Witness Fall 2022

to Serve

Co-Mission

J.H.

Illustration

Prayer

Story

Colton

Geddes

Lesser

Lichty

Co-Mission Leads to Common Unity

EDITORIAL | Bruce Enns

Don’t get me wrong, I really like people, but being with people for long periods of time soon leads me to longing for the silence and solitude of my workshop and tools. And yet, as much as I like my time alone, I know that we were all created for community, and I am thankful that I am called to do life together with others. We all need rhythms of community and solitude, and so, we live in this tension.

Jesus never intended for us to live out our faith alone. We are called into discipling communities that make disciples, and how our faith is lived out with others is our greatest witness to the watching world. That was the focus of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:15-21 when he asked the Father to take care of his disciples, not just the first disciples but us as well:

My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one… As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world… My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

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In the past few years, this call to a healthy community witness has been threatened more than we could have imagined. We have felt the tensions and brokenness in friendships, families, teams, churches and in Multiply. As a pastor for twenty-one years, I’ve lived the highs and lows of spiritual community. I know that each one of us has felt that in various ways, and we’ve contributed to the highs and lows of others. Yet the call to live out our faith together remains.

Our local church communities are where our spiritual gifts are discerned, called out, formed, and utilized to build up the body of Christ in maturity (Ephesians 4:11-13). Christ-centered community is the place where our stumbling transformation is shaped and tempered. It’s the place that perhaps causes us the most pain, and also the place that holds the greatest promise for healing, wholeness, and hope.

It’s ironic, however, that when we focus too much on community, it seems to crumble under the weight of so many expectations. Eventually, we become so inward focused that we get distracted by the brokenness more than the beauty. I agree with others who have said that community

works better as a by-product of embracing a shared task. In our context, we might call it a co-mission that leads to common unity.

We know the Great Commission that Jesus gave to his disciples: “Go and make disciples of all nations… (Matthew 28:18). But before he gave that command, it says, “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted” (Matthew 28:16-17).

The disciples were down to eleven, and they struggled with doubt and denial. Even after being with Jesus for three years, they were a messy group, but they were still called to a great and remarkable co-mission together.

The Book of Acts continues the story of the Holy Spirit working in the Church, but we know from the letters to the churches that it was still messy. Disciples doubted. Churches struggled. It was anything but easy. In fact, the story of the Church is filled with pain, sorrow, and brokenness, but also filled with so much hope, power, and possibility. Because Jesus also said, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:21). He was with them, and he is with us today.

Our vision is together that the world may know Jesus. We are never called alone; it is a co-mission. From the very beginning, our agency has been about embracing togetherness in mission, including our bi-national cooperation as US and Canadian MB churches. We work together with local churches in both these countries and around the world, and we are committed to the co-mission of sending, going, praying, and giving. We work in teams of diversely gifted disciples, long-term missionaries, regional and national leaders, and are supported by faithful acts of prayer, storytelling, administration, and sacrifice. Together

we are sending disciples on mission, developing missional leaders, and facilitating mission partnerships.

As a church-based agency, we want to join you—our churches—and work alongside you in the work God has called you to—called us to. We do it imperfectly, but we do it together.

In my own stumbling transformation, I have experienced burnout and brokenness. And yet Jesus has been so faithful in continuing the work in me and through me. The same is true for our broken families, churches, communities, and organizations. But let’s lift our eyes again, and follow Jesus into this great mission together, that the world may know Jesus through the cracked vessels that we are.

In his song called “Anthem”, poet and song writer, Leonard Cohen, wrote some well-known lyrics: “Ring the bells that still can ring; forget your perfect offering; there’s a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

The apostle Paul said it even better in 2 Corinthians 4:6-7: “For God, who said, ‘Let there be light in the darkness,’ has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.”

My prayer is that we will continue together, to allow God’s light to flow through our cracks and brokenness, that the world may know Jesus.

Bruce Enns General Director

“These Stories Are Our Stories”

SOUTHEAST ASIA | Louise Sinclair-Peters

As we crossed the border, we felt nervous. The coronavirus was still raging in this Southeast Asian country, and a recent military coup was wreaking havoc. Reports in the news left us grieving and deeply concerned for the safety of our church planters. However, after two long years, the government finally announced that tourist visas were available, and visitors were welcome. Despite the risks, we felt the Spirit say, “Go!”

