Encouraging Pastors in Mongolia

Tim sharing with a teens small group from one of the Mongolian churches.

August in Mongolia is already beginning to be chilly, but fellowship with many first generation pastors was warm around the campfire at the Mongolian pastors retreat in the woods near Siberia. Tim traveled with our regional director Jeff, to encourage these pastors in a place where the church was birthed only roughly 30yrs ago. These pastors face exceptional challenges in this post-communist state that is pushing for Buddhism to be the national religion.

By the close of the retreat, the Holy Spirit had comforted, encouraged, and inspired many to continue strong in the faith! There was great excitement towards reviving the evangelistic effort inspite of opposition. Pray for these courageous pastors as they follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in church planting, discipling, and evangelism.

Summer Ministry at Happy Horizons

Doris, Ariyanna, and Gracie spent time this Summer at Happy Horizons Children’s Ranch (HHCR) in the Philippines, with a small ministry team of women from Missouri. HHCR is a restorative home for girls age 3-20ish rescued out of sex-trafficking.

Ariyanna was a huge blessing to the girls teaching them various art skills, spending hours painting and drawing together in love and friendship. With Gracie’s infectious joy and outgoing personality she played games and helped with baking. Kristy Weyer, the Northern Missouri Womens Ministries Director that traveled with us, poured into and inspired the staff and caregivers. Doris painted a mural for the counselors office. We did a Freedom Challenge 5K with the girls. We also sponsored the end of Summer celebration with a special lunch and took everyone swimming at a local pool. On Sunday we worshiped together, Doris preached the Word, and the Ranch girls ministered to the community that attends Happy Church on their campus. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and ministry in the Philippines.

Thank you for sending us, and thank you for praying with us! If you ever would like to join Doris on a ministry trip for Asia’s Little Ones please email us at asiaslittleones.agwm@gmail.com.

Ministry Updates

Church Plant In Sulawesi…

In July, Tim & TJ traveled to Indonesia, and thanks to Osceola AG had the funds to help a church planter, who is a former student of ours, purchase land and begin the construction on the first church in the Kabupaten (like a county) of Topoyo in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Imagine your entire county WITHOUT a church. Praise God for the miraculous provision of finances, favor with local islamic communities, and a pioneering pastor that was willing to say, “Yes!”.

What began as one Bible Study in a home, became two, and then a network of believers until the decision was made to pray for a place to build a Church so that these new believers could gather all together, worship together and become the first established church in that area in all of time and history!

Further south in Makassar, we rejoice as another church we were privileged to be partners in planting over a decade ago has grown so much that it will be the first Assemblies of God Church to own a piece of land and build in the largest city on the Island, Makassar which has over 1.5 million people.

We rejoice over these victories, but we strive to see more! There are still millions of people in Sulawesi without a Gospel witness who in all of history have never had the good news of Jesus reach their ears or hearts.

From Hobbiton to Bangkok New Realms of Serving in Asia Pacific!

We all know the phrase, “Where did the time go?” and lately we have been asking ourselves that a lot! When we first embarked on the call to missions our oldest was just a baby and now he is going off to college. We first set out as MIT (missionaries in training) and had the opportunity to work with an amazing mentor missionary couple. Now we find ourselves being referred to as “veteran” missionaries. We have been blessed with many experiences in ministry and missions over the years and have learned so much for the successes as well as the failures and mistakes.

The last few years we have begun to serve in a few different leadership ministries within the Asia Pacific Region, specifically as an Key Ministry Area (KMA) advocate for Compassion Health and Education Ministries, as well as regional strategic leaders on the Global Leadership Team for Asia Pacific. This means we have the opportunity to serve our leadership and the missionary body in a greater way. In February Doris traveled to New Zealand for a meeting of all the KMA advocates where leadership discussed the challenges of the upcoming year, and praised the Lord for all of the amazing things he did across the region last year. As a team we bonded in middle earth and celebrated the goodness of God at a feast fit for a hobbit (never despise the day of small beginnings!) We have such incredible leaders, we are honored to serve with them.

March took Doris to Thailand where she and a handful of other KMA advocates had a time of ministering to, and helping our missionaries across the regions with like-minded ministries (specifically Compassion, Health, Education, Anti-trafficking and Children’s Ministry) network and collaborate with one another. It is said that no man is an island unto himself, but when you are working hard for the Kingdom and scattered across the many islands and countries of Asia Pacific, it can sometimes start to feel this way! Modern technology is a great way to stay in touch, but the several days we were able to gather together in-person were critical and may serve as the foundation of relationship those connections can build upon!

We never imagined back when we were young missionaries learning from our mentors, that someday we would be mentoring and helping other young missionaries as they take steps of faith and grow and serve. We especially never could have imagined that this would be even outside of Indonesia. It is truly an honor and a privilege to serve and encourage so many others that are following God’s call all over Asia Pacific! Next year we will celebrate 20yrs of serving in missions as a family. Thank you to everyone who has been part of sending us and praying with us over the years! We are just getting started!