LONG-TERM WORKERS

Corders

Caucasus Region

B.C. and C.C. have been serving in the Caucasus region with RTIM since March 2020. They have been married 32 years and have 5 children—ages 18 to 6— with them on the field.

In March 2021, after a year of languagelearning and COVID lockdowns, God led B.C. and a national pastor to begin a ministry among an unreached, Middle Eastern people group that lived in Caucasus. The vision was simple: share the gospel, make disciples, plant a healthy church, and watch God change lives and raise up national leadership from within. This fellowship now has 16 committed people. B.C. spends his time learning the language of this unreached people group, leading various discipleship groups and Bible studies, and leading worship. C.C. ministers to others through hospitality, encouragement, and communication with the women.

This RTIM family’s sending church is Living Hope Baptist Church in Bowling Green, KY. Eight other churches support them monthly. These supports give, pray, and occasionally even send their own for the purpose of making disciples and providing prolonged trainings to help young local believers be rooted in the Word of God.

The political climate in this region is tense, which makes it increasingly challenging to minister to unreached people groups who live in Caucasus but are not from there. These people risk deportation. The government seems to grant fewer and fewer visas; foreigners seem to have access to fewer and fewer jobs. Prejudice is everywhere. Most have nowhere to turn. To return to their country of origin would likely mean imprisonment—or worse. But other countries won’t give them visas either. Recently, a businessman visited this RTIM family and discussed his expertise and eagerness to begin a business to assist with job opportunities, livelihood, and resident status for asylum seekers. Please pray for this opportunity. will speak at a three-day youth retreat for TCKs. Another theological training team will arrive the following month. In the summer, two female practicum students will serve alongside this family in their routine ministry for 6 weeks and participate in a weeklong summer camp for 11- to 14-year-old nationals.

The months ahead are busy and full of promise. B.C. and C.C. are preparing for the arrival of a team who will participate in evangelistic outreach and lead theological training. Next month, B.C.

As a platform for their ministry, C.C. serves in a private school that uses Christian curriculum. She works as an assistant administrator and English communication teacher. The student body has students from 17 different countries, nine of which are Muslim. B.C. serves as a member of the school board.

Roots

Oaxaca, Mexico

We are the Root family and Oaxaca, Mexico has been our home for nearly 8 years. There are 8 of us plus a cat and a dog. The Lord called us to Oaxaca after completing 2 years of missions training and theological education in South Texas. Oaxaca is rugged mountainous state located in the far south of Mexico. We serve in Oaxaca because it’s unique in that it’s one of the most under reached areas of Mexico. It’s also the most linguistically and culturally diverse state in Mexico with some 16 different language families. Inside those families are many more mutually unintelligible dialects and of course significant cultural differences between the people who speak these languages. Historically this cultural and linguistic diversity has been a barrier to the rapid spread of the gospel in Oaxaca, which is why there is still great need for missionary efforts in Oaxaca even in 2023. Those realities were the primary impulse and motivation to go to Oaxaca and are why we are continuing here today.

Brethren Reformed Church, our sending church located in Brookville, Ohio, has been a faithful partner in this ministry for nearly decade. From the beginning of our conversations about missions in 2012 they’ve stood with us through faithful love, care and support. Our stateside times are always encouraging and their faithful prayers and check-ups on our family are undoubtedly what have brought us through the fog of discouragement and uncertainty that can so often be a part of the missionary experience.

The ministry that God has given us here has evolved into a mission strategy centered on the local church. God allowed us to integrate into a church plant that had begun about a year before we arrived in Oaxaca City in 2016. I soon became involved in teaching and preaching in and since 2018 have been serving as one of the Pastors. Heidi has taught Sunday school in the children’s ministry from the beginning & we’ve led the ministry to the youth group the last few years as well.

We’ve seen God work in an amazing way in our years there, to essentially rewrite the ecclesiological DNA of this Church. Today our church (Comunidad Gracia Redentora) is one of the very few churches in Oaxaca City, a city of 500,000 people, that embraces a theology with a high view of the sovereignty of God, plurality of elders, expositional preaching and intentionally gospel & Christ centered worship. It’s been a great blessing to be a part of seeing how God has worked to take a church that had some shaky theological foundations but was new enough so that those things weren’t set in stone, and granted the opportunity so that a new course could be set towards a more biblical direction.

Our prayer is that God would be pleased to use our church as platform to plant other healthy churches that would reach other remote regions of our state and to continue equipping church leaders. We also hope to serve as an influence, encouragement and even a model for other churches who are turning to, seeking and desiring sound doctrine and biblical worship.

Please pray for Mexico and for our state, Oaxaca and for the local churches here. It’s a wonderful place but one that faces many challenges. We are confident, though, that through the proclamation of the gospel, the faithful exposition of the scriptures the power of prayer light can continue penetrating darkness, souls can be saved, and healthy churches can be raised up.