A day in the life of Nancy Marshall

December 26, 2014

Nancy Marshall lives and works in Orange Walk Town Belize She shares a window into a typical day for her as she juggles pastoring the Jesus’ Deaf Church, parenting, and tutoring. 5:00 am I wish I were running, but I can’t seem to get up this early! (Please pray about this for me.) By 6:00, […]

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Merry Christmas

December 24, 2014

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Relationships over accomplishments

December 23, 2014

Things here have been wonderful, terrible, emotional, lonely, but yet peaceful all at the same time. It is hard to explain all the emotions. Each day brings a new challenge. The handy man work or feeding the chickens isn’t the challenge. What’s challenging is to never get done what I set out to accomplish during […]

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New team in training to coordinate Quito refugee project

December 22, 2014

Work with the refugee project never ceases to be an enormously busy task with tough challenges in trying to stay on top of hundreds of complicated and difficult cases of families that continually arrive, mostly from Colombia. During the past year alone, I interviewed 333 refugee families and followed up on many of their cases […]

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Testimonies shared of suffering and deliverance

December 21, 2014

Lek’s* life has had no shortage of suffering. Prior to his believing in Jesus, ten of his fifteen children died. After he became a Christian, his children stopped dying. People in his village noticed! Lek shared the gospel in his village, where several other families became believers as well. But evangelism is illegal in his […]

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Celebrating 40 years of God’s faithfulness in Trinidad

December 20, 2014

God has been in control of the Mennonite Church of Trinidad and Tobago (MCTT) from its inception. The work that began in 1974 has led to a total of five congregations: Diego Martin, Charlieville, Chaguanas, Esperanza, and Sangre Grande. MCTT celebrated its 40th anniversary in a blessed and uplifting weekend, October 16-19, with the theme, […]

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Investing in future kingdom communities

December 19, 2014

Christmas is a time to celebrate new birth: The birth of Jesus Christ, the firstborn of the new creation, new birth in our own lives through the Spirit’s transformation, and the birth of new expressions of God’s kingdom among us. Starting faith communities is a lot like giving birth. There is discomfort and pain, as […]

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Giving ourselves away

December 1, 2014

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.” – Mark 8:35 (NIV) I recently read about a congregation in Texas that has routinely given away some of its best leaders, most committed members and significant financial resources in its […]

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Invest in people and projects with Alternative Christmas Gifts

October 22, 2014

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Penny Power raises $28,210 for early childhood education

October 6, 2014

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In step with the Spirit

October 1, 2014

“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” – Galatians 5:25 On a warm January evening in Colombia, our church planting team gathered under a campground pavilion, with pastor Martín González leading us in worship and prayer as part of our retreat time. While we were praying for each […]

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Temples of the Holy Spirit

September 12, 2014

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” 1 Corinthians 3:16 Bethany was walking down the road one day when a motorcycle taxi driver buzzed by, then turned around and came back. He asked, “What’s your religion?” “We believe in the Lord Jesus,” Bethany answered. He […]

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Deaf young people enjoy VBS in Belize

September 11, 2014

Every summer our church has a Vacation Bible School (VBS) program primarily for Deaf people ages 10 and up, including hearing siblings in that age range who want to come. This year, we had 14 or 15 participants each day from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Nancy Marshall helps VBS participants make a framed verse […]

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Prayer is the greatest role for Ministry Support Teams

September 10, 2014

In Acts 2, we find a description of church in its most fundamental form: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and […]

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Grace Mennonite’s mission to the Philippines

August 20, 2014

Over thirty years ago, Larry Vitor, a young, hopeful Filipino pastor picked up an article written by Pastor Richard Early, and he decided to write a letter requesting that Richard be his prayer partner. Richard wrote him back, and this journey began. Richard is now pastoring a growing community church, Grace Mennonite Fellowship, in Lacey […]

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Will our faith have children?

August 6, 2014

[The LORD] brought [Abram] outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Genesis 15:5-6 Outside of Europe and North America, the church […]

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Ending on a high note

August 5, 2014

It was so rewarding for us to have “our children” sing for and with the EMHS choir. The ending benediction in which the children came out to the choir circle and joined hands had special meaning, as their benediction words were directed to the gypsy children they had played with all afternoon. As goodbyes were […]

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New tranSenders commissioned for service

August 4, 2014

Members of the new tranSend class were commissioned in a meaningful time of worship at On Sunny Slope Farm, near Dayton, Va., on July 17. Peter Eberly, lead pastor of Eastside Church, spoke both challenge and encouragement based on Isaiah 42. The Ears to the Ground Family led worship. Everyone enjoyed a beautiful summer evening […]

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How we make disciples in the way of Christ

June 11, 2014

In his devotional reflections for the recent VMM Board meeting, Harold Miller, Trissels Mennonite Church pastor, reflected on the way that the Kingdom comes. Reading the story of Judas, Harold pointed out that most often, we interpret this story as a betrayal; we assume that Judas was trying to sabotage the coming Kingdom. However, when […]

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Group enriched by exploration of evangelism at Exponential

May 30, 2014

Aaron Kauffman, president of Virginia Mennonite Missions, and Marvin Lorenzana, VMM Racial/Ethnic Ministries Coach, took a team of people from Virginia Conference to Exponential East 2014. This annual church planters conference held in Orlando, Fla., draws more than 5,000 mission-minded folks from across the country. Aaron Kauffman shares these summary statements about what evangelism is, […]

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Partnership as mission

May 27, 2014

A few months ago I had the opportunity to hear César García, General Secretary of Mennonite World Conference, speak about the role of North American mission agencies in the global church. García comes from the Mennonite Brethren Church of Colombia, a church birthed through the mission efforts of North Americans. When someone asked him whether […]

