As you will see, our team has a vision to begin to expand our work by starting an apostolic band of workers from amongst the people with whom we have been working, the immigrants and refugees who come from the unreached people groups that we are working to reach, who will take the Gospel to unreached people groups across Europe, in Africa, and beyond. Here is a video that presents an overview of this vision from the Search Party team:

Background

In June 2016, our family arrived in Catania where we have regularly shared the Gospel with people from all across Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East, baptizing many and making disciples. Our goal has always been to see a movement of disciples who will make disciples and churches that will plant churches amongst the unreached. To do that, through the work of a team of missionary families together in Catania, we have had three main ministries, or modes of outreach:

• Ten:Two Team – Named after Luke 10:2, we have prayed for workers and they have come! We lead short-term teams, summer internships, and missionary preparatory courses. Each part of this work focuses on “seed sowing”, meeting new people and sharing the Gospel with them, starting the process of making disciples, and taking that experience back to whatever and wherever God has next for those who are participating.
• Catania Community Gardens – Catania Community Gardens designs, creates and provides garden and farm spaces for immigrants and Italian nationals. In these spaces those involved hear about and grow in the Gospel of Jesus Christ within the natural contexts of work, skillbuilding, and relationship. It is within these natural contexts that relationships are built and Christ is demonstrated in word and deed.
• Agape Bici – Our Agape Bici bike shop ministry offers marketable skills and apprenticeship work to immigrants and refugees as well as local Sicilians. In the same place where we are renting, selling, or repairing bicycles, we are also sharing the Gospel and making disciples, teaching both those that are working as well as those who come to the shop to know Christ and follow him.

In addition, our team has taught others to go on to do similar work in other locations. In Rome, for example, a former intern in Catania is now teamed with an ex-Muslim man from Bangladesh that we had the privilege to initially train in 2019. Their team teaches Italian and English classes to immigrants living there and they have planted multiple churches.

Elsewhere, our friend Sultan and his family, themselves refugees from their home country of Pakistan, have led a ministry to immigrants and refugees, reaching out through several types of classes held inside of refugee camps, so as to share the Gospel and plant churches. We had the privilege to begin a relationship and train Sultan and his family, also in 2019, and now he is working to not only plant churches both in Europe as well as in many of the same areas from which the refugees have arrived to Europe.

While the majority of our work has focused on the immigrants and refugees who have migrated to Europe as immigrants or refugees from each of the regions mentioned above, we do also work to mobilize the local Italian Christian churches. We offer training and teaching and have partnered with the churches to learn to plant other churches. Our desire is to teach and train also the Italians so that they will also seek to share the Gospel amongst people who come from unreached people groups, sending believers into the harvest fields to reach many more.

Apostolic Vision

For many years, our prayer has been that God would use those that we reach with the Gospel, or those whom we have taught and trained, to go on to reach others. In 2020, during the time of the pandemic, our friend Sultan began to organize teaching and training to help others learn to make disciples and plant churches. Subsequently, beyond organizing people for us to train, he began to then teach others himself, and is now teaching and training, along with his family, both locally where he lives, in other locations in Europe, and in other locations where he has contacts in west Africa and even newly sowing Gospel seed and teaching others to do the same across southeast Asia.

As I note within the video above, this work, and generally our work overall, is heavily influenced by the work of Apostle Paul and his missionary journeys as we can read about them from Acts 13 to Acts 20. Throughout Paul’s missionary journeys, we see that he enters into new locations where Jesus is not known, shares the Gospel, makes disciples, and starts new churches that will continue to follow Christ together, becoming the representation of the body of Christ locally. If you would like to learn more about what we mean by that, please watch this training and envisioning video below:

We have believed, and continue to believe and teach today, that the Bible provides us both a theology such that we can know God as well as a practice, a model by which we can teach others to do the same.

