Mark and Janie have served as missionaries in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, since 1994, where they have been involved in university campus ministry, leadership development, and church planting. Through their “Churches for Churches” program, the Durenes are helping with new church plants in 5 cities, including Teung, where River Valley Church partnered to launch the church. Currently, they are helping to train several other potential church planters, and also serve as mentors to many other pastors throughout the northern Thailand area. In addition, they are the directors of the Global University Thai’s second Bachelor’s program, where they are training current and future Thai ministers. Mark serves as the AGMF Thailand Country Moderator, as well as on several national boards, including Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand (Northern region); Every Home for Christ, Thailand; Thailand AG Northern Region Board of Presbyters; and others. Janie writes Sunday school curriculum for several churches and directs the children’s program at a church in Chiang Mai.
Mark went on a 2-week trip to Spain in 1979, where they did street evangelism in Barcelona and Madrid and helped set up a large evangelistic crusade in Madrid.
As a teenager, Mark was impacted by the film, “Jungle Pilot,” a biography of Nate Saint and 4 other missionaries martyred in Ecuador. This led to a passion for missions that in turn led to a Bachelor’s Degree in Missions Education from North Central University, in addition to mission trips to Spain, Alaska, Mexico, and Thailand.
Janie Durene - Wife
Cape Town, with a population is 4.5 million people, is known across the continent as the Mother City and is one of the most influential cities on the continent of Africa. With the average age being 29 years old, there is great potential to reaching many university students, young professionals, and families. Nestled behind Table Mountain is the University of Cape Town which is the premier university in all of Africa. Our goal is to launch a thriving Chi Alpha ministry in this influential university of almost 30,000 students. Cape Town is also the Parliamentary capital of South Africa and boasts other major industries like manufacturing, tourism, oil and gas, agriculture, marketing and media in addition to Information Technology an
The Portuguese speaking nations of Africa are home to some of the largest and fastest growing churches in Africa. The growth has greatly out-paced Biblically trained leadership needed to conserve help establish new believers in the faith and preserve established believers in that faith. The Assemblies of God in Angola with its 2.5 million members, is the second largest AG church in Africa, followed closely by Mozambique with nearly 2 million. The Bible college we began in Angola in 2012, since December, 2023, under complete Angolan leadership and we continue serving in a mentoring/consultant ministry. We have been asked to help in the same manner in Mozambique and will spend a part of February in that country.
The population of Germany is currently 84 Million plus and has grown significantly through the influx of refugees from the Middle-East, Africa and most recently from Ukraine. We live in a small town surrounded by over 300.000 residents, yet there is not a Pentecostal church within a 50 kilometer radius. We desire to see this changed.
4% of Generation Z in America have a biblical worldview. 96% of people who make decisions to follow Christ do so prior to their 30th birthday. In MN: there are 425,000 college students and 1.2 million young adults. In USA: there are 18.6 million college students and 21.56 million young adults.
Almost 18 million people, .2% evangelical, over 90% Muslim, 26 unreached people groups, 6 UPGs with over 1 million people each
Herb and Karen work in Manila, Philippines, in addition to the general Asia Pacific. Their main role is teaching EPHOD seminars.
Guinea is approx. 14 million in population 47 people groups and 29 are unreached 86.9% of the population is unreached Largest religion is Islam, there is some mixture of animism 0.68% evangelical Currently, God has opened the door for Guineans to receive the gospel. The surrounding countries are predominantly Islamic states where it is against the law to proselytize. Guinea currently has an evangelical president so the government is favorable to the Gospel being preached. The General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God has a calling to plant churches and is eager to see this work happen in his country. As God has made this opportunity possible. Me and several others including AGWM (who has never sent a missionary to Guinea in its history) and AMI (where I serve full time) has both been led by the Spirit to come into partnership to reach the lost. God is moving and we are excited to minister in this country while the opportunity is here!
England is the 4th most secular nation in the world, with close to 70% claiming to be non religious.
Japan has 127 million people but less than 1% is Christian. We minister in Fukuoka city a 2.2 million. Japan is considered an Unreached People group by AGWM
We will be in Valencia, Spain, the third largest city in Spain. Less than 1% of the population are born again believers, but I believe the time is now for Spain and there is a great harvest ready to be reaped.
The town of Garissa, Kenya is not too far from the Somali border and although a small town, there are a number of unreached people groups in and around the area. Most of the unreached tribes adhere to some form of Islam, but there is a definite stratification of class and religion within the town between the ethnic Kenyan's and the ethnic Somali's. Our site leader and his family have been in the town for 17 years working on building a small farm in the desert out side of town with modern desert farming techniques alongside an unreached tribe. Through the farm work and bringing medical doctors to this unreached tribe he has built up trust and respect in the community and has been teaching bible studies for the past 17 plus years. We would be joining his team but not necessarily the farm work as there are other unreached people groups in the area that also need to hear the gospel and can be reached through different methods that we plan to join/create.