Stories of Mission

Call to Prayer: Reminding Ourselves of God’s Future

“It is good that we remind ourselves of God’s future…So often, our prayers reflect our present sorrows, weariness and broken hopes. Our God wants to hear those things, for he cares deeply about us. But, God also wants to speak to us about what he wants to do,” Ruthy writes.

The Ultimate Adventure Story

“I want this next generation to embrace the challenge leveled at all of humanity in the life of Christ: the challenge that those who wish to be the greatest must be the servant of all,” Ken Wettig writes. “My hope is that SLAQ would be an invitation for young people to be apprenticed to the one person in human history whose Spirit is still present with us today: Jesus of Nazareth.”

A Vision for Creating Community

People around us are longing for community, but they are not turning to the church. This has been our challenge over the course of the past few years. But in a poor and immigrant-dense part of Mannheim, our Villa experimentis bursting at the seams with life.

What God Sees For Central Asia

“We sense that we are on the brink of a breakthrough that God wants to bring to this region,” Em says. “For me there is exhilaration edged with nervous anticipation. For Jay there is vigorous and contagious confidence, a beautiful sense of clarity as to what we are to be doing.”

A Church That Stays Standing

Steve and Laura Campbell’s hope has been to plant Christ as the seed so that a Montenegrin church can grow. “We have worked for the Lord, not for people. This has been both rewarding and intensely draining. We are only responsible for pointing people to God,” they write.

VMMissions Opens New Category for ‘Marketplace Workers’

The “marketplace worker” category supports and equips believers to “live out God’s kingdom in every sphere of life.” This category enables persons employed in trades or professions to receive coaching toward fruitful ministry in the workplace.

Putting on God’s Glasses

In leading a 103-year-old mission agency, I confess it can be hard to see where we’re headed sometimes. We do our best to craft careful plans. But to see the present clearly and make sense of it, it helps me to put on the lenses of God’s future.

Douglas Senior, Beloved Leader in Jamaica Mennonite Church, Dies at 75

Pastor Senior made a great contribution to the development and significant ministry of the Maranatha School for the Deaf in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. He was known for his warm personality, integrity, prayer life, dignified yet commanding presence, and strong Christian faith.

Seeds are Bursting Forth with New Life

Patience is hard. We see a broken world in need of Christ and want change to happen right now. But seeds lie dormant for a long time before springing to life. Thank you for providing the support that allows our ministries to bear lasting fruit for God’s kingdom.

Worker profile: Nathan Carr

Nathan is serving in prison ministry, involved in reaching out to men like himself—helping to draw them out of addiction towards Christ. He can see the joy in the men he relates to when they surrender to Jesus, because he knows the new life that lies ahead for them.

Call to Prayer: Discovering Parallels with the Past

An Indian believer gave Ruthy and her teammates a church history book describing mission work that had began happening across northern India in the late 1800s and workers who dedicated the majority of their lives there. “What a gift to read their prayer list!” she writes.

Sentness is a Life Sentence

“We’ve learned to pay attention when a God-given “holy restlessness” emerges within us,” Lee and Peg Martin write. “During these times, we pray for alertness to new doors God might be opening, while seeking to be steady and faithful in our present calling.”

Diomedes and a men's group in the Dominican Republic.

A Change of Focus, Not of Call

When the most vulnerable and broken people in La Vega, Dominican Republic, came to Christ, Diomedes Franco would refer them to the nearest church to be nurtured, but then he realized that those churches were not ready to disciple people with such brokenness.

Prayer of blessing on the Good children, Kenya.

Rearview Reflections: Clair Good

“As a young missionary, I was full of zeal to save the ‘unreached’ Maasai of Kenya. I assumed they knew nothing of God,” Clair Good writes. “With great conviction and enthusiasm, I offered answers to questions the people I was trying to reach were not even asking. I was met with resistance and had little success.”

Rearview Reflections: Nancy Marshall

“I went to Orange Walk, Belize, in 2005 with a clear call from God to start a church among the Deaf. The only problem was that I had no idea how to do that. I knew God was telling me to trust him. Somehow this would work out. I was sure,” Nancy Marshall writes.

The Eberly family enjoys an outing in 1976.

Eight Lessons from a Lifetime in Mission

Fifty-two years after Willard and Eva Eberly were called to serve in Italy, they look back on key lessons they learned. “Our basic mission philosophy and methodology was modeling, discipling and equipping believers in every aspect of Christian living,” they write.