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Nancy Marshall ordained for pastoral ministry in Belize

May 6, 2014

The van bounces through the dusty streets of Orange Walk Town, empty except for Nancy Marshall and me. Nancy is the pastor of Jesus’ Deaf Church in this small town in the Central American country of Belize. On this Saturday evening, we are returning home after dropping off several men and boys from the “Boyz […]

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Building outward-oriented networks of discipleship

April 25, 2014

When we began exploring what it would mean to help develop a network project, we knew that we had a lot of learning to do. Since moving to Bammental in the fall of 2012, we have spent a good deal of time making connections, building relationships, and learning from young people about their experiences in […]

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Good Samaritan opportunities

April 24, 2014

Our family moved to Kosovo in August of 2013. We are in the “culture, language and relationship building phase” of our time here. Because of our infancy in our language acquisition, our ability to communicate with the locals is fairly limited. Our actions are the loudest and clearest voice we have. We live in a […]

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Praying for the Kingdom while sharing sweet tea

April 23, 2014

We have been living and serving in this slum community on the outskirts of a major Southeast Asian city for two years now. After a devastating fire and eviction in our previous slum, God led us to this new community with some of our old neighbors. Beautiful things are growing here; if one can look […]

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Youth show deep commitment, longing to know God

April 8, 2014

While there have been times where we have struggled to find adults who are yearning to dig deeper into God’s Word or commit to meeting regularly for a Bible study, we have been blessed by the youth in our youth group. Most of them show a deep yearning to know more about what God has […]

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Testimony of transformation

April 8, 2014

A powerful, challenging speaker shared his story of being delivered from a life of drugs and crime by the love and salvation of God to a gathering of 60 teenagers in Montenegro. The young people from all over the country gathered on February 8 for worship after some of the teens had had an experience […]

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Beyond the limits of law, into new life

April 4, 2014

We obey God by following the sunnah of Jesus the Messiah (Isa al-Masih). This is the way that we describe ourselves to our Muslim neighbors. Sunnah is a term used to describe the way of life prescribed as normative for Muslims on the basis of the teachings and practices of their prophet and interpretations of […]

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Discipling others to tell the Story

April 3, 2014

It started with a simple request from Pastor Joi, “Please help us make a list of methods Jesus used to make disciples.” Joi and Brother Phonthawee were beginning to prepare what they would teach in a gathering of Isaan church leaders. I was being asked to teach teachers and give theological foundations for their teaching […]

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Time to work: teaching a biblical view of work without dependence

March 27, 2014

Last spring we had one of the worst elders meeting we have ever seen. The young men Carl discipled were sullen and quiet until the meeting’s end when they bubbled over in sudden anger towards the elders: “When have you so much as lifted a finger for our future? You just talk, and the believing […]

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People-fishing, Jesus-style

March 20, 2014

As a mission agency, what are we supposed to do? Evangelize? Plant churches? Train leaders? Provide education? Work at relief and development? Care for refugees? “Yes, but…” to all of the above. These activities do not define our core mission. Our mission is “to invite people to faithful living in Jesus Christ.” We seek to […]

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Nine ways to serve with tranSend in 2014

March 10, 2014

Lezhe, Albania Lezha Academic Center (LAC) offers rigorous academics with a biblical worldview to over 80 students in grades 7-12. Assignment: Join the teaching staff of LAC. Support the long-term vision and ministry of the Albanian Mennonite Mission, including church planting, leadership training, community development, and education. Study Albanian language and culture. Qualifications: Licensed secondary […]

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Penny Power final total: $30,880

January 22, 2014

Early Saturday morning at the Virginia Relief Sale, volunteers from Park View Federal Credit Union dumped large blue jugs of coins and bills into a wheelbarrow and then into buckets. The coins went into the counting machine, and soon totals for congregations were finalized. With some funds coming in right after the sale, the total […]

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“The harvest is plentiful, but…”

January 13, 2014

On November 1-3, Floyd and I attended the Italian Mennonite Church Conference held at Centro Agape in Palermo, Italy. It is always a joy to return to our Italian family, re-connecting with old friends and meeting new ones. The past year has been particularly difficult because of the untimely deaths of three persons in the […]

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Signs of Life creates space for worship in Deaf culture

December 27, 2013

MaryBeth and Chris Moore expected God would call them to use their training as nurses to go to impoverished places. So they were surprised in 2000 when they felt convicted to adopt Mynor, an 8-year-old from Guatemala who is deaf. “It was one of those things where if we hadn’t adopted him, it would have […]

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MHI becomes ministry of Virginia Mennonite Missions

December 20, 2013

Five years ago, Mennonite Hispanic Initiative (MHI) was formed for the purpose of developing Anabaptist Latino ministry within Virginia Conference. In recent months MHI has become nested within Virginia Mennonite Missions, joining common goals of the two organizations into a single focus. VMM seeks to nurture a missional movement within the conference; MHI has sought […]

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Sharing the light of Christ in Kosovo

December 18, 2013

Burnt and abandoned houses dot the countryside of Kosovo as we drive west and north on the highway. These houses and the bullet-pocked businesses lining the highway are scars of war and the accompanying hostilities that are recent in the history and consciousness of Kosovars. As we continue on our drive through the country from […]

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Hernandez named local coordinator of IBA

December 18, 2013

Lizzette Hernandez will serve as the new coordinator of the local Spanish-language Anabaptist Biblical Institute (IBA), a program under the auspices of Mennonite Education Agency that offers diplomas in Theological Studies to Latino church leaders. Lizzette, a third-year Master of Divinity student at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, has been teaching in the IBA program for the […]

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