Our vision for global outreach:
to send sons and daughters of Rez where the Church is not publicly visible or viable.
More than 70 percent of our global partners serve where there is little to no access to the good news of Jesus, and places where Christians are often persecuted. They live in spiritually dry contexts and face multiple challenges to daily life. These conditions can easily lead to burnout, loneliness, family stress, and an unplanned exit from the mission field.
With this Good Friday Gift, we aim to invest in the health of our global partners, both relationally and spiritually. We desire to help them thrive as they share the gospel in hard places, build the Church, and equip local believers.
This year’s Good Friday Gift is two-fold:
to offer both pastoral care and ministry care.
Pastoral Care
Each global partner overseas will receive a pastoral care visit from a small team who offers prayer, presence, and encouragement on our behalf.
The early Church frequently sent people to visit and encourage those sharing the good news of Jesus in faraway places. For instance, Paul sent Timothy and Epaphroditus to bless the believers in Philippi by praying and meeting with them in person (Php 2:19-30).
We seek to ensure that these pastoral teams bless and meet real needs of our global partners, rather than burden them. These visits will also enable us to observe ministry first-hand, and report back to Rez how we can continue to engage with and encourage our global partners.
Here’s how a few of our global partners said they’d value pastoral care visits:
“There has been a lot of spiritual isolation for me here…I would especially love to talk and think through this challenge and opportunity for growth.” -partner in the Middle East
“We would love to spend time praying together, receiving a devotional/message…specifically, encouragement when the future is uncertain.” -Family in West Asia
“Teaching for local Khmer pastors on Anglican-specific topics, listening prayer, and prayer ministry training for our English congregation” -Whittaker family in Cambodia
Pastoral Care visits may entail six total trips of roughly five nights each, and include a clergy or pastoral staff member. Several locations will be combined into one trip where feasible. These visits will take place through 2025.
Rough cost estimate of flights and accommodations per trip: $4,000 for two people from Rez.
Ministry Care
We invited our global partners to share a need of $3-5,000 that would benefit their current ministry and/or daily life. Here’s a quick summary of how they responded:
- A Safehouse for women escaping domestic/sexual violence
- Family travel expenses to visit an elderly mother recovering from heart surgery
- A larger car for a growing, young family
- University courses in Islamic Studies to sharpen evangelistic witness
- A final push for first New Testament publication in an African language this year
- Scholarships and medical care for impoverished Cambodians, and a first sabbatical
- Annual missions conference and retreat attendance, home furnishings to facilitate hospitality, Kurdish language lessons
- A two-week program at a Christian counseling center for international workers this summer
- Local language lessons
- Furniture or appliances for newly arrived teammates, team-building outings/retreat, church facility expenses
Scroll down to learn more details about each ministry care need below.
Ways to Get involved
Pray for our global partners
Pray
for the Lord to strengthen the local Church, equip local believers, and bless teammates.
Pray
for their spiritual and physical health and protection.
Pray
for the planning and logistics of each pastoral visit, that they would all be timely, effective, encouraging, Spirit-led, and entail minimal travel complications.
Pray
for the Lord’s guidance of each project, that our global partners can smoothly carry out plans in his perfect timing.
Pick up a copy of our global partners’ current prayer requests in the narthex.
You may also give by check made out to Church of the Resurrection. Include “Good Friday Gift” in the memo line.
Place your check in the Sunday offering, drop off during office hours (Mon-Thurs 8:30-4:30pm, Fri 8:30-10pm),
or mail to: Church of the Resurrection, 935 W. Union Ave., Wheaton, IL 60187.
Questions about the Good Friday Gift? Contact Missions Manager Emily Talbott at emilytalbott@churchrez.org.
Ministry Care Needs
Ministry Care Need: Safehouse for women escaping domestic/sexual violence
Family D - Central Asia
Our work in Central Asia currently is focused on language learning and relationship building. We are gaining trust among our community and enjoy welcoming people to our home. Our vision is to bring quality gospel-centered media to Central Asia and to provide care for women who are suffering.
Family D - Central Asia
Pastoral Care: Listening/friendship and prayer
Our most pressing pastoral needs at this time would be for listening/friendship, as well as time to pray together and envision what the future could be here for us. We would love to have whomever comes participate with us in our regular activities, to meet our friends and understand our day-to-day life.
Ministry Care: Safehouse for women escaping domestic/sexual violence
Over the previous two years, we have seen a steady vision develop of opening a safe-house for women coming from domestic/sexual violence within their home. With Devon’s training in counseling/trauma care and Nathan’s background in business, we believe we are being called to open a place that can both provide immediate safety and mental health care for women, while also discipling them in spiritual life and professional development.