Gentle Boldness

A key mentor of mine has been the Anabaptist missiologist, David W. Shenk. He encouraged me to explore my own call to mission as an adolescent. Even after I moved away, he made it a priority to meet with me for breakfast whenever I was back in town.

Worker profile: Lydia Musselman

Lydia leads discipleship groups, weekly prayer on the campuses of EMU and JMU, and Bible studies with women from both universities, nurturing cross-cultural connection and watering their souls with the living water.

Praying for workers at the 2021 Worker Retreat

Call to Prayer: Lord, Teach Us to Pray!

“Luke’s gospel has been teaching us that multiplication is preceded by prayer,” Lizzette Hernandez writes. “So in response to the Spirit’s invitation, we have been meeting once a month for the last year to pray. As we’ve come together, God has done new things.”

Moving Towards Multiplication

“Moving towards multiplication takes time, energy and patient trust in the One who makes the harvest,” Mike Metzler writes. “J.R. Briggs, a church planter who is ministering near my hometown in Lansdale, Pa., wrote: ‘All of us are missionaries disguised as good neighbors.’ His words resonate with me.”

Oksana, Vicki, and Natallie, serving with ENC

Engage. Establish. Equip. Empower.

As a discipler with Every Nation Campus and partner in mentoring a number of VMMissions tranSend interns, Carlin Kreider uses four principles: Every person is valuable to God; every church, campus ministry, and small group can grow; every minister should prepare others to minister; and every disciple should make disciples.

God’s Arithmetic

Life Enrichment Church (LEC), a network of house churches in a rural corner of Thailand, was planted in the late 1990s with the vision of multiplication. Those first pioneer missionaries mounted their motorcycles, braving heat and dust – or monsoons and mud – to spread seed broadly, looking for the few who would respond.

A Call to Shkodër

“We must make disciples for the kingdom of God,” Rafael Tartari writes. “We are not setting goals for our own convenience, according to our own agenda. This is not something we choose to do. It is something for which God has chosen us!”

Patient Ferment

I celebrate the move in Christian missions toward indigenous leadership and simple approaches to discipleship that can easily multiply among new believers. It is a welcome change from models that foster unhealthy dependency on foreign workers.

Elio Milazzo: A Man Whose Voice Mattered

Within the Italian Mennonite world, there are few who would not recognize the powerful voice of Elio Milazzo, who for years was producer and voice of Parole di Vita, a radio broadcast sponsored by Italian Mennonites in partnership with Mennonites in North America, including VMMissions.

My Coins Count Raises Over $17,000

In 2021, contributors donated a preliminary total of $17,073.74 to My Coins Count, of which $8,536.87 will benefit the family discipleship ministries of VMMissions workers Hannah Shultz and Seth & Theresa Crissman.

Riders Raise Over $25,000 at 25th Annual Bike Shenandoah

On September 18, 2021, nearly 100 bicyclists participated in Bike Shenandoah, raising over $25,000 to be shared evenly among its six partnering entities, including VMMissions and the Stephen R. Leaman Memorial Endowment for Missions.

Declaring the Healing Power of Jesus

I want to share two recent stories of the healing only Jesus can bring. Dramatic physical healing is not always our experience today, yet Scripture promises that the cross is God’s ultimate answer to the sickness of sin. Your generosity makes these stories possible.

VMMissions to Host Fall Cohort on Cultivating a Life of Prayer

Prayer continues to emerge as a priority as VMMissions looks ahead at the next decade. One concrete opportunity is available this fall: Michael and Ruth Hershey will be leading a three-month exploration and discovery called “Cultivating a Life of Prayer.”

Kauffman Reappointed to Third Term as VMMissions President

The Board of Directors of Virginia Mennonite Missions announces the reappointment of Aaron M. Kauffman as President for a third four-year term, beginning January 1, 2022.

Worker profile: Norma Teles

Norma is the director of the Joshua Center, which provides a safe place for Roma children and encourages the participation of the family, helping them to be involved in positive ways with their children’s development. She also connects regularly through a girls club with girls aged 9-19 and with a group of mothers.

Prayer for workers at the 2017 Worker Retreat

Call to Prayer: The Honor of Co-Laboring

“God really does want to teach us to pray,” Ruth writes. “Prayer has become much more than something that we ‘should’ do. It is something we desire and enjoy, something that feels like a great honor.”

Our Family Rediscovers Sabbath

“In December 2019, [my wife] Theresa suggested that we begin a few faith rhythms as a family, mostly concerning Sabbath. We’ve job-shared and worked bi-vocationally these last several years and at times it has been difficult to stop and disengage and receive God’s rest,” Seth writes. Learn what difference these changes made in their family.

