Missionaries The United Church Supports

Ryan and Alethia White are serving Christ together in Berlin, Germany. They are working with Iranian refugees and serving with the Iranian Presbyterian Church in Berlin and providing pastoral care and collaboration with a number of Christian organizations and churches that serve Iranian refugees as well as the many Ukrainian refugees who are resettling in Berlin. Recently they have taken on responsibilities as Co-regional liaisons for the Central and Northern Europe Networks that are part of Presbyterian Church U.S.A.’s mission work. They are passionate about “reconciling relationships across cultural, religious and political divides with the hope of promoting sustainable and peaceful partnerships.”

The Rev. Shelvis and Rev. Nancy Smith-Mather are serving Christ together in the republic of South Sudan. Tragically, after the country achieved independence, South Sudan continues with cycles of ethnic and political violence. The Smith-Mathers serve with RECONCILE International, the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan, Across, and the Yei Teacher Training College. Due to insecurity in South Sudan their family has been living in Uganda or on a recent homestay here in the US. Shelvis has been completing studies in peace building at Oxford University. As a letter from them just informs, they are happy to be returned to Africa now living in a suburb of Kampala where their children have started classes in the international school. They feel “humbled by the opportunity to be a part of building peace, fighting poverty through education, and restoring hope alongside the church in South Sudan.”

CARLOS and MAYRA have been used by God in discipleship in churches in Columbia, Chile, Spain, Nicaragua and the wider regional context of Iberoamerica and the Caribbean. The BGs serve, since 2000 through International Ministries, registered as the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Carlos and Mayra regularly write Acts and Love in Action—BGs Et Al. They love intentionally (Rom. 12:15) while correctly explaining the word of truth (2 Tim. 2.15), knowing God provides the growth (1 Cor. 3.6-9)

PATTI and TIM serve in Baja California, Mexico. Patti ministers as a special education teacher and resource specialist at the Monte Horeb Baptist Grade School in Tijuana, a school that reaches out to some of the most vulnerable of the city’s young people, its children with special needs. Tim serves in leadership development with the Baja Baptist Seminary of Mexicali, teaching present and future church leaders in Baja California, and with IM partners in the Dominican Republic. He also serves as on-site coordinator and professor in Palmer Seminary’s online Masters in Theological Studies program in Latino/a ministries.