South & Southeast Asia
Stan grew up in the U.S., and Bessie in the Philippines. They were married in 1989, a few years after Stan began serving with Resonate Global Mission (then Christian Reformed World Missions) in the Philippines. They worked together in the Philippines for over 15 years in a variety of ministries, including church planting, seminary and Bible college teaching, church planter training, and diaconal-stewardship ministry.
They recently spent two years in another Asian country, where they served in the English fellowship of a large congregation. They led a flourishing small group, trained small group leaders, and discipled new Christians. They were amazed by the receptivity of local people to the Gospel.
In 2014, Stan and Bessie returned to the Philippines, where Stan teaches in the missions department at the Asian Theological Seminary (ATS) in Manila. ATS is preparing over 200 students from various denominations and countries, to serve as pastors, youth leaders, missionaries, and workers among the urban poor.
We see potential for greater impact in Manila. As Stan teaches mission courses at ATS, he will be contributing to the growing number of Filipino evangelists and missionaries serving throughout the Philippines and in other countries. There will be abundant opportunities for Bessie to use her gifts as well, including training believers in Christian stewardship, which has become her passion.
Together, our passion is to see Christian leaders well-grounded in the Scriptures, effectively training others in understanding God’s Word and consistently applying it in all dimensions of their daily lives. Only
Jesus Christ can bring hope to Asia’s billions, so many of whom have not yet heard the Good News.
Rod and Tina Struiksma along with their five children moved to Rancho Santa Marta. Challenges abound, problems exist, negative attitudes persist but we can battle them all through the promises of the Word of God. We will continue to share what God is doing here at the ranch as we trust that you will continue to lift us up in prayer as you read about Bill and Kaye’s deputation trips, the school program and the different ways you can support Santa Marta financially.
Rancho Santa Marta is a non-denominational Evangelical Christian Ministry for at risk, abandoned, and special needs Mexican children. It is located on a 450-acre working ranch, about 66 miles south of Ensenada, in San Vicente, Baja California.
Rancho Santa Marta was established in February 1980 by Bill and Kaye Lawrence to help at risk and special needs /abandoned children learn personal and working responsibilities based on Christian principles. It is now managed by their son-in-law and daughter, Rod and Tina Struiksma.
The vision of Rancho Santa Marta is to not only provide food, clothes, a home, and medical care for these children, but to also provide an education, and most of all to give them the opportunity to know Jesus as their Savior.
We are a Christ-centered ministry based on Biblical truth.
Our primary goal is to operate as a Christ-centered ministry, reaching out to and changing the lives of “children at risk” in Mexico. We do this in our children’s home and our school by introducing them to the person of Jesus Christ and demonstrating His love to them. There are currently 45+ children in residence on the ranch and about 200+ students in our school. For many of our children, our ministry is their first experience with genuine love, trust and stability. There are many needs on the Ranch, and we welcome groups to come and serve alongside us. We are currently in need of an English teacher for our junior high students. If you have a heart to serve, please contact us for more information.
Beacon of Light
Jun 2018 –Present
Costa Mesa, CA
Our mission is to help educate teens regarding their sexual health: to guide them towards healthy decision-making based on the most current medical and scientific data, with the goal of preventing both the physical and emotional consequences of having sex at a young age.
We speak to over 10,000 teens in Orange County a year, talking about the real consequences of treating sex casually. Beacon of Light provides a perspective not often heard through the media and popular society, but one that offers hope and support for making wise choices today, safeguarding their future.
Amber started her career in medical sales with a startup company at the age of 19. Over a ten year span, she helped grow the company from 4 to 200 employees and saw revenue increase to over $15 million a year. In 2014, Amber found her passion for helping teens and young women in crisis. Starting as a volunteer and teen coach at local nonprofits, she quickly moved into permanent positions, honoring her expertise in fundraising, marketing, donor relations, community outreach, recovery, education, and prevention programs. She joined Fran in the spring of 2016 with a laser-focused mission, a love for young people, and a keen eye for the prevention side of crisis pregnancy.
