I’m serving all over the continent of Africa. At the moment, leadership has asked me to temporarily base out of Springfield with the Africa’s Hope team here until a decision is made about where on the continent a new Africa’s Hope team will be based. Until then, I’m traveling regularly to different countries around Africa to teach, meet with church leaders and translation teams, and be involved with a variety of other ministry.
Tracy Lowenberg (Peterson) - Husband
Proclaiming Jesus to the hockey world through chapel programs and hockey camps! Our family is currently serving the Minnesota hockey community at the youth level!
We stay up to date with information from the Joshua Project and from Evangelical/Pentecostal groups based in Ethiopia by which we can see the numbers of languages, ethnic peoples, churches that have been planted by the major Pentecostal groups in country (including the EAG and the Full Gospel Believers Church of Ethiopia), UPGs in Ethiopia and our surrounding neighbors.
River Valley 500. Paul and Robyn are serving in Northern Thailand. They are leading church planting teams reaching university students through English teaching centers.
Genoa is approximately 1/2 million people with less than 2% recognizing Jesus as Savior of their lives. Italy is home to an estimated 105 documented people groups, 23 of which are considered unreached people groups. Genoa is a port city and an International hub. AGWM has never had a missionary in this city and we are excited to be the first.
Our mission field is in a university town called Potchefstroom South Africa. The general population is university students, Afrikaans families, township communities and very few internationals. South Africa is extremely culturally diverse and acts as almost a ‘melting pot’ of Africa! There are 11 official languages spoken in this nation. The various religious beliefs here are Christianity, African religions, Islam, and Hinduism.
Indonesia is the fourth most populated nation in the world; approximately 266 million people in which more than 80% are followers of Islam. Though with social and political persecution, Indonesian Constitution allows freedom of 5 major religion including Protestant churches. They allowed the Indonesian church to invite missionaries with religious visas, which is invaluable for evangelism.
We have identified 14 strategic nations throughout Africa that will serve as hubs to train and sent teams to reach and disciple the universities of the surrounding nations. As the training Hub for campus ministry in Africa, we hope to have a viable disciple making movement on every major African university resulting in churches planted among Africa's most unreached. Our target nations are: Chad, South Sudan/Sudan, Cameroon, Senegal, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Botswana, South Africa, Angola, Gabon, DRC, Tanzania, Malawi.
The Gruetzmachers work directly with Hispanics here in the United States and within several countries in Latin America. Their main focus is to develop leaders, and their schedule is filled with ministry to Hispanic churches; coaching pastors and leaders; leading mission trips with Hispanic students; holding retreats for men, women, and youth; leadership training; and working with 2 Institutes for Church Planters.
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.