Outreach Stories

by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey A. Hosmer

Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7 NRSV

Then the Lord God and the man formed the church from the dust of the ground, and breathed life into the church, and the church became a living being. 

A tribute to Rev. Tateos Michaelian, a faithful Iranian Presbyterian on the 25th anniversary of his martyrdom.

(Updated on 6-29-19)

“I am ready and thankful to give it all I can”. That was the response that Rev. Tateos Michaelian wrote to his friend when invited to lend his expertise to a new translation of the Bible for the Iranian world in May of 1994*. On July 2nd Rev. Michaelian’s family identified his brutally murdered body.

During a recent visit to The Outreach Foundation office in Franklin, Rev. Dr. Majid Abel discussed the church in Pakistan.

Hear about the history of the church in Pakistan and his personal journey in becoming a pastor. Learn about Outreach’s partnerships in Pakistan, including motorbikes for rural pastors and Gujranwala Theological Seminary.

He also discusses some of the challenges that face Christians and the church in their country.

Roy Soto joins Juan Sarmiento in The Outreach Foundation office to discuss his Shalom Teaching Ministry in Costa Rica.

Watch the video to hear how through the teaching ministry of Rev. Roy Soto, pastors and church leaders are catching a fresh vision for how to grow outwardly-focused congregations that actively engage in life-changing incarnational witness to the Gospel. Last year alone, close to 700 pastors and leaders with little or no formal theological education benefited from this ministry.

by Mark Mueller, Director of Development

 God’s Word teaches us great truths. One truth it teaches is that great things come in small packages. For example, Mary, a twelve-year-old girl was of no prominence or importance to the world, yet she was chosen to birth the Son of God. Jesus was born in a small way, in a stable outside a remote, insignificant village. Amid a stable, the Savior enters the world. The disciples would be considered small people (fisherman and tax collectors) and of no relative import. They were not leaders, credentialed or people of status. These 12 transformed the world through the work of the Holy Spirit. Moses lacked the linguistic skills to talk with Pharaoh, but God chose him to lead the people out of bondage. Moses led more than a million people into the desert with no plan of where they were moving. On and on these stories are told in the Bible. God has a way of putting immense value on something small and seemingly insignificant.

by Todd Luke

Isaias Guzman is eighteen. If he lived in your town, he’d likely be planning for prom, graduation, summer job, and college in the fall.

As it is, Isaias lives in the village of Castilla Brito (pop. 600) in southern Mexico. After junior high, he chose to go full-time into the family business—subsistence farming. Every year his extended family clears, plants, and harvests around twenty acres or so without owning a tractor. A good year may reap profits near $6,000 and enough corn to feed the family and their chickens and turkeys. An average year can yield around $2,000. A bad year, much less. And it doesn’t take much to have a bad year.

by Jack Baca

(Written during a recent Outreach trip to Syria)

February 14. Valentine’s Day. Or, to be more accurate, Saint Valentine’s Day, named for the 4th century bishop who was persecuted and beheaded because he insisted on marrying young men and women against the orders of the Roman emperor, who wanted his soldiers not to have any romantic attachments so that they would more willingly die for the empire. The bishop believed in love – passionate, committed, sacrificial love – the kind that makes marriages work, the kind that makes the whole world work, the kind that looked down from the cross and said, “I forgive.”

by Lisa B. Culpepper 

It was four years ago that I sat with Lina and Salwa on a curb of the retreat center in Dhour Schweir. We were overlooking a beautiful and peaceful mountain range as they told me of their war-torn lives. It was quite a culture shock for me, and I could not relate to their stories.

I did not know what it was like to have bombs exploding in my neighborhood or what it was like to operate a household on a few hours of electricity per day.

I did not know what it was like to lose my livelihood because the pharmacy I owned was destroyed or to send my husband out on an errand not knowing if he would be killed or be conscripted into the army.

by Juan Sarmiento

 Lamin Sanneh* was a man of deep faith. Since the age of eighteen, that faith guided a journey that would take him from the banks of the Gambia River to become one of the foremost experts in World Christianity. A mixture of profound sadness and gratitude overtook me last week when I received news of his sudden death.

As a young man, Sanneh was bold to not let the expectations of his family and community stop him from publicly professing faith in Christ. He recognized that following this new path placed him at odds with some fellow Christians who did not consider it appropriate for a Muslim to convert. Later, Sanneh’s desire to study theology and become ordained were also met with staunch resistance in the church. However, he continued to pursue his calling in such diverse places as a historically black college in Virginia, USA and the Near East School of Theology in Beirut, Lebanon.