Meet The Missionaries
Our church supports 26 North American missionaries and seven national church planters in
24 different ministry areas around the world. We have an annual two-week Global Impact Conference.
We also have a ministry partnership with a local Hispanic church.
Let's meet some of them:
Lauren Becker - Serving with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Chico, CA
You may contact Lauren by email at lauren@beckeronline.net.
To learn more about YVAM, please visit the YVAM website.
Harry and Eileen Bettig — The Netherlands
Harry is Director of the Broadcast Department of Trans World Radio-Europe. All European
broadcast administration activities and information are directed through the broadcast
department so that cooperating broadcasters, national partners, and various language
departments are properly served in their broadcast, programming, and production needs. The
department is also involved in program scheduling, project development and coordination,
budgeting, reporting, and training. Besides overseeing these areas, other duties include
participating in and attending the regional management team meetings, providing monthly
reports to the European Regional Director, communicating with the various stations that
TWR uses, etc. Eileen volunteers part-time in office administration, editing missionary prayer letters, coordinating the welcome of new and returning team members, and writing articles for various TWR publications.
You may contact Harry and Eileen by email at ebettig@twr-europe.nl.
Norman and Gwen Bowman — Spain
Norman and Gwen Bowman, have served in Barcelona, Spain since 1982. They have
taught worship and music ministry at the Spanish Bible Institute, the Zaporozhye
Bible College, the Baptist Seminary in Kiev, and in seminars in numerous churches
and conferences in Spain. They have also worked with Romanian immigrants, men's
ministries, the 250-voice Barcelona Gospel Choir, and personal evangelism and
discipleship. Currently Norm and Gwen are focused on planting a new church in
Barcelona, the Barcelona Christian Community. Their passion is to reach the
post-modern and multicultural peoples in Catalunonia by teaching them to love God,
love others and follow Jesus. Among other things, this will involve leadership
training, personal mentoring and focused prayer. Norman and Gwen serve in Spain
through Global Outreach International, Tupelo, MS.
You may contact Norman by email at
NormanDBowman@gmail.com and you may
contact Gwen by email at GFBowman@gmail.com.
Aaron and Meredith DeRidder — Papua New Guinea
Meredith is a Jewish believer from Chicago. Aaron is from the West Michigan area. They
met at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Through video communications the Lord opened
the door for them to be involved in short term missions with New Tribes Mission. During
their short term commitment the Lord opened their eyes to the need for laborers among
indigenous isolated tribal groups. They began serving full time with New Tribes Mission in
August of 2002. The DeRidder's currently live and work among the Uriai language group in a
village called Wabuku. Wabuku is located in the West Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea
close to the West Papua (Irian Jaya) border. Their desire is to learn the culture and
language of the Uriai. Once this enormous task is completed they desire to present the
gospel chronologically and, Lord willing, see an indigenous Church established. Involved in
the process they also hope to translate the scriptures into the Uriai language and teach
the Uriai people how to read and write their own language.
To learn more about tribal evangelism and how you can be involved please visit the
New Tribes Mission website.
You may contact Aaron and Meredith by email at aaron-meredith_deridder@ntm.org.
Jason and Lisa Hovingh — Kenya, Africa
Jason grew up in Kenya and felt a call on his life to return to Kenya to use his gift of language and love for the Kenyan people to minister in whatever capacity God would call him. Lisa grew up in Holland MI not having felt that specific of a call other than full time ministry somehow somewhere. God has worked in both of their hearts to bring them to Kenya to work at Rift Valley Academy. There they are dorm parents to ten 6th grade boys. They have grown to love and appreciate all of the children they have worked with as well as the wonderful families that have sacrificed much to spread the gospel of Jesus in Africa. God has stretched them and grown them through their process of loving children and their fellow staff members here.
A note from Jason and Lisa:
We thank Immanuel for their part in supporting our ministry here at RVA.
You may contact Jason and Lisa by email at jhovingh@yahoo.com.
Wayne and Esther Huhta — Elkhart, Indiana U.S.A.
Wayne and Esther started their ministry with HCJB World Radio began in 1975 as lay workers. In 1989 they became full-time
missionaries and were assigned to develop radio ministries along the US-Mexico Border. This involved
four years in South Texas and ten years in Southeast Arizona. While in Arizona, eight new FM
broadcast facilities were built reaching a potential Spanish speaking audience of almost three
million listeners on both sides of the border. In 2003, Wayne and Esther moved to Indiana to serve with the HCJB
World Radio Engineering Center in Elkhart, helping to supply broadcast transmitters and antennas to
partner ministries in 300 locations in more than 100 countries of the world.
You may contact Wayne and Esther by email at whuhta@hcjb.org.
The Jensen's — Serving in Asia
Mark and Melissa VanDerHulst — U.S.A.
Mark, Melissa, and their three girls — Julia, Jenna and Jessica — count it a
privilege to have been a part of the Immanuel leadership team in the
1990's. After being a senior pastor in Ohio for four years, God gave them a
passion for church planting. They have joined with church planters, Jim and
Natalie Eaton, at Mosaic Church in Frederick, MD. Frederick is a growing
suburb of our nation's capital. Mosaic seeks to be a church that is a place
where people of all backgrounds and experiences find love, acceptance, and a
deep sense of family through the power of God. It is missional in its focus,
diverse in its outreach and intentional in its relationships. Mark is
bi-vocational, working with the church plant and a full time job, until
such time as he is able to be fully supported by Mosaic church.
For more
information about Mosaic, please visit their website: www.mosaicmaryland.com.
You can contact Mark and Melissa by email at mark.a.vdh@mosaicmaryland.com or
melvdh@comcast.net.
Kurt, Rochelle, Kayla and Anna zurBurg — Ukraine
Kurt and Rochelle are involved in both church planting and leadership training in the country of Ukraine. They are
seeking to plant churches by training church planters and train church planters by planting churches.
Their initiative is focused in the southern port city Odessa, with the goal of sending Ukrainian church
planters to regions and countries throughout the Former Soviet Union.
You may contact Kurt, Rochelle, Kayla and Anna by email at krzurburg@yahoo.com.