Missionary Spotlight: Bill and Marion Baldwin - Greece

Bill and Marion work with Greater Europe Mission in Greece.

Bill was born in St. Louis, Missouri and moved to Houston, Texas when he was 15. In college his room-mate invited him to church and there he made a public confession of his faith. After college, with a BS in Religion he attended Moody Bible Institute for one year and then Dallas Seminary where he received his MTh. While at seminary he met Bob Evans, founder of Greater Europe Mission and felt that GEM's thrust of starting Bible Colleges all over Europe was a wise idea. For some reason God placed Greece on Bill’s heart. GEM expected all candidates to attend Missionary Internship, a 7-month training program for would-be missionaries in Detroit, which is where Bill & Marion met.
Marion was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She graduated from Toronto Bible College and then became a registered nurse before going to Missionary Internship.
Bill served as youth pastor at West Chicago Bible church for one year after their marriage and then a year later, having raised their support Bill & Marion left for Greece with a very simple job description: start a Bible Institute. So....that's what they did....and therein lies a LONG story of learning a language, gaining the trust of the Greek evangelicals, finding a 'home' for the Greek Bible Institute, finding teachers and students and the money to pay for it all....GOD HAS BEEN FAITHFUL. Bill has taught all the Theology courses at the Bible college, Marion used to teach a course to young women, but now does the book-keeping for the college for Greater Europe Mission.
Today the director of the college is their son Jeff. The graduates are pastors of the majority of the Greek Evangelical churches in Greece. They head up most para-church organizations in Greece, and are also serving as missionaries.
Bill and Marion’s four children have all married Greeks and 2 of them are also missionaries with GEM in Greece. Thank God they are all committed Christians, married to people from committed Christian homes. They also have 11 grand-children.
Bill & Marion first heard of First Presbyterian church in Jackson, Mississippi when their then pastor, Don Patterson, asked Bill to lead a tour group he was bringing to Greece. Bill and Marion got a burden for Greece and even sent Van and Alice Rusling to Greece to work with the GEM team for a few years. Van actually taught Marion her job!
Please pray for Bill and Marion as they serve in Greece.

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Missionary Spotlight: Jay and Maureen Kyle - New York

Jay is currently the Coordinator of Intercultural Church Planning in New York City for the Redeemer Church Planting Center.
He coordinates church plants in large Asian global cities, and directs the China Partnership. Jay and Maureen previously worked with Wycliffe Bible Translators and founded the short-term missions program for Missions to the World. They served with MTW in Mexico City for fifteen years. Jay and Maureen both attended Belhaven College here in Jackson, and Jay later attended Reformed Theological Seminary. They have three children.

Prayer Requests:

Pray for a quick recovery for their son Jeff who recently had neck surgery.

Pray for Jay as he leads a seminar on East Asia at the PCA Global Mission Conference in November.

Pray for safety as they travel back and forth from New York to Asia.
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Missionary Spotlight ~ Bruce and Barbara Wannemacher, South Africa

Bruce and Barbara grew up in northern Illinois and met in elementary school. They both became Christians through a campus ministry at college and married before their senior year. After graduation Bruce attended graduate school, earning a master’s degree. He then served as a U.S. Army officer in the Medical Service Corps.
Desiring to serve in cross-cultural missions after military service, Bruce and Barbara pursued Bible training at Covenant Theological Seminary. They both graduated in 1998; Bruce with an M. Div. degree and Barbara with an M.A. in general theological studies. During their seminary years, God confirmed their desire to serve cross-culturally through short-term missionary opportunities in England, Jordan, and Africa.
Bruce is on staff at the Bible Institute of South Africa in Cape Town, teaching and discipling African students and pastors throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Barbara is actively involved with discipling Bible college women and works off-campus teaching Bible at a local primary school.
Bruce and Barbara have two grown children.

