May 30, 2023
Rissa serves at Agape Home, a Christian-run orphanage located in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where she had volunteered several times before returning as a VMMissions worker. She coordinates with incoming volunteers, teaches English in their Montessori Preschool, and manages the website and social media presence.
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May 30, 2023
The greatest shame in Isaan culture is to die without friends gathering, without the monks chanting their blessings. This is what Ying’s family expected. But instead, members of the local church showed up in force and, as is the custom, stayed with the family until the ceremonies were completed. Ying’s relatives were powerfully impacted.
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May 30, 2023
“Sending and receiving mission workers undoubtedly brings us closer to the global community,” Elena Buckwalter de Satalaya writes. “However, it is just as important, if not even more so, to pray for the global church and the people and communities it reaches.”
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May 25, 2023
“Our ministry of church planting, pastoring, and gospel outreach has been deeply impacted by partnerships that God has brought together,” Veronica Sanchez writes. “We know that God is on mission in the Waynesboro, Va., community where we have planted a new community of faith.”
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May 25, 2023
Churches across denominational lines have come together to support reaching the local Arabic-speaking community in Harrisonburg, Va. “What has blessed and stretched my faith has been the “unity amidst diversity” that I have seen expressed in the team which has come alongside [VMMissions worker] Yacoub. This is the body of Christ at its best,” Pastor Blake Wood writes.
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May 22, 2023
“Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection is often the focal point of his purpose on earth, and for good reason,” Shawn Green writes. “But we shouldn’t overlook or miss the countless bits of perfect knowledge that Jesus taught and shared as he walked among his followers, and with which we are invited to align our hearts and immerse our souls in God’s goodness and mercy.”
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May 22, 2023
A few years ago while recovering from surgery I picked up a book gathering dust on my shelf called In His Image, written by Dr. Paul Brand (with the help of Philip Yancey). I’ve always been interested in science, so I found the combination of medical insight, missionary zeal and biblical wisdom to be fascinating and moving at the same time. It seemed especially fitting to read about how our bodily systems reflect the genius of the Creator while my own body healed.
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March 7, 2023
Jhustin serves in a college ministry assignment with Every Nation Campus (ENC) and VMMissions, and is sent by Divine Unity Community Church (DUCC), Harrisonburg, Va. “My work and goal is to show the love of God and be a light to campus. I want to see lives changed by the good news and do the work of God,” he writes.
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March 7, 2023
Prayer is a fundamental underpinning of how we partner with God to engage in our small part of the great gospel task. As followers of Jesus pray together, the Holy Spirit enables us to see the grand reality of God’s plan for the restoration for humanity, and to see the immediate needs of the people right in front of us.
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March 1, 2023
Receiving the call to go to another place implies many changes and a lot of learning in unfamiliar areas, such as language, culture, and food. All of this can become overwhelming,” David and Marta write. “But we can be filled with encouragement and hope knowing that the Lord will be with us.”
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March 1, 2023
“God’s mission is bigger than mine,” church planter Juan José Lagos writes. “That allows me to join his story and his mission rather than carrying the burden of accomplishing it all on my own strength. This is how we must see ourselves as we follow the call of God our Father who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ.”
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February 27, 2023
God leading this mission helps me acknowledge that he doesn’t need us to accomplish his plans, but rather, God invites us to partner with him. Personally, this demolishes any ounce of pride in my heart that tries to make disciples without Christ’s partnership. This also allows me to rest in the fact that I don’t have to be in control.
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February 27, 2023
Our church history is shaped by the legacy of Christendom: the church aligning with political power to protect and maintain our position in society. This is vastly different from understanding the church being shaped as a missionary church whose calling is to be embedded as “sent ones” in our own societies.
moreFebruary 27, 2023
God’s mission is first and foremost about the pursuit of God’s glory. Yes, it includes us, but it is not primarily about our needs, ambitions or hopes. God’s burning desire is for all of creation to know God’s glory—his awesome and utterly unique presence—and to give him the praise he deserves so that we might enjoy him together forever.
