Meet Our MIssionaries

Christ for India is a registered charitable organization in the US and is known as New India Church of God in the nation of India. This organization was founded in 1976 in the state of Kerala under the leadership of Rev R Abraham and Rev V A Thampy. A ministry which began in the primitive areas of Kerala has spread its wings to the lengths and breaths of the nation today.

Today the ministry spreads its work over 26 states of India with 4550 full time churches. It is our endeavour to bring the good news of Jesus and spread the love of God to many in our great Nation.

Christ for India is a ministry is the initiator of many transformational Christian dispositions in the nation of India. Even though it was established with only “church planting” as its expedition which is its focus to this day, CFI in accordance to God`s plan has found itself being the hands and feet of the Lord in many more avenues of serving and making the love of Christ tangible to uncountable people in villages, towns and cities of India. We preach the gospel, serve the downtrodden of society, feed and clothe the disenfranchised, educate the poor, teach skill to empower people to make a livelihood.

I lived and ministered in Turkey from 1997-2019. During that time my primary ministry was as a pastor with Lighthouse Church in the city of Izmir for 14 years. In 2019, the Turkish government began banning and deporting many foreign Christian workers in Turkey, including me. Since September, 2022, I have been living in Komotini, Greece. This region of northeast Greece and southern Bulgaria is home to an estimated 117,000 Muslims. There has been very little Gospel outreach focused on these people, and since most of them are Turks or Turkish speaking minority ethnic groups, my heart was drawn to this area. My vision is to see Muslims come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, to see them develop as mature disciples, and then to ultimately see new churches being planted.

This is a very different from the life I knew in Izmir, Turkey. I don’t speak Greek. I don’t have a team. I hardly know anyone. Life can be quite lonely at times. The Lord, however is always with me. Please pray from spiritual breakthrough, and for the grace of God to work through me in the ministry of the Gospel. Many Greeks, especially young adults, speak English well enough that we can freely converse. So, there are potential ministry opportunities among Greeks as well. I will need to learn at least a basic level of the Greek language, though. I tend to be conspicuously odd to the locals – a single American, who speaks Turkish, moving to an obscure place in Greece, where most of the people are either Orthodox Greeks or Muslims. Why in the world am I here? May the Lord use my conspicuousness to provide opportunities for sharing the Gospel.

Prior to working in West Africa, I served in China for seven years. Since April of 2000, I have served in West Africa.  By and with the grace of God, I pioneered the work Sheltering Wings is currently doing in West Africa. Starting with an orphanage in 2002, we later expanded and built a primary and secondary school, along with a clinic to serve the Sheltering Wings orphanage and school children. In an effort to meet the ongoing needs of these children, we developed a sponsorship program which has grown to include widows as well.

Sensing a call to pioneer a new area, the reigns of this ministry were handed over to Mike and Amy Riddering in 2013.  Since then, Linda Wilk and I have begun a new area of ministry in a small village in West Africa.  Our village is remote with no running water or electricity and the Lord has greatly blessed us.  Our primary goal is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ while meeting the needs of the village through the construction of a community medical center, drilling wells, church planting, and child and widow’s sponsorship programs.

Many times, people assume that the Deaf can just read the Bible in the spoken language of the countries in which they live. However, sign languages are the heart languages of millions of deaf people worldwide.

The Miles family serve in Pacific and Asia regions, facilitating and supporting sign language translation and language development work in various countries in partnership with Deaf churches, teams and associations.

We are inviting you to join us in coming alongside Deaf believers working to translate the scriptures into their heart languages.

Together we can work to reach some of the last languages and least reached with the Word of God!

We have spent the last several decades serving families seeking refuge right here in the greater St. Louis area. Founded in 1989 by Mark and Joani Akers, our organization was birthed out of a desire to live out their faith in Jesus in very practical ways by loving and welcoming our new neighbors who often arrive with very little.

After spending nearly two decades on staff at a local church and traveling the globe delivering aid and hope to thousands, God opened our eyes to the Nations streaming into our own city. One day Mark visited a newly settled Ethiopian family in town only to discover they were sleeping on the hardwood floor. That day began a journey toward a brand new, and much-needed, ministry to provide refugees with the fresh start they desperately need. In 2006, we purchased our property in South St. Louis City where we welcome and serve refugees year-round.

This isn’t just a cause we care about. Our faith compels us to love and welcome our new neighbors with open arms. When asked during an interview, a refugee we have come to know well put it simply: Oasis brings the love. We cannot think of a better mantra. It’s become a rallying cry of sorts for our team of dedicated staff, volunteers, and donors.

