“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”

Jesus – Matthew 28:18-20

Below is a brief synopsis with a link to the website of each of our mission partners.  Please pray for them as they make disciples of all nations.

1. The Shifra Home in Burlington is a Christ centered maternity residence for young pregnant women and teens. They provide accommodation, pregnancy counseling and other support during pregnancy and for a period after childbirth, and are open to all.

Visit the Shifra Home Website

2. Chris Kovacs, called to ministry with the Navigators on the McMaster Campus in Hamilton. Chris has organized debates on “Evolution versus Creation, is the Chaplain for the varsity football team, and has seven mission teams of students who are sent out every month to serve at a Hamilton based ministry.

Visit the Navigators Website

Visit the Essence Bookstore Website

3. The Church Army was formerly a part of the Anglican Church of Canada but in the last two years it has become a non-denominational mission organization based in Saint John, NB, whose mandate is “raising up evangelists for the twenty first century”.

The students, from all ages and backgrounds, are trained at Taylor College in Saint John and our own Catherine Bonham has recently graduated from there.

The mission partners work in prisons, on the streets, in children’s ministry, assisting in churches without pastors and in homes for those recovering from addictions.

In addition to these ministries Church Army has practical outreach including a laundry ministry in Saint John, N.B. where one may wash a green garbage bag full of dirty clothes for a loonie and Street Hope Ministry in Victoria, Moncton and Peterborough where youth are offered counseling, and given a bag of toiletries.

Visit the Church Army Website

4. Invitation to Live Ministries was founded by the Rev Dr. Marney Patterson in 1966, when God called Marney out of Parish ministry in the Diocese of Toronto into a full time ministry of Evangelism. It functions totally on the free will offerings of its supporters.

Since then Marney has ministered in ninety-seven diocese, including every diocese in Canada, and in thirty-five countries on all continents of the globe. He always goes in response to an invitation, usually from the Bishop of another diocese, and the ministries range from a weekend to a month in duration.

Over the years Marney has preached to over three million people in audiences that vary in number from 18 to 126,000. His mandate is always the same: to reach those who do not know God with the message of salvation, to challenge the indifferent and to encourage the faithful. He does this with a simple, straightforward presentation of the gospel.

Marney has volunteer team members from several denominations who travel with him as needed, paying their own expenses. Marney and his wife Joan are members of St. George’s Church.

Visit Marney Patterson’s Website

5.  South American Missionary Society mission partners are Nelson and Kara Mejia, who pastor two small churches on the Island of Roatan, about 60 kilometres off the north coast of Honduras in Central America. Their mission is to establish a new deanery of five parishes from a single struggling parish, build a ministry among English speaking people, and develop a native ministry and lay leadership.

After graduating from university in New Brunswick Kara served with SAMS for two years in the capital city of Honduras where she met Nelson, a Honduran. They were married in 2002 and studied together for the ministry. After being ordained as deacons in 2005, they were transferred to Roatan where they were ordained to the priesthood in 2007. Nelson and Kara have two children, Stephen who is eight and Kelly Rose, three.

Church meetings, medical and government appointments, and purchases of groceries and other provisions require a trip by ferry to the mainland. The Mejias thank God for their continued safety.

Visit the SAMS Website

6. Chris and Bev are our mission partners working with a charity in a culture hostile to Christianity. In this war torn country in Africa many have never heard the name of Jesus and the authorities want it to stay that way. Daily they live and work on dangerous turf.

For several years Chris and Bev have been in mountain villages, training the people in agriculture and sanitation techniques to improve their overall health and introduce good nutrition. A short rainy season, when the torrents can drain away in a day, is followed by arid drought.  Eight Subsurface Dams have been built in villages to hold water in the sand. Many Check Dams, built of rocks and cement provide a barrier to the run off.

Chris designed and built twenty-five Rooftop Catchment Tanks for clinics and schools, that each hold 77,000 liters of filtered water; one tank provides safe drinking water for a school for a year. He and Bev have done 30 power point presentations to retrain the villagers in the building of terraces, another way to slow the run off – a skill known by the villagers grandparents, but forgotten during years of civil war.

They have built 2 clinics, rebuilt 6 and trained health workers. They have built 330 latrines and encouraged their use – the villagers believe that evil spirits live in latrines. In a country where less than 1% are Christian, Chris and Bev try to win the trust of the people through their love and care, that they may teach them about Jesus.

7. Brian works in an area where he must keep under the radar of the local authorities and the superstitious pagan religious leaders. Some of you may have talked with Brian when he was among us during summer 2008. He is constantly taking language instruction to be better able to communicate with the people that he longs to lead to faith in Jesus.

Although he experiences much adversity through travel frustrations, theft of his belongings and unexplained deaths of new believers, Brian is humbly thankful for what he can see the Lord doing among the people, for answered prayer concerning his accommodation, and for personal protection. His praise overflows when God-incidences, things that most would call co-incidences, happen along his path: for example, the right people with the right skills showing up unexpectedly in a remote region where there is a crisis.