When my husband and I arrived, we saw a team of pastors waiting for us. We all broke down and cried together. They gave us flowers and one by one shook our hands. We felt like royalty, and they looked weary. Some had just been

released from jail and others were still recovering from COVID. Despite their friendly smiles, they looked older.

We had planned to be together for four days at a hotel in the capital. The city was barely recognizable to us. The lively hustle and bustle of the masses had disappeared. The streets were dead quiet. Even at our hotel, it was dark as we struggled to find our room. Once inside, we closed the door and the pastors started praying out loud.

Suddenly, there was a knock. We all held our breath as I slowly opened the door. A security guard peered in and asked, “Are you Christians?”

“Yes,” we answered nervously.

“So am I!” he said with a big smile.

“Do you want to join us?” we asked with a deep sigh of relief.

The hotel conference room that we used in the days that followed was small and suffocating with the intense heat. But we dared not complain, because the pastors were just so filled with gratitude to be together. It had not been easy for them to make their way to the capital.

One pastor said, “I am so thankful to be here. Thank you for not forgetting us. I had to pass through twenty security checkpoints on my way here, and I only got slapped across the face once! Every time, I prayed that the soldiers would not stop me from coming here.”

Another pastor who had spent a whole year in jail said, “Really, I’m not sad about my time in jail. It was the most fruitful time of ministry in my whole life. All of my fellow prisoners put their faith in Jesus, and I became their pastor. We studied the Bible together every day, and when I left, they cried. Sometimes I want to go back!”

Everyone laughed, but we all pleaded with him, “No, pastor!”

“After I became a believer, Jesus spoke to me in a dream,” said another leader. “He told me to go to a mountain across the valley from my home, so I could tell the people there about having their sins forgiven. When I woke up, I immediately made plans to move to that mountain. After I built my house of bamboo there, I began to tell the people about Jesus. They threw rocks at me and beat me numerous times. But I heard the Lord say, ‘Don’t fight back.’ It took years before the first family believed, but today there over one hundred baptized believers in our church there, and we have a reputation for loving one another and caring for each other.”

In that crowded conference room, we rejoiced together at hearing these beautiful testimonies of growth and unity in the face of opposition. One after the other, pastors shared similar stories and we came to realize that their numbers in the country had tripled during the chaos of a pandemic and a military coup.

At this point, we felt it was important to remind these pastors that they have brothers and sisters around the world who are praying for them and who have similar stories of God’s faithfulness in the midst of suffering. My husband, Dave, took the time to share about the global network of Mennonite churches and the Anabaptist heritage that we held in common. During the next few days, we told stories from our history about church reformers who became fugitives among their

people because they chose obedience to Jesus rather than conforming to religious rituals. We talked about how Jesus taught us to be merciful just as God was merciful, and to love our enemies. We told stories of those who were so inspired by that command that they refused to fight in the military. We told the story of a man named Dirk Willems, a sixteenth century Anabaptist who turned back to rescue the soldier who was chasing him, when the soldier fell through the ice. Upon being recaptured, Willems was tortured and killed for his faith.

Dave also explained how this movement stayed alive as a network of small house churches where the Bible was read and disciples were made by the power of the Holy Spirit. Even though thousands were martyred, the churches kept growing and the movement thrived.

After listening to numerous stories from Anabaptist history, one of the pastors said,

“Teacher, these stories are our stories. This testimony is our testimony. We encounter the same opposition from our people and from the military, but we keep following Jesus and our churches keep growing.”

Then our lead pastor stood up and said, “Ethnic groups within our nation have been fighting against each other for decades. When will the killing end? What do we have to show for it? I want the Holy Spirit to rest on us just like the Holy Spirit rested on the Anabaptists and gave them courage. Jesus laid down his life for us and told us that we should be prepared to lay down our lives for others. This is how we will win our nation for Christ, not by picking up guns, but by demonstrating the love and humility of Jesus.”

When Dave and I heard our pastor’s challenge to his leaders, we were stunned. We knew that the Holy Spirit was leading this emerging MB conference of churches forward with the same purpose and joy of the radical sixteenth century Anabaptists.