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Missionary Spotlight ~ John and Kathy Lesondak, Slovakia

The Lesondaks are Mission to the World missionaries in Trnava, Slovakia. Their work began in 1997 when they arrived at Trnava University to oversee Covenant College’s studies abroad program. It was a real pioneering ministry. The mission work began with English classes, children’s clubs, Bible studies, and eventually at their ministry center known as “The Building”, a church was born. Previously they served with MTW in Seychelles Islands, in Kenya and in Prague, Czechoslovakia. John and Kathy have six children, with the youngest about to graduate from high school.

Prayer requests:
Due to the devaluation of the dollar they need to raise over $2,000 more a month before they can return to the field.
Pray that the plans to expand their work in Slovakia would go forward.
Pray for personnel and funds to match the vision for the ministry.

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Rick and Terri Herr, North Carolina

Rick and Terri have been with Wycliffe for over 27 years. They are currently both directors with Wycliffe in Waxhaw, North Carolina. Rick manages the JAARS (Jungle Aviation and Radio Services) Facilities Maintenance Department, and Terri directs the MK Station (morning preschool for missionary kids). Rick and Terri have two teenagers Ben (17) and Maria (14).
They were in Colombia, South America before returning to the United States. Rick and Terri are currently waiting on the Lord for their next overseas assignment. Until then, Terri and Rick are both fulfilled in their current assignments and feel the important part they have in Bible translation here in America.
Last year, JAARS Center hosted a Dedication Celebration for the Gullah People of South Carolina and Georgia. The Gullah People are a group of African Americans who are from slave ancestry from West Africa and who have developed their own Creole dialect and culture. God’s Word speaks to them more clearly in the Gullah language and Wycliffe have teamed with believers from that group and have finished the New Testament.

Prayer Requests:
For wisdom in parenting two teenagers.
For more who would partner with them in prayer and giving.
Pray for daily strength and endurance.
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Missionary Spotlight ~ Al and Wini Baker- Hartford, Connecticut

Al and Wini Baker moved to Hartford, CT in September, 2003 after serving the Golden Isles Presbyterian Church, St. Simons Island, GA, for over ten years. Al sensed God’s call to a challenging field, and answered the call of the Southern New England Presbytery to plant a church in West Hartford. Starting with a core group of eight families, Christ Community Presbyterian Church was particularized in June, 2006 and now has sixty families attending. The plans include a multi-site expansion in the spring of 2008 with hopes of planting several more churches in Connecticut in the next several years.

Prayer Requests-

1) Please pray for the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to convert the lost and to bless the preaching and evangelistic ministry of our church

2) Please pray for God’s direction and provision for a new location for our original church, since the building in which we have been meeting for four years will soon be unavailable

3) Please pray for God’s direction and blessing on expanding our church planting efforts in Connecticut.

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Clay and Darlene Quarterman, Odessa Ukraine

In 1993 the Quartermans were called to Ukraine in the former Soviet Union. They were on the ground floor, helping start a denomination of seven new Presbyterian churches and founding the Evangelical Reformed Seminary of Ukraine. Clay is president of the seminary, which in 2003 had grown to 42 students.
Clay earned two degrees at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, receiving his M.Div. in 1977 and his Doctor of Ministries in 1986. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wales in 2005. He is ordained as an evangelist and teaching elder. The Quartermans served 14 years on MTW’s Portugal Team, where Clay planted churches, taught Bible college, and helped organize a school of missions and a branch of Evangelism Explosion. He is one of the founders of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Portugal.
Clay and Darlene were reared in Christian homes and came to Christ at an early age, having an early interest in missions. They are from Presbyterian churches in Jackson, MS and Hopewell, VA, and met at Belhaven College in Jackson. Their first date was to a missions conference. They married in 1973 and have four children, Matt (27), Nate (25), Tyler (21) and Alex (19).
Please pray for the Lord’s protection over the Quarterman Family.
The ownership of the Odessa church is being questioned in court. Pray as the Actor’s Guild in Odessa files an appeal over the case against the rights of ownership to the church building, a historic Reformed building downtown.

Pray for wisdom and skill in mobilizing and training leaders in Ukraine.

Pray for growing pastors with hearts for missions.
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Missionary Spotlight: Craig and Lisa in Bulgaria.

