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Our Missions Summary

I am excited and thankful for the opportunity to share with you all this evening. Ashley, thank you for the invitation. Pastor Betzer, my wife grew up as an MK in El Salvador and would fall asleep every night listening to the cassette tapes of Dan & Louie and now our oldest son has done the same every night for about 7 years. Thank you so much for your investment in the spiritual development of our children.

17 years ago, I took a trip to west Africa and visited the Elmina Castle which was the first building built to start facilitating the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. As I took a tour of this fort, God began to burden my heart for the issue of slavery/human trafficking. The following week, I had a layover in the Netherlands and spent a few hours exploring Amsterdam. I stumbled upon the Red Light District and when I saw the women for sale in the windows, God continued to tug on my heart.

The very next week, I was back home in St. Louis and got off work from a restaurant about 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning. On my drive home, I came to a 4-way stop a couple blocks from my apartment. I stopped, and as I proceeded through, the car to my left rushed across and cut me off in the middle of the intersection. The driver leaned over to roll his passenger’s window down to tell me something, and I rolled mine down to hear what he had to say. As my window was going down, I noticed something start to block my vision of the man’s face. I noticed a little head come up from the floor board. She had pigtails coming off the sides of her head and little pink bows on the ends of them. The man told me that this girl was 8 years old and he wanted to sell her to me. Permanently sell her to me, for me to keep and do whatever I wanted with her.

God used these three experiences in only two weeks to place a call and burden in my heart. Shortly after Shayla and I got married, we became U.S. Missionaries. For the past 11 years have been working to fight human trafficking, search for missing kids, and work in shelters. We moved to Las Vegas for our first term and were given the wonderful blessing of being able to work in a shelter for adult female survivors of sex trafficking. We were so thankful for that opportunity and we learned a lot that would prove beneficial for our second term. In our second term we opened and operated a shelter for 10-20 year girls who had been trafficked. That’s when I earned every grey hair you see; but, also got to see God do amazing things in the lives and hearts of the girls who lived there, and in our staff and volunteers who ministered to them.

Just this past year, God spoke to us and led us to a major change in our ministry. He has opened the door for us to go back to the Netherlands, where He had originally called both Shayla and me into missions. We just transferred from U.S. Missions to World Missions and are thrilled to accept a new assignment in the Netherlands where only 4% of the population claims to have a relationship with Jesus. We’ve been told by a local pastor there that the number of Christians is so low that most Dutch people will go their whole lives without ever meeting a Christian. That is not only bad news but truly unfathomable for those of us who grew up here in the States.

The good news is that the Church has begun to grow once again. While the majority of Western Europe is only 2% Christians, the Netherlands has grown to 4%. Just this past May, 60,000 people gathered to celebrate Pentecost and worship God. He is building His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

We are honored to go and help the national church reach their goal of planting 100 churches in the next 10 years; and, we’re filled with anticipation to see how God is going to use those churches to permeate their society with His light. Thank you so much for partnering with us and praying for us. We truly appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.