As I think about these church leaders in Southeast Asia, this is my prayer for the rest of us:

Lord Jesus, you said, ‘If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.’ Father, loving our enemies is so hard! Yet we believe that your grace can empower us to live above the chaos of war and hatred. We ask you to send us, your laborers, into the harvest with a powerful, forgiving, and merciful love. Amen.

Training Pastors Together

PHILIPPINES | Mark J.H. Klassen

“Our church leaders sorely needed training, and we were asking God for a way to meet this need,” said Sam Arcaño, leader of the MB conference of churches in the Philippines. “Many of our pastors have no opportunity to go to Bible school or seminary. Many have other jobs so they can provide for their families, and they can’t leave them to attend formal training. Despite these limitations, they have responded to the call of God, and they serve as leaders in their churches.”

In 2018, Arcaño first encountered the course called Missional Leadership Training (see facing page for a brief description). After he completed the first two modules, he was immediately convinced that MLT was the answer to their prayers and could help provide the support and encouragement that pastors within his network really needed.

ministry training in their context. So, we developed MLT, but it was in the Philippines that we actually first taught it.”

It was in 2018, in a place called Bayombong, that Regional Team Leader, Bob Davis, and ICOMB Liaison, Vic Wiens, facilitated the teaching of Module 1: “Knowing God” for thirty-five eager participants, including Arcaño. Heidebrecht returned in the fall of 2019 to teach Module 2: “Following Jesus.” After that, Arcaño realized the potential in MLT and committed himself to teaching it among his network of pastors and church planters.

“My first step was to visit my twin brother, Jonathan, in Palawan, another island in the Philippines,” said Arcaño. “He was also a pastor and was a part of a growing fellowship of churches and church leaders. I offered to teach the first module of MLT in 2019, and seven pastors showed up as the first participants.”

“It was a great start,” said Heidebrecht, “and we were excited about Sam’s keen leadership. That first group of participants was very enthusiastic in their response to the training, and they were eager for more. Unfortunately, COVID quickly brought a stop to Sam’s plans to teach Module 2.”

“I saw how effective the training was for leading us into a real grounding in the Scriptures, and at the same time developing a missional mindset for our leaders and churches,” said Arcaño. “I became so convinced of the value of this course that I kind of volunteered myself to be a local trainer.”

According to Doug Heidebrecht, who leads a team developing this unique non-formal training, the idea for MLT was born in Africa where churches were growing so fast and leaders desperately needed to be trained. “We received a request from Safari Mutabeshi, the MB church leader in Malawi,” said Heidebrecht. “Safari asked for help with training church leaders who had no access to biblical or

It wasn’t until the summer of 2021 that Sam was able to return to Palawan. When he did, he was thrilled to see that the enthusiasm of the church leaders had not died down. In fact, word had spread. “More than forty pastors and church leaders came to join my teaching of Module 2,” said Arcaño, “and afterward there was a request to hold another session for Module 1. I happily obliged, and about sixty new participants came to join for that training.”

One of the new participants told Arcaño: “Many of us have received some form of training before, but MLT is what we need. It gives us solid training that is based on what the Bible teaches.”

Arcaño gives praise to God for how local church leaders are being transformed through this training. He’s

became so convinced of the value of this course that I kind of volunteered myself to be a local trainer.”

currently working on translating the modules into Tagalog, the local Filipino language. Most of all, he loves watching the eyes of pastors open as they experience the wealth and depth of the Bible embodied in each module. “It’s so encouraging to see them having their ‘aha’ moments,” he said, “and hearing comments like, ‘I have not seen it that way before.’”

What is MLT?

Missional Leadership Training (MLT) is an eighteenmodule course that is being used to train local leaders to serve and equip the global church to live on mission. On behalf of the International Community of Mennonite Brethren (ICOMB), the training is being developed through a partnership between Multiply and the MB Seminary. Those who complete the course will receive recognition from the MB Seminary for Certificates in each of the three main areas of training: Discipleship Foundations, Ministry Equipping, and Leadership Development. MLT is currently being translated into ten languages!

