Karen Yoder

Karen Yoder Hired as Ministry Support Coach and Global Assistant

November 2, 2020

This summer, VMMissions hired Karen Yoder as the new Ministry Support Coach and Global Assistant. In these roles she resources Ministry Support Teams and lends administrative support to Jason Showalter and the Global Team.

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A Bridge Between Former Inmates and the Church

November 2, 2020

VMMissions worker and jail chaplain, Jason Wagner, is happy to announce the launching of a new initiative of care for persons released from incarceration. He has begun a partnership to build bridges between former inmates and the church. He acknowledges that it is complicated to walk with people in hard situations and churches are often ill equipped to do this.

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Aaron Kauffman

Love Tears Down Walls

October 29, 2020

A vital truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ: love tears down walls. And it was love that led John Perkins to tear down the wall of a formerly segregated health clinic in Mendenhall, Mississippi. As Perkins puts it, “God’s love and justice come together in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, and we can’t be about one and not the other. They’re inextricably connected.”

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Worker Profile: Dan and Mary Hess

July 21, 2020

We serve in the city of Lezhë and the town of Milot, Albania. Our focus is building relationships to lead many to Jesus. We are involved in children’s ministry, discipling new believers and training emerging leaders. Having served in Albania from 2001 to 2005, we feel blessed to have the privilege of living in Albania once again.

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Call to Prayer: Cherishing What God Speaks

July 21, 2020

We are in the process of moving into a new home. I realized that in our 14 years of our marriage, we have moved 14 times, not to mention all the transitions each time we came back to the States for home ministry assignments! I wondered sorrowfully how that reality has impacted our children. Then God brought me comfort by reminding me that we have not only survived all of this transition, but have been able to thrive.

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Prepared in Cusco for Service in Virginia

July 21, 2020

My identity and understanding of the world and the gospel are forever changed by the opportunity I had to grow up as a TCK in Cusco, Peru. I remember an empowering conversation with my mother before leaving for Peru, where I was given a say in this decision to move. Making this choice at age seven deepened the degree to which I took on the role of “missionary.”

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Itzel-Sanchez

A World United Under God’s Love

July 21, 2020

God’s love and grace have shaped my identity as his child. I have had the blessing of serving on a few mission trips and have also assisted in after-school tutoring. I realize now that the fire to serve others was sparked as others invested in me and my community. I strive to see others as God sees us—as one body of Christ, as being equal.

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Back Home

July 17, 2020

A poem by Anna (not her real name), a TCK who grew up in Central and West Asia.

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For Different Seasons Blow Different Winds

July 17, 2020

I am an American, a TCK, a young adult, etc. But oftentimes it seems that we blot out our most important identification, our foundation: we are children of God. With this fact in mind, suddenly, the fact that I am a TCK no longer seems to weigh on me. I will encounter misunderstandings because of it, of course, but I have a greater purpose and longing that my heart seeks after.

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Thankful for a Life of Paradoxes

July 17, 2020

I like being a TCK because I get to see and do things a lot of people don’t get to. For example, I have learned to do Thai dancing and to cook Thai food. I have made friends who live in many countries. But sometimes I don’t like being a TCK because I don’t really fit in anywhere.

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Dara Showalter

Joy and Mourning

July 17, 2020

Growing up as a TCK, I experienced a lot of opposites. I was always overjoyed to come to the States for the summer, but at the same time I would start feeling homesick for the places and people I had left behind. The window is symbolic of all the windows into the lives of the people around me that were opened to me because of my TCK experience.

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Anna and the Life-Giving High Five

July 17, 2020

The game of the street in Central Asia was urtganiki, which consists of “ball dodging and life swapping.” In this game, I have had the privilege of playing the role of both life-giver and life-receiver. Whether the teammate I high-five back into the game does well or poorly, we feel connected more deeply because of the life-exchange. Similarly when we reflect on Jesus giving us his life, we feel more connected to him.

