You are here: Home / Archives for Missionary

Brenda’s Silence

March 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Brenda meets with Dr. Roberts

Seven-year-old Brenda rarely speaks. When she does, she uses very few words like “mama” and perhaps a couple other words including her name.

I met Brenda and her mom at a clinic held by a team of Texans at the ASELSI Father’s Heart Clinic a couple weeks ago. As an interpreter for the pediatrician, I helped investigate the back stories of patients and then communicate the correct treatment. Many patients had headaches and pains related not to a physical cause but to the stress of their life situations — financial distress, abandonment, hard labor, and more. It was a reminder that more than medicine is needed here. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Missionary, Stories Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Needs all around

March 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

One of the challenges we face as we minister to the people around us is knowing how to respond to the many needs we see every day. There are women begging in the market, sick people in need of care, children who can’t attend school because of the financial burden, a neighbor who was in a motorcycle accident, death of a friend, and ministries that need help too.

Chrisi checking on Rosa's clubed foot.

One of the things that keeps coming up in my mind is that we must not look past these needs to the point of missing the people, but we must look through these needs to see that in the middle of that physical need is a spiritual need. When we start seeing what God sees in each situation, we help bring the will of God about as we help reach people with Christ and with care.

Just this week we saw that happening: Two people accepted Christ during a hospital visit! We connected with a new ministry with a unique tool for reaching children with the Gospel, and we are helping connect a 10-year-old girl with much needed medical care

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

Q&A

November 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment

A recent missionary intern at ASELSI asked us some questions about missionary life for new missionaries. I thought I’d share our answers…

Q. How did you know you wanted to be missionaries?
A. We’ve both had a desire to be part of fulfilling the Great Commission since we were kids. Chrisi remembers telling her friends and family that she was going to be a missionary one day…even though she wasn’t really sure what that meant! I (Michael) grew up reading missionary biographies, and knowing that God has a purpose for me and that it includes missions. I remember my family helping missionaries and since I was a young teenager, I have had the privilege of traveling to the mission field personally and seeing what God is doing and discovering how He wants me to be part of His plans! Those were the seeds in our hearts that began germinating as God gave us fertile ground and opportunities to grow, be trained, and develop deeper relationships with Him. Our journey to the mission field has been indirect, but straight in the direction God has for us one step at a time. We very much see God’s hand in preparing us to be here. This is good, because it makes us all the more reliant on Him and His leading now that we are here!

Q. What is the most challenging aspect of coming on to the mission field?
A. There are the challenges of new language, different culture, and support raising, but I think one of the most challenging things is to keep our eyes on Christ and not on challenges, circumstances, or even our temporary goals. When we get our eyes off of Christ and His purpose for us here, we can get discouraged, into bad attitudes with others, negative outlooks on our surroundings, and out of fellowship with Christ. However, when we keep our focus on Christ and His desire for us to grow in love for God and for people, we stay on track. That’s the challenge, keeping our focus on Christ and His desire for us and for the nations!

Q. What do you love most about serving with ASELSI?
A. We love that ASELSI has a vision and tradition of training up local people and preparing them not only for the task at hand but for the purpose and plan that God has for them. We want to not only be here and do our part, but to help train up others to do things even better than we can, in ways that we haven’t though of yet, and in places that we can’t go. We love being part of ministry that is training a new generation of leaders who will bring Christ to their people and to the nations!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

Entering a new culture

May 1, 2011 by 2 Comments

Entering a new culture is…well…different. For years, we learned, replicated, and lived out the culture into which we were born. Now, we’re not just learning a new language, we are learning a new culture. To do this takes work.

As new missionaries, we are studying Spanish and learning to adapt to our new Guatemalan culture, but we find dangers and roadblocks in abundance. In our effort to study the language we can spend more time with our books and lessons than we do with the very people we want to interact with.  We must study, yes, and we must interact as well.