In December of 2011 I moved to West Africa with my husband Mike and my daughter Delaney.  Bringing just two suitcases a piece we left the U.S. and boarded a plane which brought us to our new home. With no agenda other than loving others and sharing the hope we had in Jesus Christ, we were excited to join the work that God was already doing with orphans and widows.

Ours is a story of obedience and the willingness to do the things Christ called us to do and not just to do good things for Christ. We wanted to move from being committed Christians to submitted Christians. Never in our wildest dreams did we think the journey God would bring us on was becoming missionaries in a foreign land with a new culture and a new language. As Mike would say, it was a mystery as to why God would bring a boat builder to the desert.

We used the two years that followed to build relationships, learn language and culture and pour love out to the children, widows and pastors we worked with. We took on responsibilities at the orphanage including the sponsorship program and learned all that we could about the medical clinic and school as we worked alongside Ruth Cox.

In 2014, Ruth passed directorship of the orphanage over to us as she followed God’s call to minister to a village in the western part of the country. Over the next two years we listened as God led us to start a Women’s Crisis Center to train and equip women is distress. These women included young widows who have been abandon or abused and handicapped women with no family support are given a safe place to live and receive love while they learn numerous skills to help them care for themselves and their children. We also started an experimental agriculture project to find solutions to extend the very short growing season with systems like aquaponics, hydroponics and aeroponics. Our goal is to develop systems by inviting University students studying agriculture and engineering to develop systems that use local, recycled materials and then train evangelism teams from the local church how to build and maintain them. In this way we can bring the Gospel into villages that would normally lock out Christians while meeting a physical need.

I cannot explain in words the amazing grace that God has bestowed on me and the tremendous joy he has placed in my heart for the ministries here. God placed the right people by my side and I am blessed to have the most loving and supportive team of both national and international workers. I am delighted to see the passion he has placed in the hearts of our team and the vision he continues to give us for future ministry.

We married believing strongly that God wanted us to help a group of people who didn’t yet have access to God’s word in the language that communicates to them best. We joined Wycliffe to do so. Specifically we felt led to go to a group who as yet had no written form of their language. Papua New Guinea has over 840 languages, so it was not surprising that God led us there! In 1988 with our 16-month-old Lydia, we movie to Gaulim village, started learning the Ura language and helped the people establish an alphabet and begin vernacular preschools for their children in the language. Aaron (our son) arrived a year later. Thirty four years later, the printed and audio Ura New Testament is finished and many literacy materials have been produced. We anticipate continuing on with the Uramät Bainings (but now working remotely from the US) to promote activities that will continue to encourage literacy, scripture use and documentation of the Ura language in a lasting accessible form.

Pray that the audio Ura New Testament will be processed in a timely manner and be available for distribution in 2023. It is a multi-voice version produced by Faith Comes By Hearing. It is our prayer that the distribution team will be able to not only show the people how to use the MegaVoice solar players and SD cards to listen to God’s word in the 7 UB villages, but will also be able to offer some practical ways in using their printed Ura New Testament in church and family fellowships as well. As well as prayer for new believers to grow and mature in their faith. Pray for an increase in understanding in PNG about teaching children to reach in their vernacular first before learning in a second language.

In 2004, I had my first experience in West Africa; volunteering with Ruth Cox. My heart was captured by the people! After many years and many visits, in 2016 I was honored to officially join the Sheltering Wings family working with agriculture and food insecurity.

In 2017, my focus shifted from agriculture to one small baby named Wendpouiré Ouedraogo. He was in our orphanage, very sick and dying. He needed one-on-one care. I became his caretaker and momma for the next 10 months. In February of 2018, he left this world to be with Jesus. This little one showed me the need for advocacy for sick and terminally ill children. The Wendpouiré Project was born!

We love supporting children with special needs and their families! We are not only committed to helping alleviate the massive medical burden from these families, but the Wendpouiré Project also endeavors to lift their emotional and societal burden. Many in these communities believe these children to be a mistake or even a curse upon the family. We believe them to be a gift created and loved by God.

We hope that the Wendpouiré Project will not only transform lives, but also bring hope where it was once lost. While neither are easy or quick tasks, I know that “it matters to the ONE”.

The Covering House program is designed to start the restoration process in all of these areas while helping youth discover who they are without the shame of their pasts. 

The Covering House provides residential housing for minor survivors of sex trafficking, operating a Level III youth residential facility, and works with youth and adults in the community to provide counseling, educational and supportive services.

Staff provide various presentation and training opportunities to educate community members about the dangers of sex trafficking and exploitation.

ThriVe is a non-profit organization that empowers people to make life-affirming and healthy decisions about sex, pregnancy and relationships.