Global Missions Support 2023 (One-Time Grants and Budgeted Support)
The Redeemer Community Church grant project was initiated in 2022. Congregation members were encouraged to propose mission work projects they were personally involved in for consideration to receive a one-time grant from the church. The primary objective was to identify potential long-term partnerships that would enhance our local church’s global mission perspective and outreach.
In 2023, we decided to concentrate our grants on ministries from those that we granted in 2022 that showed a significant potential for deeper collaboration with our church. Once again, we provided one-time grants (totaling $20,700) for the year, and our aim is to use this year (2023-24) to refine our selection to a smaller group of ministries that share a profound connection with our congregation. This strategic approach will help us establish enduring relationships for the proclamation of the gospel to those who lack access to it worldwide.
AFRICA:
Grant 1: Advent Christian General Conference – Tanzania
Focus: Work among the Hadzabe unreached people group in Tanzania
Connector: Matt Mull
Organization: Advent Christian General Conference
https://www.acgc.us/affiliates/
This church planting ministry is focused on establishing a group of churches mostly in the Mwanza region near Lake Victoria. They actively share Jesus in a culture that holds an Animistic worldview which often works against them.
Annual Support: Patterson Family – HOPAC
Focus: Teaching at an International School in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Redeemer Community Church Members
Organization: HOPAC/NICS
https://www.hopac.sc.tz/
https://www.nics.org/schools/haven-peace-academy/
Annual Support: Lindstrom Family – HOPAC
Focus: Administration at the International School in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Redeemer Community Church Members
Organization: HOPAC/NICS
https://www.hopac.sc.tz/
https://www.nics.org/schools/haven-peace-academy/
Grant 2: OneWay Africa/Ray Mensah – Ghana, West Africa
Focus: Mobilizing and discipling African missionaries to reach the unreached
Connector: Michael & Laura VanHuis
Organization: OneWay Africa
https://www.owm.org/oneway-africa
Ray has a contagious enthusiasm for reaching lost people and Ray’s heart is laser-focused on making disciples who make disciples. Ray is a missions mobilizer speaking, teaching and training the next generation of African missionaries. Ray also leads the church planting efforts of OneWay Africa among unreached people groups in Northern Ghana. Through using the Jesus Film, clean water initiatives, and solar powered bible units called BiblePlus+ their teams are working in remote villages leading multitudes to Christ.
Grant 3: AWANA – Multiple Countries in Africa
Focus: Christian curriculum creation and distribution in African schools
Connector: Chip Root
Organization: AWANA
Africa Schools Project – Awana
There is an international initiative/opportunity Awana has been given in Zimbabwe and other African countries. This past year, God has provided an unexpected and unbelievable opportunity to share Christ with children in Africa. They don’t know if/when this door may close, but they are seeking to faithfully walk through it as long and as quickly as possible with the goal to share Jesus with as many leaders and children as He will allow. By God’s grace, AWANA’s African-based employees and leaders have been given ‘sanction’ by Education Departments in certain nations to train leaders to use Awana curriculum with students in the school in regular after-school programs, along with some other curricula from Christian partners to AWANA
EUROPE:
Grant 4: Andy & Sarah Pollock – Bosnia
Focus: Refugee relief and church planting in Sarajevo, Bosnia
Connector: Michael & Laura VanHuis
Organization: IAFR
Giving to the Pollocks
Latest Update: Community meals touch hearts (campaign-archive.com)
IAFR Sarajevo leans into the privilege of demonstrating God’s unconditional love for forcibly displaced people in Bosnia and Herzegovina by meeting needs and developing relationships which lead to restored hope. Since 2015, more than 30,000 displaced people have traveled through Bosnia every year. While their origins vary widely from many crisis areas around the world, most intend to linger just long enough in Bosnia to prepare for their further trip into Europe. In actuality, a plan of spending 30 days in Bosnia is often replaced by a reality of spending more than a year in the country.
Grant funds to be used to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ for the forcibly displaced in Bosnia by
- Meeting physical needs (clothing, food, shelter, language training, resource education)
- Teaching the good news of Jesus Christ
- Bible studies and church services with/through the local Bosnian Baptist church
- Conversations and prayer over coffee
Refugees are most open to the gospel while they are moving, before they get settled into communities of people like them. This ministry focuses on refugees in the midst of resettlement and it will open many doors for gospel proclamation. Andy and his family have moved to Bosnia to spearhead a new work there along these lines.
Grant 5: Mario & Suzi Casni – Croatia
Focus: Producing and translating Christian TV programs in the Balkans
Connector: Jason & Brooke Mead
Organization: Reach Beyond
Mario and Suzi – Reach Beyond
Since 2013 the Casnis have worked with Reach Beyond to implement the expertise and knowledge acquired in their secular work environments to develop media tools to multiply ministry efforts. They built a radio studio and the broadcast team. Supported by local volunteers, they quickly outgrew the radio to include video as well, producing shows of real-life stories touched by God for nationwide TV broadcasters in the country. In addition to the media ministry, Mario is overseeing Reach Beyond media projects in the region and has been working to incorporate Croatian sign language on all their broadcasts in order to reach a segment of the population that has no known believers.