I recently was reading in a book given to me by a long-time missionary. It’s called Ministering Cross-Culturally by Lingenfelter/Mayers. They write:

“We must love the people to whom we minister so much that we are willing to enter their culture as children, to learn how to speak as they speak, play as they play, eat what they eat, sleep where they sleep, study what they study, and thus earn their respect and admiration.” (Pg. 25)

This is exactly what Christ did. He “studied” the language, culture, and life of the Jewish people as he grew up. He did not seclude himself with the Scriptures and hide in a cave until he had mastered them. He learned and lived them out in the presence of his neighbors, peers and eventually his disciples.

The book learning and practice of language and culture is important and not to be shunned, nor is the practical application and interaction–no matter how faulty it may be at first–to be replaced by book learning. We must get out there and use what we have learned as we learn more language and culture on the go.

We are finding that we must make a great effort to step out and interact with others. We have to find new friends in the neighborhoods where we live, in the tiendas we visit to purchase water jugs and in the people we pass in the street. It’s easy to just say, “Hola, buenos dias!” and move along. Even with just a little language ability, now is the time to interact.

Jesus set the example and we need to work hard to learn the language and culture and to interact within it. The more missionaries are secluded in study or in their missionary community, the less effective they will be. The more missionaries build positive interactions, the more they will build relationships and have opportunities to be an example of Christ and to explain how He left His home culture and learned ours so we could know His message and life of relationship with the Father.

Filed Under: Language, Language, Missionary Tagged With: , , ,

New step by step

September 16, 2010 by Leave a Comment

We are taking a new step and we are so excited!

Guatemala is located in Central America just south of Mexico. (Image credit: wikimedia.org commons)

For years we have felt God’s hand directing us to prepare and be part of ministering to people, loving and serving others, and connecting with both locals and internationals stateside and overseas. Well, we are now working on the final details of actually moving from serving in a ministry here in Michigan to serving on the mission field in Guatemala as missionaries!  We are thrilled and challenged with this new step God has directed us to take.

We have much preparing to do–things like: paperwork, prayer and support to develop, things to sell, language and culture prep, and continually spending time looking to God and His Word for direction. Despite all the preparations, the unknowns, and the challenges, we have a deep peace about this new step.

Please join us in praying that God will direct us, help us learn Spanish and as much of the Quiche language as possible and to get all the details together as we move to Guatemala.

If you would like to help support us, you can get instructions on how to do so here.

Blessed to bless others,

Michael & Chrisi Shead

Filed Under: Missionary Tagged With: , ,

Guatemalan Mission Outreach Team

August 31, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Eight days after a volcano erupted and a storm released mud slides and flooding in Guatemala, a team of 15 people from Resurrection Life Church was on the ground and ready to help. [Read the account from Mission Network News.]

The team worked along-side the residents of homes that had been swamped with mud. Shoveling and scraping, they cleared mud from three homes, a school and from around a church. They also shared the Gospel and distributed tracts and food for the people.

“The people paid attention to our message not just because we had some gifts for them, but because we spent time working right along side them to help them get their village back from the mud and to show that God loves them,” team leader Michael Shead said. “While many seeds were planted in the village, we saw children respond to Jesus at a school outreach and even had one man on the street accept Christ after just a short conversation.”

This team mixed manual labor with medical assistance, ministry outings to a school, home visits, and a prayer visit with patients at a public hospital.

“Seeing the team serve so well together was a reminder of how we can work together for the Lord wherever we are,” Shead said. ” I want to do this more!”

Filed Under: Stories, Teams Tagged With: , , , , ,

Training the Guatemalan Church

November 2, 2005 by Leave a Comment

It was late April and the volcanic slopes of Guatemala were dusty green as warm breezes gradually made way for the coming rainy season. Clouds growing in the sky signaled that it wouldn’t be long until fresh rains would water the dry volcanic slopes until they burst into colorful bloom.

For 13 years missionaries John and Sharon Harvey have experienced this cycle of dry and rainy seasons as they’ve shared the Gospel in the Central American nation of Guatemala. Each season they watch more than just flowers bloom as thousands of lives have been saved, pastors trained and children fed through the Asociacion Equipando a Los Santos Internacional (Association for Equipping the Saints International (ASELSI)). This ministry provides physical care and spiritual training to villagers across the remote mountains of northwest Guatemala.