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Carol Tobin

The Children Who Ask, “Who Am I?”

July 17, 2020

Third Culture Kids (TCKs) are uniquely formed and called to serve. Having grown up in Thailand, our daughters are TCKs. Their faith has been tested by deep affinity with people whose view of the world is vastly different than theirs. Yet, they are convinced of the reality and relevance of Jesus, and they are well-positioned for witness in the intercultural settings that abound in our world today.

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A Front Row Seat to the Gospel’s Power

May 4, 2020

The power of the gospel is this: that the unlovable are loved, the irredeemable are redeemed, the disinherited are adopted, the faithless are made faithful, the wicked are made pure, and the unqualified are made participants. This is my story.

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Tracing the Trail of Forgiveness

May 4, 2020

God is calling Bethany Tobin to both teach and walk out Jesus’ humble yet powerful message of forgiveness as she serves in Thailand. She shares these glimpses.

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Worker Profile: Elena Buckwalter de Satalaya

May 4, 2020

Elena and her husband Freddy are working with the Iglesia Cristiana Menonita, in Iquitos, Peru, focusing mostly on bringing young people on an island community to a personal relationship with God. Since the community has very little access to quality education, they teach basic classes and on weekends we have children’s ministry and youth group.

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Call to Prayer: Listening in the Hard Times

May 4, 2020

A week before arriving home to our slum, our neighborhood was flooded. Our homecoming was overwhelming—filled with culture shock, mourning lost possessions, and setting up our house again. Less than a month later, we all got typhoid. How do we pray in these times?

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More Precious Than Rubies

May 4, 2020

God tells women that we are valuable to him, more precious than rubies. But in Montenegro, women are treated as if we are not worth much at all. With this in mind, the women’s committee of our church decided to conduct our first-ever outreach event to show women their God-given value.

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Sharing the Best We Have

May 4, 2020

A celebration in heaven is taking place, even though on this earth the situation is sad!” Solange Tartari sees God working powerfully in Albania among people who are encountering the gospel for the first time. “We all have challenges in life. The least we can do is simply share the best we have in love for others: Jesus! He makes all the difference in us.”

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The Gospel Seen on the Canvas of a Life

May 4, 2020

It is not easy to trace the work of God’s salvation within the jail. Within Nathan’s story I see many threads of God’s intervention. The presence of an active church. The word of God permeating Nathan’s heart from the voice of a faithful believer behind bars. The Holy Spirit bringing conviction, peace, hope, and forgiveness in Nathan’s night of anguish.

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Aaron Kauffman

The Power of the Cross

May 4, 2020

Jesus’ sacrificial death undoes the curse of sin and makes new life possible for those who trust in him and surrender their lives in service to his kingdom. Like a seed that dies to be reborn as a fruitful new plant, death is the path to life in God’s economy.

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Worker Profile: Mark and Sarah Schoenhals

May 4, 2020

We serve with Life Enrichment Church (LEC), a network of house churches in a wide rural area, with the goal of multiplying disciples of Jesus and house churches. We help disciple new believers, train emerging leaders, and advise and help sharpen the vision of existing leaders.

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My Coins Count

News+Events

May 1, 2020

Latino Ministries hosts Training for Trainers event on March 14
Cloth face mask drive launched for poultry workers
Coronavirus Immigrant Care Fund makes impact

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Call to Prayer: Soaking and Leaking

May 1, 2020

We knew that God had good plans for our neighbors in our South Asian Muslim neighborhood. We also knew intimately the hard details of their lives. We spent a lot of time praying and listening for a sense of God’s dreams for them and what God was specifically guiding us to do.

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A New Roof for Rosa

April 24, 2020

When it became apparent that Rosa’s house needed a new roof, church planter and pastor Armando Sanchez was ready to add his roofing skills to the energy already present in the Springdale and Waynesboro Mennonite churches. This led to a productive work day in which these congregations came together to give the house a new roof.