Grant 6: Rick & Lisa Caynor – Spain
Focus: Supporting missionaries throughout North Africa and Europe
Connector: Tim & Shelly Hale
Organization: ABWE
http://www.liveglobal.org/ and https://liveglobal.org/partner/kids-for-school/
Rick and Lisa Caynor serve as missionaries in Spain, strategically encouraging and developing partnerships throughout North Africa, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe. They come alongside missionaries throughout those regions and develop relationships with them, and then connect them to believers in North America to multiply their ministry effectiveness through funding and prayer. Much of their ministry is focused on connecting missionaries who are serving Muslim or unreached populations with resources to enable the proclamation of the gospel and projects to serve those communities.
They also have an aspect of their ministry involving African immigrants (predominantly Muslim) in their community. Their approach is very personal, building relationships in the community and sharing the love of Christ in daily practical ways. They lead a local church that is the focal point of their mission. Their approach is building personal relationships on a daily basis in the community they serve over the long-term, sharing the hope and promise of the gospel. They have a heart for the downtrodden, poor, and unreached people in their land.
SOUTH AMERICA:
Grant 7: Stan & Recca Abrahamson – Brazil
Focus: Unreached people along the Jurua River (tributary of the Amazon River)
Connector: Tom & Linnea Bonenberger
Organization: BOMU – Brazil Outreach Ministries Unlimited
The Abrahamsons evangelize, start local churches, and meet physical needs of the unreached river people who live along the Jurua River, a tributary of the Amazon River in northern Brazil. Travel and ministry is done from a 60 ft boat, “Atalaia,” which has living accommodations and is specifically designed to operate in shallow water. The ministry method is evangelism with intense personal discipleship after conversion, with the goal of training local leaders to lead their own congregations. BOMU (Brazil Outreach Ministries Unlimited) moved to the Jurua River just over a year ago after spending 28 years on the Madeira River doing similar work and successfully shifting the work over to the Brazilians. The Jurua River was selected after spending several years of survey via small aircraft with MAF, land, and boat to determine a starting point and assess the population in the region.
ASIA:
Grant 8: T&R – Undisclosed Country/Central Asia
Focus: Muslims in Central Asia
Connector: Jason & Brooke Mead
Organizations: Undisclosed for Security
T & R are engaging with Muslims in a country in Central Asia. There is significant hostility to the gospel in the region.
Grant 9: Freedom Firm – South East Asia – India
Focus: Serving, protecting and sharing Jesus with minor girls trafficked in the sex trade
Connector: Nat & Hanna McRostie
Organization: Freedom Firm
www.freedomfirm.org
Freedom Firm rescues minor girls trafficked in the sex trade in India, follows each girl after rescue to restore her, and seeks justice by pursuing the perpetrators in court to get convictions. Freedom Firm truly targets “the least of these,” going into the darkest places of the world. This is hard work with high spiritual resistance. Results are difficult; hearts change slowly, and yet God has called Freedom Firm to this work. Supporting Freedom Firm also stretches us and helps us turn our eyes away from our little comfortable world. Freedom Firm’s work is on-going and requires regular, consistent support to have the right staff for their work.
Grant 10: Andrew & Bekah Soderlind – South Asia
Focus: Unreached Muslims
Connector: Diane and Pablo Tabilo
Organization: Frontiers www.frontiers.org
The Soderlinds are working with local believers to share the gospel among unreached Muslims in their city and disciple any new believers, with the hope of seeing God planting healthy, multiplying churches. This involves prayer, building relationships with Muslims, investing in relationships with local believers, and casting a vision about God’s heart for Muslims. It also involves helping to mobilize and equip locals to share about Jesus, love their neighbors well, and disciple other believers. The end goal is to see local ownership of this ministry by believers rooted in God’s Word and led by the Holy Spirit. The Sonderlinds are also running a leather goods business using eco-friendly leather and a fair trade manufacturer as a platform to be in the country. While their business doesn’t have capacity yet, they are working toward being able to employ and train craftsmen from marginalized people groups here.
Annual Support: Andy & Jenny Smith – South Asia
Focus: Church planting among the Asmat of Papua
Redeemer Community Church Members
Organization: Ethnos 360
The Smiths have been working with the Asmat of Papua in Indonesia with translation and discipleship projects in a remote village.
Grant 11: Caleb Stober – East Asia – Japan
Focus: Training Japanese believers to engage Japanese unbelievers
Connector: Niko Hayes
Organization: Serge – Caleb Stober (serge.org)
Caleb will be working with the Japanese church to train the next generation of Japanese Christians as well as working in the field of missiology, developing and improving tools of evangelism and ministry in Japan in order to see the Japanese encounter Jesus in the context of their own culture. He will be working at Christ Bible Institute in Nagoya, Japan, which runs a seminary, a counseling center, a church planting & revitalization project, a printing press and more. His desire is to see the 99% of Japanese who do not know Jesus have the chance to hear and respond to the good news of Christ’s victory on the cross. The Japanese are one of the largest unreached people groups in the world and Caleb will be involved in equipping the local church to share the gospel.
GLOBAL FOCUS:
Grant 12: Katie O’Malley – Global Focus based in Naperville
Focus: Supporting the work of OneWay through administration.
Redeemer Community Church Member
Organization: OneWay Ministries
www.owm.org and https://www.aplos.com/aws/give/OneWayMinistries/ministries/projects