Based in the department (state) of El Quiché, ASELSI includes both medical and Bible training branches.

Sharon Harvey, a registered nurse, organizes medical care for the villagers and trains Guatemalans to provide a much needed milk distribution program to battle the six-percent or higher mortality rate for children below the age of five. In 2004, ASELSI provided medical care for 5,700 people including milk for 250 children each month.

“I’ve always wanted to make a difference in their lives,” Sharon said. “By reaching them at the point of their need, it opens the door for me to also pray with them and to minister to them on the spiritual side.”

While the clinic helps care for physical needs, many of the local pastors had few educational opportunities until John Harvey started a comprehensive Bible training institute. ASELSI is providing Bible training in a region where many of the pastors and church leaders have less than a third grade education.

Through the training classes at ASELSI and in 12 extension centers scattered across the mountains, pastors and church leaders expand their basic knowledge of the Bible and actually earn diplomas and degrees in two or three year programs. Currently, ASELSI is looking for ways to expand training to other countries in Latin America.

ASELSI’s courses provide excellent Bible training that is practical and something that pastors and church leaders can understand and teach to others. Not only are students learning, they’re sharing that knowledge with others.

“About all the students…are doing discipleship,” John said. “Communities are being transformed.”

The combination of medical clinics and outreaches also provide positive opportunities for ministry in new communities where medical teams along with Bible students work together to provide for physical and spiritual needs.
The lives the Harvey’s touch have blossomed in these villages and towns as they take the fresh rain of the Gospel throughout the nations.

Resurrection Life Church is one of the several churches helping support this ministry in Guatemala. For more information about the Harvey’s visit www.aselsi.org.
Note from author: Originally published in a ResLife newsletter after I visited Guatemala in 2005.

Filed Under: Bios, Featured, Missionary Tagged With: , , ,

Normal People, Extraordinary Work

November 1, 2005 by Leave a Comment

If you were to see Anthony and Myca Verwys in a local coffee shop, you might think they are a typical Michigan couple: They have a dog. They enjoy talking together. He travels and works on vehicles. She likes to do scrapbooking.Missionary pilot Anthony Verwys, right, chats with a native pastor on a runway in the remote coffee village of La Perla in western Guatemala.

Have a conversation with this couple and you’d find out that they are far more than what they appear. Not only is the vehicle that Anthony works on an airplane; they live, not in Michigan, but in the Central American nation of Guatemala. Myca and Anthony are missionaries.

Anthony and Myca choose to live in Guatemala because of the people–people who live in small villages that require a 10-15 hour drive over rugged dirt roads unless you have an airplane. With the help of a plane, many of those villages become accessible to Bible teachers within a matter of 45 minutes instead of hours or days of traveling.

“There’s really no way we could get out there to bring the guys these Bible classes if we weren’t flying out there,” Anthony said.

As a pilot with the local ministry called AGAPE (Guatemalan Association for Edification of the rural church), Anthony uses a turbo-charged Cessna 206 airplane to fly Bible teachers into remote villages where they land on dirt airstrips. The teachers spend the weekend teaching local pastors and training church leaders how they can share Biblical truths with others. AGAPE also provides practical church training for women and youth leaders.

Besides providing transportation, the Verwyses are personally active in helping to disciple the local Guatemalans so they can reach out to others.

“That’s what we get excited about…national pastors and national evangelists doing the work and we can just help them,” Anthony said. “We want the Guatemalans to reach the Guatemalans.”

While Anthony is flying, Myca stays active working with youth from a school and their church, as well as building relationships with her Guatemalan neighbors. This couple is also preparing for a growing family of their own. They are due to have twins in January 2006.

In Guatemala, Myca and Anthony are actively involved in a local church where they help with the youth group, church leadership and music.Missionaries Myca and Anthony Verwys, left, stay connected with other Christians through a small group that meeting in their home in Guatemala City.

Filed Under: Bios, Missionary Tagged With: , , ,