Craig and Lisa Sheppard have been serving the Lord with Mission to the World in Sofia, Bulgaria since 1996, where he serves as a church planter, seminary instructor, publisher, and founding board member for the Sofia Christian Academy. As the MTW Regional Director for Eastern Europe, Craig is also tasked with overseeing the ministries of more than 65 missionaries in five countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Ukraine), as well as developing new church planting works in other Eastern Europe countries (such as Russia, Greece, Latvia, Croatia, and Belarus).
Craig is from Wichita, Kansas and Lisa is from St. Louis, Missouri. They served together in university ministry for four years before Craig attended Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. There he earned a Master of Divinity degree in Missions, and a Master of Theology degree in Theology. While in seminary, Craig served on the staff of the First Presbyterian Church as the Director of College Ministry. He is ordained in the Heartland Presbytery of the PCA. They have four sons and a daughter (Jared, 16; Nathan, 14; Luke, 11; Andrew, 8; and Abigail, 6).
They are still missing four bags from their trip back to Bulgaria. Please be in prayer that their luggage is found soon and that the bags would arrive and arrive in good condition.

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Sweden News

David and Stacy, Sweden

David grew up in Skelleftea, Sweden. He came to know the Lord after a semester of high school in the States. The dry spiritual climate in Sweden led him to return back to the states and he received a BA in Christian philosophy from Belhaven College in Jackson, MS. David attended Reformed Theological Seminary. While in the U.S., David and several Swedish students met to pray for Sweden. During this time, David began to seek God’s will for him to be a pastor. He is currently a local Swedish pastor in his home country, where less than 4 % of the population attends church.
Stacy was raised in Atlanta, GA. After being saved at a young age, she has grown continually in the Lord. Stacy has always been actively involved in the church and started contemplating world missions as a result of numerous short mission trips, as well as one year trip to Moscow, Russia. David and Stacy were married in May of 1998.
David and Stacy have been a part of the first Reformed church planting movement in Sweden. The Evangelical-Reformed Church in Sweden is now a recognized denomination. Moreover, the team’s vision includes the publication of Reformed literature, campus ministry, sports ministry, and children’s ministry.
David and Stacy have two children Miriam Hannah Elizabeth (5) and Samuel (1).
Please be in prayer for David as he has committed to be in Stockholm once a month to teach at the “Westminster Fellowship”; a group of reformed believers without a local Reformed congregation. Pray also for the change of schedule for the family.
Please pray for young Samuel Bergmark as he may be developing asthma.
Please pray for Samuel as doctors examine his head. One side of Samuel’s head has a slight bulge that has not corrected itself as the doctors thought it would.
Please pray for David as he has moved his office to a more central location and wants to make the best out of the new situation. He hopes for more opportunities to minister to his church members and other in the neighborhood in which the church is located.
They want to thank you, FPCJ, for your faithfulness to them in your prayers and for supporting a sister church.

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Those Final Few Points

I seem to have 'caught' one trait from my time at FPCJ - announcing a proposed seven final points with five minutes to go. I got through four, and a couple of you asked if I would make the other three available. Here is the complete list of seven.

I was trying to demonstrate that in the very activity of prayer, God is at work in changing us. To that end, I had seven ways in which God changes us through prayer. Here is the complete list:
1. Prayer grows our faith.
2. Prayer reinforces right attitudes (it's harder to be discontent when you have vibrant prayers of thanksgiving)
3. Prayer is inherently humbling (praying for the things we seem to be able to provide for ourselves [i.e. our daily bread] is a good reminder that we are not self-sufficient)
4. Prayer grows our love for others (try to remain at odds with someone and yet pray down God's blessings upon them)
5. Prayer edifies others who hear and see you praying. Some of the best times of my week are the Wednesday prayer meeting, the prayer time at staff meeting, and other times when we are corporately engaged in the business of prayer. Such times do my soul immense good.
6. Prayer is a natural sin retardant (it is hard to cling to a pet sin when you are in the business of confessing it over and over again).
7. Prayer grows our love for God, for time spent with God is at least the equal of any other blessing we receive through prayer.
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