Amber is currently residing in Huntington Beach with her husband and their two beautiful teen daughters. As the current, Executive Director she is poised to lead Beacon through its next major expansion, as the leading provider of balanced sexual health and integrity education programs, parent and teen support services, industry research, and teacher training.
Hello, my name is Brooke, and I am living in Madrid, Spain. The focus of our team is to develop youth ministry in the local church and to help those youth reach out to the unsaved youth around them. Only 1 in 100 Spaniards are evangelical Christian, whereas in the States 1 in 4 people are evangelical Christian. This leaves the youth in the evangelical church in Spain feeling very alone in their faith.
In my local Church I have been able to serve as a middle school youth group leader, participate in small groups and Bible studies with high school girls, and mentor several girls. In Madrid, I spent a year living in the Discipleship House, and now I am helping to serve there in various ways. The Discipleship House hosts short-term missionaries from all over the world together with Spanish youth who are looking for God’s calling on their lives.
God also opened the doors for me to serve with the Federation of Independent Evangelical Churches of Spain (FIEIDE—Spain’s delegation within the IFFEC), as the assistant to the directors of MisiónPosible, a national youth conference with an emphasis in missions and evangelism. Through this opportunity, I am able to use my administrative and detail-oriented gifting in planning, while supporting, training, and mobilizing youth and youth leaders.
Through all these opportunities I have been able to connect with youth from all over the country to create friendships and mentorships. My heart and passion is to come alongside the youth of Spain to support them in becoming the best examples of Christ they can be and in sharing the gospel around the world!
For a variety of reasons, Nigeria often views its school teachers just a notch or so above unskilled laborers, and rarely as leaders. Communities yearn for effective instruction and godly models.
Nigeria’s school age population exceeds the combined total of MI, IN, IL, WI, & MN. In Nigeria’s south, “Christian” schools outnumber public. The north is mainly Muslim.
Mark trains teams of local school teachers as in-service leaders for their local colleagues. The Educational Care (EC) training program is used to address root needs.
Meshing lessons and management with biblical worldview is benefiting administrators and teachers. In EC, action planning is used to practice concepts and skills.
Teachers’ thinking expands. Observers are telling about visible improvements at school. Godly truth is linking subjects to life. Teachers are crafting lessons that develop student gifts. Biblical integration is improving student achievement.
Anne is Superintendent for Hillcrest’s elementary, middle and high schools.
Internationally respected, Hillcrest School was founded in 1942 for the children of missionaries. Now, 75 years later, both Hillcrest’s staff and students are more international. Anne is helping Hillcrest chart a course for godly stewardship and witness for the next 75 years. Hillcrest provides rigorous Christian education for international and Nigerian families that work in missions and other professions. Its graduates are making a difference in government, business, churches, and military, in Nigeria and worldwide.
Mark and Anne are both grateful to be serving in education in Nigeria.
In 2009, I went to Argentina on a study abroad program. I was so challenged and transformed by that experience that I asked my advisor if I could fit in another study abroad program, which ultimately led me to Costa Rica. These experiences challenged my prejudices, expanded my understanding of Latin America, gave me access to theologies from the Global South that I was desperately hungering for, brought me closer to suffering and injustice and helped me open myself up to the Holy Spirit’s work in my life.
That’s when I fell in love with intercultural, transformative, holistic education.
In 2012 when I was a part of the impromptu pilot of the Cohort of Missioners, I knew we were on to something. This service-formation program for young adults had all the best parts of my study abroad experiences, but was even better because it was longer, involved hands on service and incorporated young adults from Central America as well as North America. It was enough time to realize that living in community isn’t always sexy and that solutions to communal or national problems are not going to be quick. Additionally, our group wasn’t just North Americans, speaking English and asking each other for the answers when we had a question. The group was North American and Central American.
Six years later, the Cohort has grown. To date we’ve had 27 young adults through the program. We’ve had participants from all five Central Americans countries, as well as the US and Canada.
While this has been a small piece of what I’ve worked on the past several years, now I’m finally dedicating all my time to this program. As the coordinator I’ll help each country ensure that they are effectively implementing the program, teach one of our formation quarters, accompany volunteers, facilitate quarterly learning trips to the different Central American countries, work to improve recruitment and consult with other places in the world that are considering starting similar programs.
