Stories of Mission

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.

“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.

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.

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 but his life was spared. “I cried out to God, praying Psalms 91 and 23 as I ran for my life. I knew that God was preserving my life for a purpose,” he writes.

When Yosiah met Anita and Tina, two young women from the U.S. who were visiting his church, they shared how the Lord had called them to come live and serve in a slum community in the city of his birth. This testimony a turning point for Yosiah, and then a large fire broke out in the slum community. He skipped work for a week and helped with the fire response, and this ended up showing him the path that the Lord wanted for his 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.’ The real invitation does not often feel glamorous. The real invitation looks like faithfulness,” Opal writes.