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Steve Leaman

VMMissions Mourns the Loss of Steve Leaman

April 6, 2020

With great sadness we share the news that our dear coworker and brother, Steve Leaman, passed away suddenly on April 5. Steve had served on staff since December 2015, most recently as Director of Advancement. He was known as a hard-working and caring colleague, a lifelong learner, a devoted family man, and a faithful follower of Jesus.

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The Hands and Feet of Jesus

March 24, 2020

In the desperate tedium of a large refugee camp, we were entering a world where we would feel sorrow, joy, rage, exhaustion, frustration and happiness, all in a matter of a few hours. Every day. I have never felt more strongly that every minute we were trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

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30 Seconds That Threw Lezhë Into Chaos

March 9, 2020

On November 26 at 3:51 a.m., we experienced a 6.4 magnitude earthquake and numerous aftershocks here in Albania. The church has mobilized to provide help, and I see that the Lord is revealing himself to the lost. We pray that God will be glorified in the relationships built and that there will be lasting fruit for God’s kingdom in Albania.

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What Does It Mean to “Do Good?”

March 6, 2020

We were ostensibly doing good work in the community, but the lack of transformative spiritual engagement left us feeling empty, dissatisfied, and questioning. This desire to see gospel transformation take root began, however, in a startling and unforeseen way: right in the midst of, and in fact, through, my brokenness.

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Bold Humility: Mission in the Way of Jesus

February 27, 2020

Is mission a thing of the past? Contemporary attitudes toward mission are much different than the ones that gave rise to Virginia Mennonite Missions one hundred years ago. Today, the claim that Jesus is Lord offends our pluralistic sensibilities. But is sharing the gospel inherently oppressive? Not if we follow the example of our crucified Lord.

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Gratitude to God Funds Mission

February 21, 2020

The early model of centralized funding depended on donors entrusting their God-given resources to the mission agency to use in accordance with its priorities. But when giving rapidly declined in the 1990s, it became clear that donors wanted to give where they had involvement. A paradigm shift was needed.

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Getting On Board With Business

February 14, 2020

The call is going out for business, professional and trade men and women who love Jesus and believe that the marketplace is a place for the good news of the gospel. Who will get on board?

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USA Ministries: A Story of Missionaries and Migrants

February 7, 2020

God knows how to weave good stories, in which the puzzle pieces from one time and place come together to create something new and beautiful in another time and place. In this story, the puzzle pieces are missionaries and migrants, the places are Honduras and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and the time will unfold in the telling.

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An Examen: God, Where Have You Been Present?

January 31, 2020

Now in our fourth decade of short-term missions, what have we learned at VMMissions? Are short-term mission experiences about rendering a service or surrendering to Christ? Martin Rhodes shares his own story of how a short-term assignment in Mexico shifted his focus from doing to being.

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A Dream, a Need, a Gift: the Launch of tranSend

January 15, 2020

Over 100 persons have explored their sense of call to mission through tranSend since the program began in 2005. What were the dreams and needs behind this one-year mission internship program, and how did it become a reality?

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Extending the Reach to Every Nation, Tribe and Tongue

January 10, 2020

In recent years, VMMissions has placed greater priority on sending workers to unreached people groups. Thanks to the Lord of the harvest, dedicated and creative VMMissions workers are living incarnationally among some of the fifty largest unreached people groups in the world.

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The Walls Came Tumbling Down: Our Entrance Into Albania

December 31, 2019

When the walls came down, “We were swept along, praising God for opportunities! We didn’t program it! We could hardly keep up with it,” Willard Eberly exclaimed. An isolated nation after a forty-five year communist regime, Albania opened in 1991 to the outside world and to the gospel of Jesus.

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Will You Go? Our Expansion into the Caribbean

December 26, 2019

Twila Y. Brunk’s book, Together in the Lord, is an engaging account of the first twenty-five years of the Jamaican Mennonite Church. The following recounts those beginnings, as well as the expansion of VMMissions’ work into Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.

