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.
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April 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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December 2, 2021
As a discipler with Every Nation Campus and partner in mentoring a number of VMMissions tranSend interns, Carlin Kreider uses four principles:
December 2, 2021
Life Enrichment Church (LEC), a network of house churches in a forgotten rural corner of Thailand, was planted with the vision of multiplication in the late 1990s. How might God reach this impoverished, minimally educated corner of the country? 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.
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December 2, 2021
“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!”
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December 2, 2021
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. Yet I also have some caution, especially when the emphasis is on speed and numbers.
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July 16, 2021
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.
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July 15, 2021
“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.”
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July 13, 2021
“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.
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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.
moreJune 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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