology. There I dated an amazing young Christian lady named Karen Ridgley, and soon we were married. I graduated from ENMU, and after a brief period working for Gulf Oil Company, we moved to El Paso, Texas. I completed a MS in geology at the University of Texas at El Paso. When I graduated, my wife and I moved to Houston to take a job exploring for oil and gas with the Mobil Oil Company. Over the next twenty years, we lived in Houston, New Orleans, London, and Dallas. When Exxon and Mobil merged to form ExxonMobil, we moved back to Houston. I continued to work for ExxonMobil, writing drafts of this while living in Stavanger, Norway. My career allowed me to study the geology of many parts of the world. I have been involved in exploring for new fields, developing fields that have been discovered and in creating detailed geologic descriptions of existing fields in order to recover more oil and gas. I have now retired and in living back in the Houston area.
Karen and I have been active members of churches in every place that we have lived. This has included teaching Bible classes to children, young people, and adults. I believe getting into God’s word is essential for every Christian and that small group Bible study is an important part of Christian discipleship. I have also served as a deacon in four churches as we moved around. We have two grown sons who are Christians and are active in local churches as well. We now have the joy of helping our grandchildren learn about both God and science as well. God has designed each of us in special ways to be able to see and experience an individual close relationship with Him. Each can experience God differently. Regardless of how else our grandchildren learn to know Him, I hope that they will also learn to know God as their creator through both science and the Bible.
Karen and Steve
Karen Ridgley became Karen Mitchell back in 1977, while they were both college students at ENMU. They continue to enjoy a marriage based on the union of three – husband, wife, and Jesus the Lord. They live in Spring, Texas
Contact Me: Steve Mitchell
You can email me at: Jesus.inHistandS@gmail.com