July 13, 2021
A gifted evangelist, Clara has discovered that God is blessing her with partners whose gifts complement her own. “I was helped to envision developing a Ministry Support Team (MST). God wants to bring people who can stand with me in prayer and care for me as a person,” she said.
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July 9, 2021
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.
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July 9, 2021
Married couples have the opportunity to experience the sometimes seamless, sometimes arduous path toward being of one heart. To learn more about how God has helped achieve this in the lives of two women serving in overseas ministry, Laura Campbell and Laura Green share ways God has used marriage and mission to reshape their priorities.
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June 29, 2021
Partnership is one of our deeply held values at Virginia Mennonite Missions. First, we partner with the church in mission. This year alone, we have 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.
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May 4, 2021
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.
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May 4, 2021
“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.
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May 4, 2021
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.
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April 30, 2021
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.
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April 30, 2021
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.
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April 30, 2021
“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.
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April 23, 2021
M. is teaching English Language Learning for elementary students and is mentoring a student teacher. J. is Business Developer for transformational educational businesses, mentors leadership teams to develop sustainable witness, and is helping to start a new preschool.
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April 23, 2021
In his book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson wrote, “The spiritual atmosphere in which we live erodes faith, dissipates hope and corrupts love.” 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!
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April 23, 2021
We met Selenny and her son Cristian through Gladys, who is a member of our church. As his teacher assistant, Gladys sensed that Cristian needed extra support with his school work 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.
moreApril 23, 2021
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.
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April 23, 2021
“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 in their thinking and habits because they have begun to read the word or listen to preaching. Serving our God allows us to experience an eternal purpose to our days. We are neither bored nor fruitless!” writes former tranSender Fabrizio Perfetti.
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March 30, 2021
Since her assignment began in the fall, 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 conviction of who God has called them to be and what God calls them to do.
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March 30, 2021
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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March 30, 2021
“If we gain hope from God’s nearness, then being near to others is a way we can incarnationally share that hope with others. Particularly in troubling times, when the world seems upside down, we have a chance to practice presence with people,” David Stutzman writes.
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March 9, 2021
In November 2020, Honduras and other Central American countries were devastated by two major back-to-back hurricanes, Eta and Iota. VMMissions started a Honduras Hurricane Relief Fund to participate with the Honduran effort by providing funds and supplies.
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March 9, 2021
On October 24 and November 6, 2020, VMMissions board and staff members participated in a two-part training on racial and cultural sensitivity facilitated by Alicia Manning, an educator, consultant, and member of Calvary Community Church (C3) in Hampton, Va.
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March 5, 2021
Where does hope come from? From optimism about the future? From careful planning to manage the unknown? From confidence in human ingenuity, wealth or strength? These can be temptations for all of us. Yet Scripture tells us that God alone is the source of our hope.
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November 2, 2020
We are planting Garden City Church, where we seek the wholeness of Southside Richmond, Va., by focusing on reconciliation, maturity, and multiplication. We see that lasting and effective discipleship happens in smaller groups, so our primary focus is on house churches, while we still desire to meet as a corporate body to celebrate God and his work in the city and in our lives.
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November 2, 2020
Jesus says, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12), and “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved” (John 10:9a). So when the enemy tries to tempt me to focus on the barriers, I pray for eyes to be opened to see the compelling beauty of Jesus shining into our world with arms wide open, causing all to run to him.
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November 2, 2020
Too often we find that the beliefs and rationalizations that our hearts have built have actually come to imprison and isolate us from God and others. These are walls we are to “demolish,” as the Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Cor. 10:4-5. Indeed, some long-standing walls are falling in Lezhë, Albania.
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November 2, 2020
It has been said that “the church is like the eye. It has a little black in it and a little white in it, and without both, we cannot see.” Because of our distinctive demographic, we are in place to help the church see the plight or privilege of their brothers and sisters more clearly. By doing so, we gain a more robust understanding of the gospel.
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November 2, 2020
We’re faced with opportunities for repentance, generosity and bold witness as ambassadors of God’s reconciliation through Christ. May we be shaken by that indwelling presence beyond our walls and to new places of repentance, healing and bold witness.
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November 2, 2020
Like many people during this time of COVID-19, I have found myself at a loss for what to do or say. But sharing the Bible stories with my coworkers after studying them through a Discovery Bible Study format has changed my way of relating. We, with the light of Christ, can transform obstacles into opportunities for the glory of God.
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November 2, 2020
This latest season of COVID-19 has been a time of very visible limitations. Many activities such as visiting local believers, getting to know our neighbors, and enjoying worship times with others all halted, just like most of the world. All these limitations have pushed us to wonder what God is up to. Was God still moving?
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November 2, 2020
VMMissions and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) cooperated this year to channel My Coins Count funds to help some of the most vulnerable people during the global COVID-19 crisis. Gifts through My Coins Count are supporting VMMissions’ continuing response to needs arising in the communities where our workers and partners live and serve.
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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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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.
moreOctober 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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.
moreMay 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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