“Sam is currently back in Palawan teaching Modules 3, 4, and 5,” said Heidebrecht, who is encouraged by his co-worker’s sincere commitment to serving pastors. “He’s grateful for the opportunity to help these servants of God become more effective in their ministry. Teaching MLT has become a part of Sam’s ministry not only for the MB family of churches, but also for the wider body of Christ in the Philippines.”

GIVE

Help train global church leaders by contributing to the costs of this unique training course. To give, go to multiply.net/mlt

Investing in Pastors: MLT in the Philippines in October 2019. Doug Heidebrecht is seated in the front row, second to left, and Sam Arcaño is seated beside him to the right.

“It’s so encouraging to see them having their ‘aha’ moments,” he said, “and hearing comments like, ‘I have not seen it that way before.’”

Karen

& Amanda Thompson

Teamwork in Dortmund

GERMANY | Mark J.H. Klassen

A new church in Dortmund was a bold vision. The German city was known as a place where churches were in steep decline. However, it was that need that stirred the hearts of Johann Matthies and Heinrich Rempel, Multiply leaders in Europe. In 2017, they began casting their vision among churches in Germany and in the Multiply network worldwide. Gradually, a team began to form.

Alex Suderman and his wife, Carla, had been pastoring for more than ten years in Ontario, Canada, but they sensed that God was calling them overseas. “Dortmund was attractive to us,” said Alex, “because, after serving in a well-established church for a decade, we loved the idea of being in a city where there was an evident need for churches. But we didn’t know German, and we didn’t have a team.”

In 2018, the Sudermans completed their long-term missionary training with Multiply and arrived in Dortmund in early 2019 to begin learning German and adapting to the culture. They were quickly joined by a young German couple, Benni and

Franzi Hermann, who had also completed long-term training with Multiply and were waiting on God for a church planting assignment.

Early on, the two families met together in their homes for mutual support and in separate small groups for outreach. “We needed church for ourselves,” Alex explained, “but we were also busy getting to know people in Dortmund. Benni and Franzi started an Alpha group, and Carla and I started a Bible study with people we met in our German classes.”

Soon after, another German couple, Walter and Ina Reimer, joined the team. The Reimers had been with Multiply in Berlin, but their team had recently disbanded. “We didn’t have the best experience in Berlin,” said Walter. “We were there for seven years, and we did not plant a church. We talked a lot about it— about strategy, about models—but it just did not happen.”

The Reimers did not know what to expect in Dortmund, but they were very clear about what they felt God was asking of them. “Ina and I knew we wanted to be a part of a new church and to see people meet Jesus. We knew we didn’t want to do that alone, but we also felt that God was not calling us into full-time ministry.”

In July 2019, the Reimers arrived in Dortmund and Walter found a job as a teacher in the local school system. The team had expanded to six adults. Questions remained, but momentum was building.

The team continued to gather in their homes. One day, the Hermanns received an unexpected call from someone looking for a church. The person on the phone explained, “My friend in another city just accepted Jesus and they want the same for me. They told me about your church in Dortmund. Have you started it yet?”

The man on the phone was going through a difficult season in his life. His marriage had fallen apart, and he was separated

Together in mission: Franzi, Benni, Walter, Ina, Johanna, Davina, Carla and Alex.

from his wife and child. But he had recalled his childhood in the church and begun to explore his faith in Jesus again.

“In our small group, that man asked us to pray for his marriage,” remembered Walter. “It looked so impossible but praying for the impossible gave us all hope.”

The team watched together as God answered those prayers, and then they continued to watch as God brought more and more people into their lives, and into their church.

Before long, two others joined the team: Johanna Neudorf, a native German speaker from Paraguay who had been working with Multiply not too far away in Neuwied, and Davina Rempel, a German and former TREK BC participant who chose to pursue studies in Occupational Therapy in Dortmund so she could be a part of the new church.

By 2020, the team in Dortmund consisted of eight adults and the fledgling church had outgrown their homes. However, just as the team decided to rent a space that could accommodate the expanding congregation, COVID-19 descended on the world, and everything slowed down.

“Things were moving quickly before the pandemic,” said Alex, “and so it was hard to lose that momentum. But, in the end, I think COVID was actually very useful to us as a team, because it slowed us down and made us ask some good questions, like ‘How are we going to do this together?’”