Our Gospel Plan

There are two main parts to the plan that we are working to see become a reality:

The Apostolic Band

First, we have prayed for workers and God has identified and raised them up. Some of them have a calling for a discipleship and church planting work that will be developed locally. Others have a work that will be developed regionally, nationally, or even internationally.

It is important to understand that our aim is to plant churches amongst people who do not know Christ. As American missionaries, God has a calling upon our lives, but there are many, many challenges that are inherent in the work that we are doing. There are both language barriers and cultural barriers that frequently prevent those we are trying to reach to trust others like us from other parts of the world.

One of the great advantages, though, in developing apostolic workers who come from amongst the people groups that we are attempting to reach, is that they know the language of their people. They know the culture of their people. And they are able to enter into those relational circles much more easily than we or any American will ever be able to do, regardless of their knowledge of their language or cultural understanding. They know them because they are them, and this means that they can truly be the hands and feet of Christ amongst their own people.

This is a new project, so our intent is to go slowly, step by step, and learn how God will use this apostolic team to make disciples and start new churches amongst the unreached.

Sultan is the first person of whom we hope will be a small team of apostolic workers. At this point, our goal is to create a team of 3-5 workers who will work full time to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

Even though I say that our intent is to go slowly, I can report that Sultan has already been creatively scraping together the funds and making multiple trips to work with south Asians in other parts of Europe over the last several years. In addition, he has also had the opportunity to travel to west Africa three times over the last two years and to Asia twice within the last year. This has happened because some individual local believers in Europe have helped to sponsor him and Search Party has also contributed to allow him to go and do the work, taking his first steps in fulfilling the apostolic mission that God has placed upon his life. I am not able to recount everything that is happening here, and there is much that we can share about what is happening through these trips, but those stories will need to be told through direct conversations for security considerations.

Beyond Sultan himself, we have other people who have begun to do similar work in small ways and our intent is to let Sultan help teach them and guide them over time. In the same way, for example, that the apostle Paul guided and directed other apostolic workers such as Silas, Timothy, or many others in his time, we see a similar opportunity with Sultan to teach, to guide, and direct others, helping them to learn to do a similar work. In this time, we have a potential south Asian and a west African who may help one day to be part of the apostolic work that we wish to sponsor, train, and send for the purpose of reaching others.

Local workers

The second part of our plan is to continue to teach and train local workers who have been identified as a result of the work of the Apostolic Band to continue to do the work in their local context. This will include ongoing development of vision for their own people, making disciples, and planting other churches in their local context. We believe that this also represents the practice that we see in the book of Acts, for example in Acts 19 where Paul teaches and trains from the Hall of Tyrannus in Ephesus and then we see several churches all across the province of Asia spring up in cities where Paul had never traveled. In other words, it seems that the local people went on to take the Gospel from one location to another, from one city to the next, as a result of Paul’s teaching even while remaining there in Ephesus.

We anticipate that there may be local leaders that will lead the work of making disciples and planting churches, teaching and training in that local context. We anticipate that there will also be opportunities at that point to connect missionaries to work along side of those local workers, helping them, encouraging them, teaching and training as they go. This is a long-term vision, but we believe that this vision, over time, can become a reality as God places additional workers in the field for the expansion of the kingdom of God and for his glory.

Financial Plan

We have started the fundraising process to help Sultan himself support his family and continue the travel that we believe God wants him to do. In addition, in 2027, we plan to bring on an additional half-time worker to help support the ongoing coaching and training that is needed.

We are, therefore currently seeking $75,000 in total annual support to support one full-time worker and a second half-time worker. The full document outlining this proposal can be found in this document.

We would like to request a financial “seed fund” from foundations that are interested in helping for the first year, or of course even beyond if desired, while we work to build support for him from supporting individuals and churches both here in Europe as well as in the US or other locations that desire to help him and this vision become a reality.

Thank you for reading and for considering what God has been doing amongst and through the individuals of Search Party and those with whom we have been working! We are excited to see what God is doing and we look forward to working together with additional partners to continue to be used by the Lord for the expansion of his kingdom and glory.