Jean coaches worldwide church leaders in Asia, Africa and the U.S.A. on how to conceptualize, plant, cultivate and multiply churches and ministries that are indigenous in nature. She makes sure to do this in ways that are culturally relevant, self-functioning, self-determining, self-supporting, self-propagating and self-giving, and that promote a healthy self-image and a healthy community-image.
A few days after her graduation from North Central Bible College in 1986, Jean began the journey of planting a church among Cambodians in St. Paul, Minnesota. Because of her training in cross-cultural communications, her first strategic action step was to move into a Cambodian community and “do life” with them. For 6 years, Jean lived among the Cambodians. Their family struggles became her family struggles, their weeping became her weeping, their celebrations became her celebrations, and their laughter became her laughter. After those 6 years, she then headed to Cambodia to serve as a missionary, where she spent another 16 years among the beautiful Cambodian people.
Jean was called to be a missionary during her High School years in St. Paul, Minnesota, through her exposure to and friendships with Cambodian, Hmong, and Vietnamese refugees.
Mike and MonaRe’s mission field is Latin America, where they work primarily in evangelism and international ministry, in addition to leadership training.
Papua New Guinea is a land of almost 9 million people who speak over 800 different languages. For those almost 9 million people, there are only approximately 500 doctors in the country. Every year 1 in 20 children under the age of 5 will die. Many die from common things such as diarrhea from drinking contaminated water. About 40% of the country has no access to a source of clean water. While looking up statistics on PNG you will see that it is considered a Christian nation, it is very much in name only. While much of the coast has been evangelized as well as some of the bigger cities, when you go into the interior of PNG, you will be met with people who still live as they have for thousands of years. They still practice their animistic tribal customs. While some may have heard of Christianity and may even call themselves Christian, most will take one or two aspects of Christianity and merge them with their animistic beliefs. There is not a true separation and a turning away in many cases.
Steve and Trina are missionaries with Assembly of God World Missions in Nairobi, Kenya, Africa. They are serving as Team Leader Overseers of Live Dead East Africa. They have responsibility for teams in 6 countries. Their primary focus is church planting among unreached people groups and training. In addition, Trina ministers to young ladies.
River Valley 500. Paul and Robyn are serving in Northern Thailand. They are leading church planting teams reaching university students through English teaching centers.
Chris and Julie are campus missionaries with Chi Alpha Campus Ministries at the University of Minnesota.
Ryan and Andrea Crozier minister in Bucharest, Romania where they work to prevent human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Our mission field covers a vast area. The eleven countries that make up Southern Africa are home to 182 million people, 50% of which are under the age of 18. AGWM currently has approximately 80 missionaries in Southern Africa. Animism is rampant throughout Southern Africa. Animism is regularly mixed in with “Christianity;” creating a form of folk-Christianity that is leading unknowing people to hell. This creates a significant challenge for the advancement of the Gospel because people think they are “Christians” when they are not. Due to inadequate discipleship – many “Christians” continue to pray to their ancestors and visit witchdoctors. As a result, beneath a thin veneer labeled “Christianity”- spiritual darkness and the scourge of lostness remains pervasive throughout Southern Africa. Unreached groups of people are desperately underserved and continuing to wait for the hope of the Gospel to reach them.
The Lashway's serve as the Team Leader Overseer for the Swahili Zone of East Africa, primarily engaging with our AGWM missionaries and national church leaders in Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda. Currently, 18 countries in Africa do not have any AGWM personnel and 12 more have only one missionary unit. In an effort to help the emerging churches on the continent, they have been asked by AGWM Africa to launch a Basecamp Missionary Development Center in Moshi, Tanzania to help interested people from the U.S. to Discover Africa, Discern their Call, and Develop their Skills in Cross Cultural Ministry. We will be the feeder program for East Africa developing teams of new missionaries for not only Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda, but also future efforts into planting the church in South Sudan and Eritrea as well as other nations in the region. In addition to my TLO responsibilities and launching a Basecamp, I am also the Executive Secretary for the Africa Assemblies of God Alliance serving the continent along side the AAGA Chairman Dr. Barnabas Mtokambali, promoting church planting, African missions, leadership development, and church growth across the continent.
Almost 18 million people, .2% evangelical, over 90% Muslim, 26 unreached people groups, 6 UPGs with over 1 million people each
This year the River Plate Bible Institute is turning 75 years. It is considered the largest AG school in Latin America. We have over 300 residential students, 400 in the Saturday program, 150 online, and hundreds in our ministerial schools. As the students come from over 15 different nations, each of them goes back into their communities and has an exponential impact. Additionally, many of them have a call to missions on their lives. Most of the missionaries from Argentina to other countries are graduates of our Bible School. As far as the country, Argentina has 45.81 million people. It is a predominantly Catholic nation, but because of syncretism, their belief system is very superstitious. They would have no problem going to mass in the morning and the witch doctor in the afternoon.
Discipleship, Church planting, relationship building, evangelism, living among the UPG, partnering with local churches and missionaries, teaching and preaching. There are about 18 unreached people groups of 111 with a population of 1,658,000 and the total population is about 31,639,000. The southern part of Ghana is predominantly Christian and the northern, muslim. The largest religion is Christianity with about 60%.
Roger and Debbi Audorff want to help Mexico become a sending nation for missions, and they believe that with proper training, this will be able to happen. While the immediate spiritual battle is with the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses—Roger and Debbi believe that the Catholics in Monterrey could realize that God’s Word is for them to live out in their daily lives. However, idol worship of Guadalupe is prevalent in the city among the Catholic population, and the Audorffs are praying for the spirit of idolatry to be broken by the name of Jesus. Monterrey is also home to much poverty and has had many recent problems with drug trafficking.