One of the questions had to do with leadership structure. At first, Alex was asked to take the lead, since he had the most experience as a pastor. But it became evident to the team, including Alex and Carla, that they still needed time and energy to learn language and culture, and to help their four children adapt to the new context. “It wasn’t easy to give that up,” said Alex, “but it was completely necessary.”

The decision was an example of how their team and church would continue to function. “The Sudermans were very humble in how they embraced this change,” said Walter, who was asked to lead. “They laid down their positions willingly for the sake of the team and the new church.”

“As roles changed,” Alex said, “it was critical that our mission be clear. Despite some bumps along the way, our team always had the same goal: to make disciples of Jesus and plant a church. There was never an argument about this. Of course, it also helped to have teammates who were humble, gifted, and striving to be like Jesus.”

As Walter stepped into the formal role of pastor, the other team members found their places, filling roles as needed. Regular meetings of the leadership became necessary to

clarify direction and re-affirm roles, especially for Walter and Alex. “I know he is fully committed to me, and I am fully committed to him,” said Walter. “We meet often to share our thoughts, our wisdom. We talk about what’s working, and what’s not, and we say, yes, let’s keep moving forward.”

The team’s mission in Dortmund has kept them focused and unified. “It’s always a combination of togetherness and being on mission,” said Walter. “These two things have to work together. If it’s just about coming together and not about living missionally, it just doesn’t make sense.”

In the past three years, by God’s grace, a church has been born in Dortmund. The new community of believers is growing deep and strong. For the leadership team, they want to stay focused on the same flexibility that brought them thus far. “As we grow, we have to involve new people in different ways, in different aspects of the ministry,” Walter said. “Continued growth requires that leaders give away their responsibilities to others.”

The team is also very aware of their broader network. “At every level, we feel the support of our extended spiritual family,” said Walter, “from other churches nearby, our global MB family, our Multiply leaders, and our sending churches. We are not alone.”

This experience of united teamwork is also what gives the team confidence as they think about multiplication. “We want to expand the team and expand our vision for church planting in Germany and beyond,” Alex made clear. “We’ve experienced something here that we believe is worth multiplying.”

GO

Is God calling you to join a church-planting team in Germany? To learn more about current service opportunities, go to multiply.net/serve or speak with a Regional Mobilizer today at 1.888.866.6267.

Edier Follows Jesus

MEXICO | Mark J.H. Klassen

“I remember when we first interviewed him,” said Jen Schmidt, one of the leaders of the HADIME discipleship program at the Matthew Training Center in Guadalajara, Mexico, “he told us he was a follower of Jesus. But we weren’t sure if he really understood what that meant.”

The young man in question was Edier from Colombia. At the time, he was nineteen years old, and very young in his understanding of God. “I wondered what God wanted to do in his life,” said Jen. “When we prayed as a leadership team, we all agreed that we wanted to extend an invitation to Edier to come to Mexico and participate in HADIME 2020.”

At the time, Jen and the others at the Matthew Training Center had no idea what this would mean for Edier and his parents. They did know that Edier’s grandfather was a pastor and conference leader among MB churches in Colombia, but it seemed that Edier was on a different path, and they did not know about his parents.

“Within the first month of HADIME, as the other students shared their stories,” Jen recalled, “God was clearly at work in Edier’s life. He was learning about spiritual disciplines and what it really meant to follow Jesus.”

Then, one day, Edier approached the leaders and was honest with them about his own faith journey. “He told us very plainly that he didn’t know God,” Jen said. “He realized that he hadn’t been walking a life of obedience and surrender to the Lord, that he hadn’t ever truly given his life to the Lord.”

So, he did. Still at the beginning of his discipleship program, Edier surrendered his heart to Jesus and began his own journey of obedience.

“It was a beautiful moment for all of us,” said Jen. “We feel so privileged to have witnessed this turning point in Edier’s life. For those of us who know him, he is such a kind,

generous, and sincere young man. Now we see him growing in his heart to serve others and to live out the calling that God has placed on his life.”

Edier knew that his decision to follow Jesus was also a decision to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather. It was actually his grandfather who had originally told Edier about HADIME.