Tyler and Kendra Yoder in Richmond, Virginia

Together for a Purpose

In both marriage and the church, God brings together people who have different gifts and ways of perceiving the world in order to build communities that provide a foretaste of the kingdom of heaven. Tyler and Kendra draw on varied gifts to strengthen their ministry together.

Journeys Into Marriage and Mission

Married couples have the opportunity to experience the sometimes seamless, sometimes arduous path toward being of one heart. Laura Campbell and Laura Green share ways God has used marriage and mission to reshape their priorities.

Stronger Together

Partnership is one of our deeply held values at VMMissions. This year alone, we joined hands with 92 churches as they added their people, prayers and funds to the task of making Christ known among the nations. We can do more together than we ever can on our own.

VMMissions Blesses 130 Families through Relief Effort

In March 2020, VMMissions launched the Coronavirus Immigrant Care Fund as a domestic response to immigrants in need due to job loss and other hardships related to the coronavirus pandemic. VMMissions distributed $38,940 to 130 families in VA and NC.

Worker Profile: Anna Renfro

Anna’s assignment in Mannheim, Germany, is to support the ministries of Dave and Rebekka Stutzman as well as to serve at a local refugee center called Friedenshaus. Most of her time is spent in the afterschool youth program Kinderreich in nearby Heidelberg.

Call to Prayer: Life Lessons

“With our two-month-old fourth daughter in arms, we went through our training. It was all a blur, with the exception of one so very important word that God spoke to me while I was fetching something from our parked car. It stopped me in my tracks. ‘You think you are doing this for me. No, I am doing this for you,'” Carol writes.

God Says, “You Are Adequate”

John David Thacker, VMMissions’ most recently appointed church planter, has heard God’s call to plant an Anabaptist peace church in Charleston, W.Va. A particular word of affirmation from the Lord has been a significant encouragement to him during this challenging season of relocation.

Celebrating God’s Faithfulness

When civil war broke out in El Salvador, it brought years of suffering and fear for Alfonso and his family. They endured brutal violence and saw loved ones, friends and neighbors die or go missing. On three occasions, Alfonso felt bullets passing near him. “I knew that God was preserving my life for a purpose,” he writes.

Called Out of the Fire

A testimony of God’s call to live and serve in a slum community became a turning point for Yosiah. Then a large fire broke out in the slum community. Helping with the fire response for a week, the experience showed him the path that the Lord wanted for his life.

An Invitation That Leads to Life

“Upon meeting an older worker in our early days in North Africa, I was proud to hear him say, ‘God called a lot of talented, intelligent people to do this work.’ I was then stunned as he finished, ‘…but they said no. So here we are,'” Opal writes.

Worker profile: Jay and Em

Em is teaching English Language Learning for elementary students and is mentoring a student teacher. Jay is a business developer for transformational educational businesses, mentors leadership teams to develop sustainable witness, and is helping to start a new preschool. (Names changed)

Call to Prayer: The Posture of Persistent Hope

In the face of the louder voices and the evening news, our job is to vigorously hold on to the hope that God will fulfill his purposes, not by might, not by strength, but by his Spirit!

God At Work in Winston-Salem

We met Selenny and her son Cristian through Gladys. As his teacher assistant, Gladys sensed that Cristian needed extra support and reached out to us as a church for help. We began to build a relationship with them both. Soon, both Selenny and Cristian gave their lives to Jesus.

The Costly Call of Christ

When we heed the Lord’s call, we never know where we’ll end up. There will be sacrifice and hardship. But there will also be unspeakable joy. Like countless generations of sojourners before us, may we have the courage to say yes to God’s call.

God At Work in Bari, Italy

“We have had opportunities to meet people who are beginning to be attentive to the truth of the word of God. We can see a change. Serving our God allows us to experience an eternal purpose to our days. We are neither bored nor fruitless!” writes former tranSender Fabrizio Perfetti.

The Hope to Create Community

Vicki Barnes has seen a deep yearning among students for friendship, especially after months of social distancing, periods of isolation, and not meeting new people. Her hope is that God will use her to help students on campus grow in their relationship with God.

The Tragedy of Addiction

D.J. Mitchell has been in recovery for over 35 years. “I owe a debt of gratitude for the grace and mercy I’ve been given. As Paul tells us in Ephesians 2, we were saved by grace to do good works. Part of my recovery is committing to doing for others what was done for me,” he writes.

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