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November 11, 2022
Anita (name changed), serving in a slum in Indonesia, writes, “It is lovely when we have attainable rhythms and goals to keep us healthy and measure “success” clearly. But on the mission field, so often this seems impossible. Much of our energy is spent just surviving in a different culture, language, and religious context. For those of us in uncharted territory of ministry, it can feel impossible to measure.”
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November 11, 2022
“In my four years on the VMMissions Board of Directors, I have found that our vision statement serves as a beautiful and life-giving objective,” Paul Yoder, board chair, writes. “The verb “envisions” speaks to the “picture” that we are painting. Three scriptures have recently been helping me more fully “envision” success in God’s kingdom.
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November 8, 2022
One experience that Anne (name changed) had illustrates her struggle with success. “How could people in our own faith community act so vengefully and with so little consideration for their children’s faith?” she writes. “Just when I rejoice at how good things are going, at how much fruit is resulting from my ministry, things fall apart. I could easily name ten other situations where seeming success crashed down into failure.”
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November 8, 2022
“My own definition of success has to run deeper than just a sense of accomplishment, or I’m not going to make it very far,” Nathan Carr writes. “Early in my ministry I fell into that trap of thinking I was the one who had to make things happen. I put everything on my own shoulders, and it wore me out. I was forced to face the reality that I could only give them so much.”
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November 7, 2022
Joyel writes, “We can see there’s something so special about creation being with our creator. The outflow of abiding and being with God is the fruit that we bear that not only benefits us, but those around us. We’re constantly approached with opportunities to remain distracted, in bondage, and lost. But even then, God is faithful to redirect us back to him.”
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November 7, 2022
“My teammate and I stood soberly looking at each other—wives and mothers with parallel journeys across those seven years together,” Carol Tobin writes. “Both of us had struggled and endured, but because we struggled in vastly different ways, each was always a frustrating enigma to the other. The painful judgments and the bitter disappointment we had been to each other hung heavily between us. ‘Was it worth it?’ we asked. But it wasn’t a question either of us was prepared to answer.”
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November 7, 2022
Ken serves as the initiator and director of a youth discipleship program called SLAQ (Servant Leader Quest), which seeks to raise up diverse cohorts among the next generation of serving leaders in the way of Jesus through outdoor adventures, community service, and “crucial conversations.”
moreNovember 1, 2022
I confess I feel some discomfort with measuring “success” in missions. Depth of transformation is not an easy thing to quantify, nor do we often see immediate results. Perhaps the key to long-term fruitfulness in Christian mission is faithful witness combined with patient trust in the Lord of the harvest.
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September 1, 2022
On August 31, Carol Tobin retired from her staff role as Mission Advocate and Transforming Content Editor. Though her formal role has ended, she will continue in volunteer roles for VMMissions, including helping to coordinate the upcoming Perspectives course and local missions recruitment efforts.
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September 1, 2022
My assignment is to disciple children in our local Hispanic churches in the way of Jesus through word and song. I am currently partnering with Iglesia Menonita Monte Moriah. I teach piano, violin, and biblical truths about worship to Pastor Alfonso and Milagros’ daughters, who in turn help facilitate worship through leading music at their church.
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August 17, 2022
Excitement builds as an existing barn on the property is renovated into a space for training, meeting, and community events. Taking a storage barn and transforming it into a training center will give it a new purpose for a new generation of missional leaders.
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August 15, 2022
VMMissions is blessing communities through kingdom business through a subsidiary board of business experts who find and coach partners, vet plans, monitor progress, and makes loans to new and growing enterprises. Christian-led businesses can create just employment and sustainable economic growth even as they invite spiritual transformation through the gospel.
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August 15, 2022
VMMissions is mobilizing church planters from around the globe to the places where the gospel is needed most. The following profiles feature the first recipients of the Global Church Planting grant. What an opportunity to join God in launching this new generation of global church planters!
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August 5, 2022
Border Perspective, a VMMissions E3 Collective, is an immersive and educational service learning trip that will offer participants a first-hand connection with immigrant leaders serving families on the U.S.–Mexico border. Participants will gain an understanding of the complexity of immigration on the border and service opportunities to help support local immigrant ministries.