At the end of the discipleship program, Edier made plans to return to Colombia and be with his parents. However, it was during the pandemic, so it was not an easy time to travel internationally. Eventually, he found an opening on a humanitarian flight and traveled home.

“We were glad to hear that he made it back to Colombia,” said Jen. “Because of his time away and all the uncertainty of COVID, we knew that his parents would be thrilled to have their only child at home with them again.”

After the family was reunited for a time, Edier’s parents, Didier and Sandra, were deeply impacted by the transformation that they saw in their son’s life. In fact, his life change made them think about their own lives. Didier had served for many years in the Colombian police force and was now retired. He and his wife had time on their hands, and they were asking God what they should do for the next season of life.

“I began receiving messages from Sandra,” said Jen, “asking about whether they could possibly come as volunteers to the Matthew Training Center. It was at a time when COVID was still causing some issues for international travel, but as we prayed and talked about the idea of them volunteering, the excitement grew.”

During the time that Edier was a student in Guadalajara, he had seen various people come from different places to volunteer their time and energy at the Matthew Training Center. They often came to serve in some practical ways

What happens when parents follow their children? After Edier (right) met Jesus afresh at the Matthew Training Center, his parents (Didier and Sandra) followed him there and began a new phase of their own discipleship journey with Jesus.

around the property or in the kitchen. It was Edier who planted this seed in his parent’s hearts.

Finally, in November 2021, the whole family arrived at the Matthew Training Center as volunteers: Didier and Sandra, as well as Edier.

“I quickly realized the value of this family,” Jen recalled, “their gifts of service, logistical and practical help, media work, and creative problem solving. Our center was so blessed by their presence with us.”

The family committed themselves as volunteers for six months, with an openness to extend their stay. However, before long, something changed.

During this season, Sandra and Didier experienced something significant in their own relationships with God. As they lived in this spiritually vibrant community and witnessed the dynamic change in the lives of other HADIME participants, they began to seek after God in a new way and they experienced healing in their hearts of past hurts. Instead of continuing as volunteers, they asked whether they could themselves become HADIME participants. Although they would be older than other participants and at a different life stage, they felt the invitation from God to join the program.

“I love how God calls families in such creative ways to himself and to his purposes,” said Jen. “Sandra, Didier and Edier all have their own journeys of faith. They each have their own callings to live out. But right now, they are serving and learning together as a family, and I am confident that God will continue to reveal his plan to them.”

PRAY/GIVE

Pray for families in mission and for generations of disciples and disciple makers. Edier and his family are part of an intricate web of togetherness in mission. Edier’s grandfather, Manuel Mosquera, was discipled in Colombia by long-term Multiply missionaries, Trever and Joan Godard, who eventually transitioned to Mexico where they started the Matthew Training Center and HADIME, where Edier and his parents were discipled by disciples of Trever and Joan. Who are you discipling?

Help cover costs for HADIME participants like Edier, Didier, and Sandra by contributing to the Matthew Training Center at multiply.net/mtc

Vic Wiens

For me and my wife, Marty, the end of August marked the end of a major portion of our missionary journey. In August 1982, we were sent by Butler MB Church in Fresno, California, via MBMS (Mennonite Brethren Missions and Services), on a three-year mission to São Paulo, Brazil. Forty years later, after serving in almost as many countries, I look back and marvel at the amazing grace of God. Truly he has been our faithful Helper and watched over our comings and goings (Psalm 121). While my life journey is not over, and I expect to continue living on mission, it seems timely to offer some reflections, both personal and collective. I have done so below by way of an acrostic, using the letters of the word together.

Tis for training. Marty and I met on the campus of Fresno Pacific University. We were mentored by godly professors. As missionaries, our agency leaders twice granted us extended study leaves for further formal studies. During the last two decades, I have dedicated much time and energy to training workers in

Brazil and building mission capacity among our global MB conferences. I am convinced that training is a gift that God has given to us, and we as MBs must steward it faithfully. Paul encouraged Timothy to invest heavily in multiple generations of leaders (2 Timothy 2:2). As churches, and as a mission agency, and as schools, we will do well to value training and continue together in preparing the next generation for mission and service.