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From Virginia into the Heart of Christendom

December 20, 2019

“I do not believe that it is above what we could expect, if the Lord tarries, that we would have a native Mennonite Church in Sicily.” These were the words of Truman Brunk in his report to the executive committee of the mission board upon his return from a visit to Sicily in November 1950.

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Tidewater Virginia: Our Antioch

December 2, 2019

“We know that in the time of the early church, ministry began in Jerusalem. Later, Antioch became an important mission center. The Shenandoah Valley is the Jerusalem of Virginia Mennonite Conference. But, realize, Tidewater Virginia is our Antioch!” What made that particular context so special? How did VMMissions contribute to the picture, promoting greater faithfulness and fruitfulness?

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John-S-Coffman

Beginnings: Called to the Mountains

November 21, 2019

In the early days, mission vision emerged at the district level of Virginia Mennonite Conference. Middle District was exemplary in mobilizing witness over the mountains into West Virginia. Though many declined the invitation to serve, a steady stream of workers labored over the years, eventually giving birth to over a dozen churches.

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College students at a prayer and worship service of Eastside College, a discipleship ministry of worker Rachel Yoder. Photo: Rachel Yoder

One Hundred Years of Sharing Jesus with Neighbors Near and Far

November 5, 2019

This year marks 100 years of Virginia Mennonite Missions helping the church share Jesus with neighbors near and far. How did it all get started? What has God done through our work? Where might God be leading in the future?

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The River and the Sea: Making Sense of the Story

November 2, 2019

For one hundred years, VMMissions has existed to help the church know itself as sent. It is when we look back that we are best able to see an unfolding storyline that can then help us to orient toward our future. What do we see when we look back?

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Call to Prayer: No junior Holy Spirit for children!

September 26, 2019

By Priscilla Gnanamanickam Children don’t have a junior Holy Spirit.” This is what we were told by a missionary couple when we were young parents in India, as we were learning to listen to the voice of the Lord and follow him. “Encourage your children to listen to the voice of the Lord speaking, like […]

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Family treasure hunting

August 22, 2019

As a child, I loved treasure hunts. Almost as fun as finding my treasure was continuing to search in order to hide the knowledge of the treasure from my siblings and to share in their joy when they found it. Discovery, amazement, wonder and joy are all unmistakable markers of those who have discovered the Kingdom of God made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.

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Carol Tobin

Family on mission: God’s business over busyness

August 20, 2019

My husband Skip and I believe that God will pour his life through us in dynamic ways as we take steps to integrate our family lives into the family life of God. One place where we see deep desire for this kind of integration is in a “family on mission” huddle that we host in our home.

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Laura Green (left) has developed a friendship with neighbors Michele and Maria, sharing the love of Jesus with them. Photo courtesy of Shawn Green

Not here to raise a family?

August 2, 2019

Worker Shawn Green sees godly parenting as an integral part of bearing witness to the gospel in Termoli, Italy. “Because teachers, as well as neighbors, notice our parenting, we have had opportunities to speak into their lives,” he writes.

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Immanuel, God with us!

July 18, 2019

Worker Raleigh offers tender reflections on the gift of God’s presence to their family as they offer a ministry of presence among their Muslim neighbors.

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Call to Prayer: Can prayer make your family unique?

July 5, 2019

Our priority on prayer is guided by clear biblical principles. We emphasize the fact that God hears our prayers and that we can hear from him. But principles are not enough; we need to practice. Here are a few family-friendly prayer ideas that we have used to develop our family prayer life.

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Teachers: God’s love in the community

June 27, 2019

All Kids Club volunteers love the children who come, and there is something special about teachers who choose to be at Kids Club each week. They are experts at giving and receiving the love of God in our local communities who are competently leading both at school and at Kids Club.

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