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.
Melodee grew up on the mission field, so her first missions experience was as a small child when her family left the United States for Latin America. Larry’s first experience took place as a youth pastor, when he led his youth group to Latin America. These missions experiences changed both of their lives, and to this day they are loving everything God has for them to do.
Until Larry started leading his youth group on mission trips, his desire was to remain a youth pastor. However, while he was on a trip with his students to Mexico City, the Lord spoke to him clearly about the needs of the city and the people who were in need of an opportunity to accept Christ. The Gruetzmachers had been a part of 3 church plants and felt led to multiply those efforts by training and coaching church planters and walking beside them to help them become successful.
Melodee Gruetzmacher - Wife
River Valley 500. Our focus is equipping local Christian leaders (for Venture and with our local church) in hard to reach (tough) places in SE Asia with resources to help them share the Gospel, plant churches, and build the Kingdom of God.
Planted 5 international churches in The NL. Coaching European church planters as well as assisting new missionaries to complete their callings.
The country has about Malay 50.8%, Chinese 23.8%, Indigenous 10.9%, Indian 7.1%, non-Malaysian citizens 6.8 %, others 0.6%. The religious backgrounds include the country having about Islam (60.4%), Buddhism (19.2%), Christianity (9.1%), Hinduism (6.3%),Confucianism (2.6%), Animism (0.8%), others (including Taoism, Sikhism, Baha'i faith -- 0.4%), none (2.8%).
River Valley 500. Staffing and leading (directing) DTS: This includes being a mentor and walking alongside students in this 3 month lecture phase and leading the 2 month international outreach. -Worship and music ministry: We get to lead worship at our YWAM base and once a month at our local church, Horizonte. Currently we are leading worship for our summer Mission Adventures teams (highschool/college teams that come back-to-back for a week camp to be trained in evangelism and go out into our community and share Jesus). We’ve also been a part of the music ministry called Contraste where we play music in cafes/restaurants and use it as a tool to draw people in to evangelize. -Homes of Hope: Building homes for families living in poverty in our community. My husband and I get to host teams and be a part of the 2-3 day house builds. My husband has also been a part of the family-selection team.
El Salvador is in the aftermath of a 12 year civil war so Gang Violence, Drug Cartel, Immigration and Poverty have pillaged the Salvadoran Family. We are working to Transform El Salvador one family at at time.
Currently our goal is to bring the church to all 18 Unreached People Groups in Ghana to see large percentage of over 1.7 million people reached with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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.
We serve around 15,000 students, the vast majority do not affiliate with Christianity. Students on campus are facing a mental health crisis, data from our campus shows that students diagnosed with Anxiety/Depression has nearly doubled since 2018, affecting nearly 50%. Students are struggling with sexual identity and purpose and nearly 50% of them binge drink. 1 in 5 students will be sexually assaulted on campus. When they meet Jesus, students become vibrant, active influencers. We believe that as the future leaders in every area of our society, they are the most important mission field in the world
1 in 6 people in the world are considered disabled. This is over a billion people worldwide. One of the biggest unreached people groups
Herb and Karen work in Manila, Philippines, in addition to the general Asia Pacific. Their main role is teaching EPHOD seminars.
Chris and Brook are the Directors for the Chi Alpha ministry on the campus of St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
The International Assemblies of God in South Africa has approximately 340 churches. The IAG has a mammoth job to reach more people and plant more churches in South Africa.One of the most effective and substantial ways to accomplish this and to engage the ever increasing population of 64 million people in South Africa in through a healthy local pastor leading a healthy and thriving local church. Healthy pastors lead churches into greater health, which reach more people and plant more churches. This is the desire and goal of the Healthy Pastor Healthy Church initiative.