Everything that I do is working towards helping these young adults, from both Central America and North America, to discover God’s intense love for this world, the deep injustices present in the communities where they serve and learn, and their own unique vocation.
Neither Isra, my husband, nor I would have predicted a few years ago that we’d both be involved in education. Isra is working at a local high school giving classes is social sciences and loving the opportunity to get a closer view into the public education system in Guatemala and the chance to interact with students, something for which he has an incredible knack. He believes that the students he teaches have a right to a quality public education and is doing everything he can to be a part of guaranteeing that right.
A graduate of Calvin College and Princeton Seminary, Trevor Rubingh is a leader, social entrepreneur, and teacher who loves inspiring children to develop their God-given capacities. In 1994, Trevor and his wife Linda followed their passion to bring transformation to urban children and found themselves in Jersey City. Trevor’s vision and high-energy leadership style have attracted an incredible team. Together, they created a unique model to bring lasting transformation to the children who inspire them. In 2014, Trevor and Linda moved to Grand Rapids, MI to both launch a new site of New City Kids and create a system for launching future sites. Today, New City Kids has five sites in three cities with 65 adult employees serving 500 kids each day. Trevor continues to lead the organization as its president and is the recipient of the 2017 Manhattan Institute Social Entrepreneurship Award for his service at New City Kids. In 2014 Trevor & Linda moved to Grand Rapids, MI to launch a new site of New City Kids and continue expanding New City Kids’ impact as they learn how to plant the ministry in new communities.
CO-FOUNDER, DIRECTOR OF ABUSE PREVENTION
Linda moved to Jersey City in 1994 with her husband Trevor, with a passion to work on behalf of underserved populations in a high-need urban area, particularly survivors of abuse. Originally from Bridgewater, NJ, Linda received her M.Div from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1991and is ordained in the PC USA. After seminary, she spent a number of years in NJ and Michigan as an associate pastor, as well as serving women seeking to leave a life of drug addiction and prostitution, and incarcerated women and their children. As co-founder of New City Kids, she’s spent the past 20 years working with children and teens, as well as raising their own two children, Michal and Zechariah. Linda received her MSW from Rutgers School of Social Work in 2011, with an additional certification in Violence Against Women and Children. In 2012, she founded The Brighter Day Program at New City, a trauma-focused play therapy and CBT program for children and teens that have experienced sexual abuse, domestic violence and traumatic loss.
We long to see thriving communities of faith planted in every corner or every campus: communities that believe that to be Christian isn’t to give up who we are but rather to step into the fullness of who God has made us to be. We hope to see every gender, ethnicity, major, fraternity, sorority, denomination, and interest group on campus become transformed by the unrelenting love of Jesus Christ.
Originally from the Inland Empire, Noël attended Riverside City College before transferring to Cal State Fullerton where she graduated with a B.A. in Music. She spent 1 year serving as a volunteer at CSUF before moving to Costa Mesa to plant the ministry full time at Orange Coast College. After 3 years serving OCC, she now serves as the Ministry Team Leader in North Orange County and helps coach & care for the chapters as CSU Fullerton & Fullerton College.
When she isn’t on campus, you can find Noël at aesthetically pleasing coffee or boba shops, enjoying good eats, spending time with family, and posting her latest layout from her bullet journal on her art Instagram, @ordinarilycreative.
She recently moved back to the Fullerton area, is excited to find a new church home in the area and is looking forward to meeting you!
Upon graduating from UC Irvine in 2018 with a B.A. in Education Sciences, she spent 2 years as a campus ministry intern with InterVarsity in Fullerton and made the decision to come on staff full time at CSU Fullerton. She joined InterVarsity her freshman year, lead Bible studies for her friends shortly after, and lead many other students in their walks with Jesus.
When Rachel’s not busy ministering to students and friends, you can often find her playing basketball, laughing (very contagiously) at some strange joke, or out with friends eating amazing food. She’s loved being a part of Antioch Church in Fullerton and is looking forward to being in person again with her small group.
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