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August 5, 2022
Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course is offered next spring (held on Tuesday evenings, January 3 to May 2, 2023) in Harrisonburg. The 15-week course is heartily endorsed by a broad spectrum of evangelical denominations, ministries, and mission agencies.
moreJuly 28, 2022
Launching a campaign in the middle of a pandemic has been a venture of faith. Dreams were stirring in our hearts as we celebrated our centennial in 2019. We asked God, “Where are you leading us as we enter our second century of ministry?” The clear response was to continue sharing new life in Jesus Christ with all people, especially those who haven’t heard.
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April 26, 2022
Andressa’s assignment consists of cultural and linguistic learning as well as support of the church planting ministry of Albanian leaders and VMMissions workers Rafael and Solange Tartari, currently serving in northern Albania in the city of Shkodra. She is involved in the prayer and multimedia ministries of the church, and connects specifically with the women and youth.
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April 26, 2022
“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.
moreApril 26, 2022
“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.”
moreApril 21, 2022
See visions of “Imagining God’s Future” from VMMissions worker children serving internationally, as featured in the Spring 2022 issue of Transforming. Read artist statements and view the artwork close up.
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April 19, 2022
People around us are longing for community, but they are not turning to the church for this community. This has been our challenge over the course of the past few years. It is hard to build community! But tucked away in a poor and immigrant-dense part of Mannheim is the Villa. This experiment of ours is unexpectedly bursting at the seams with life.
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April 19, 2022
“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.”
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April 19, 2022
Our hope has been to plant Christ as the seed so that a Montenegrin church could grow. Thankfully, the success of our work is measured in Kingdom terms; we have worked for the Lord, not for people. This has been both rewarding and intensely draining. We are not responsible for growing the kingdom, but only for pointing people to God.
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April 19, 2022
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, and to network with other Christians who see their work as ministry.
moreApril 18, 2022
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] if we’re not careful, we can end up discouraged and disillusioned. To see the present clearly and make sense of it, it helps me to put on the lenses of God’s future.
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March 1, 2022
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.
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March 1, 2022
Ruthy and her teammates didn’t think much about missionaries who may have been in “Metal City” before them, until an Indian believer gave them a church history book describing work that had happened across northern India more than a century before. “We read about the first workers who came in the late 1800s and dedicated the majority of their lives to serving there. What a gift to read their prayer list!” she writes.
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March 1, 2022
“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.”
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March 1, 2022
When people came to Christ through the ministry of “Building Healthy Families,” a program working with the most vulnerable and broken people in La Vega, Dominican Republic, Diomedes Franco used to refer them to the church closest to them to be nurtured. “But we realized that churches were not ready to disciple people with such brokenness. We felt that God was challenging us to refocus on pastoral work, discipling and equipping the people God had given us to care for. This is not a change of calling but of focus,” he writes.
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March 1, 2022
“As a young missionary, I was full of zeal to save the “unreached” Maasai of Kenya. I assumed they knew nothing of God,” VMMissions board member 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 in convincing people to follow my religious views.”
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March 1, 2022
“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 wasn’t worried about failing or disappointing anyone because I knew God was telling me to trust him. Somehow this would work out. I was sure,” Nancy Marshall writes.
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March 1, 2022
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.
moreFebruary 28, 2022
“A key mentor of mine has been the Anabaptist missiologist, David W. Shenk,” Aaron Kauffman writes. “David and his wife Grace were missionaries in East Africa in the 1960s and ’70s before returning to Lancaster, Pa., where they helped to revitalize my home congregation. David 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.”
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December 3, 2021
In addition to the many ways that they share life with each other at 264 OSH, Lydia also 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.
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December 3, 2021
“In God’s kingdom we are born anew to multiply, and 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.”
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December 2, 2021
“Moving towards multiplication takes time, energy and patient trust in the One who makes the harvest,” Mike Metzler writes. “Yet multiplication is also simple. J.R. Briggs, a church planter who is ministering near my hometown in Lansdale, Pa., caught my attention with this statement: ‘All of us are missionaries disguised as good neighbors.’ His words resonate with me.”
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