Ois for ongoing renewal. My own spiritual journey is filled with the influence of renewal movements: growing up as MB, Jesus People, Charismatic, Torchbearers/Capernwray, and Promise Keepers. As individuals, families, local churches, and national conferences, we need to remain in the place of prayer and keep asking God, “Revive us again.” Note the “us” in that prayer. There is a place for seeking renewal in solitude, but in order to sustain individual renewal, we need to come together to “spur each other on to love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24).

Gis for the Great Commission. In the context of God’s mission expressed throughout Scripture, the Great Commission has been and should be a compass text. The one imperative in this multi-verb text is “make disciples.” This is our individual and collective call. In recent months at Multiply, we have reviewed our mission and once again landed on this clarion call— unashamedly, we are about making disciples! Yet the call was not to do it alone, but together. Jesus continues to send out teams of two, twelve, even seventy.

Eis for end time harvest. We spent twentyfive years in the megacity of São Paulo, with a population of more than twenty million. Almost daily, we mingled with the multitudes. Jesus’ attitude took on a new meaning, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless…” And now, as a missiologist, I see the billions of still unreached people, many with zero Gospel witness. Jesus’ prayer is more relevant than ever, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few… Ask the Lord of the harvest for workers” (Matthew 9:35-38). Again, the harvest is too big—we must do this together!

Tis for theology . Convictions matter. In my theological journey, I have been exposed to and enriched by multiple understandings of the Bible, the Church, and mission. Like a river, our MB movement has been enriched by some streams of non-MB renewal movements and now by younger churches joining us. I value what has been passed to me, beginning with the Anabaptist movement of the sixteenth century and then the MB renewal of the nineteenth century. I embrace both our North American and our global MB Confessions of Faith. Today, we face challenges to our theology and ethics from without and from within. Just as the apostles and elders of the Early Church gathered together in Jerusalem to discern theology and missiology (Acts 15), we too will need to face together similar challenges that come our way.

His for household of God. I believe in the Church. And I believe the Bible teaches that Church and mission belong together, even when specialized mission teams are sent out from churches (Acts 13). Over the years, Marty and I have often said that if we were to do our mission journey again, we would do it with the same agency, mostly because it is a church-based agency. We were sent to carry out a mission by the Church, through the Church, and unto the Church. We knew that we would gather new believers into our own local church. We knew that the new churches we planted would be gathered into a known and trusted family of churches. And now in my volunteer role as Equipping Coordinator for the

International Community of Mennonite Brethren (ICOMB), I know where to direct emerging networks of churches that are looking for a global family. Again, our mission under God is clear: we are to make disciples and plant churches.

Eis for the eleventh hour. I refer here to the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20). One application of this parable is that the missional workers from the global South (Africa, Asia, and Latin America) are called into the Lord’s harvest at a later hour in the modern era. However, they are just as needed, as valuable, and worthy of reward as workers from the global North (Western countries) that have dominated the mission enterprise since the eighteenth century. Today, almost half of long-term missionaries are from the global South. I have seen this shift happen, including excellent workers sent from our beloved Brazil, and I am grateful for it. Here too, from the West and from the rest, we must harvest together.

Ris for reaching nations . As MBs, our first foreign mission field was India (1889). India is one country that is made up of thousands of distinct nations! The word for “nations” in the Great Commission is ethne , which refers to ethnic/linguistic people groups. Therefore, we are not simply reaching out to geopolitical countries, but to people groups. The task seems enormous, yet we are reassured that it is God’s mission, and he will accomplish it. As Abraham’s spiritual offspring, let us remember we are blessed to be a blessing to the nations—these people groups near and far. Have faith and take courage that one day we will be gathered together before the throne, and together with an uncountable multitude of nations crying out, “Salvation belongs to our God” (Revelation 7:9-10).

As Marty and I conclude this phase of our mission journey, I am filled with hope for Multiply and for the global family of churches with which Multiply partners. I pray that we stay focused on our mission and faithful in our calling to togetherness.

Vic served as Interim General Director of Multiply until August 2022, when he retired from fulltime service. He and Marty will continue to live in Abbotsford, British Columbia as Vic serves in a volunteer role with ICOMB.