We are raising funds to help with the purchase of a property. The property we hope to acquire will need to provide enough space to house multiple women and have a classroom. Not only would this property house the women, but we also hope for it to be a place our family could live. Any money received from the Good Friday Gift would be put toward the acquisition of this property. We hope to purchase a property in the next one to two years.
Ministry Care Need: Family travel to visit elderly mother recovering from surgery
Dr. Greg & Lidija Thelman - Croatia
Greg and Lidija serve in Croatia with their 5 children. They equip Christian leaders at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek through teaching, scholarship, and discipleship. They also help Christians integrate faith and work through the Institute for the Study of Christian Discipleship and Worldview. Lidija blesses the church and seminary through her creative design.
Dr. Greg & Lidija Thelman (Croatia)
Pastoral Care: Listening/friendship and prayer
We would always welcome listening/friendship and prayer together. We’d also be interested in using the time to explore other ways Rez could be involved in ministry in our context, such as prayer ministry; art and faith; musical worship.
Ministry Care: Family travel expenses to visit elderly mother recovering from heart surgery
Greg’s 81-year-old mother in the U.S. is recovering from heart valve surgery and has not seen their youngest children or whole family together for eight years.
We have been praying for provision for our whole family to visit my mother and my side of the family. Besides her recent heart surgery, mom is also a pancreatic cancer survivor and has not seen our youngest three children, or our whole family together, since 2016. The expense of flying a large family, finding housing, and securing transportation have proven to be significant barriers. We are now considering a home assignment, either over the coming summer, a shorter visit in the fall, or a full year furlough. Of course, this visit would also help us reconnect with partners and supporters and provide the opportunity to share further about our ministry with others.
Ministry Care Need: Larger vehicle for growing family with young kids
Family F - North Africa
Family F has “a heart to share the good news and build up the local Body through sharing vocation and family-life with friends. We live in a part of the Middle East/North Africa region with no historical Christian presence and no visible local Body.” He is an English teacher and she is a Deaf Educator/”at home” mom.
Family F, North Africa
Pastoral Care: Prayer/intercession ministry with teammates and locals
Ministry Care: A larger vehicle for growing family with young kids
We’ve currently been setting aside part of our monthly support to save up for buying a larger car since we got news of the new baby (boy) on the way. This will make five of us, so the transportation puzzle gets more complicated with all of ours still in car seats. We’re also hoping for an automatic transmission so that Kirsty can drive the car more confidently with the kids. City taxis here are limited to three passengers, no matter how small. So, with the new baby, Kirsty wouldn’t be able to go anywhere beyond walking distance (like a doctor’s appointment) during the day without a private hire large taxi. I recently got an e-bike, which I have been enjoying riding to work, so hopefully I can continue leaving the car at home most of the time for her.
Ministry Care Need: Courses in Islamic Studies
Global Partner T - Middle East
This global partner works in a city where a majority of the population has never heard the gospel. Currently, he seeks to establish relationships with neighbors and friends and generate conversations about faith in the local language. He also serves at a local organization focused on registering and resettling refugees.
Global Partner T, Middle East
Pastoral Care: Listening/friendship and prayer
He would love someone to visit and understand his life and work on the ground, as well as spend time encouraging, listening to, and praying for him as he discerns longer term ministry.
Ministry Care: Courses in Islamic Studies
I’ve been looking into starting a Masters in Islamic studies at the national university this fall. The purpose: try to better understand Islam from the perspective of believing Islamic scholars and to discern possible paths in academic work or interfaith dialogue, if that’s where God is calling me. It would include such interesting opportunities as taking classes in Quranic interpretation, the traditional biography of the Prophet, sharia law, interfaith dialogue, and how Muslims do evangelism and apologetics. I think it would be amazing to be able to take courses like that as a Christian and then process them with my local friends here. The cost of the first semester is about exactly $5,000 dollars. This would have maybe the largest long-term potential dividends in my life for working in the Middle East.
Ministry Care Need: Home furnishings, language lessons, and retreat participation
Global Partner G - Middle East
This global partner works as an English teacher at a local university in her city, where she is building relationships with students, staff, and neighbors and learning the local language.
Global Partner G (Middle East)
Pastoral Care: Listening/Friendship
“There has been a lot of spiritual isolation for me here…I would especially love to talk and think through this challenge and opportunity for growth. Also if whoever comes is here on a Friday, they would be welcome to give the talk at our house church. It would be absolutely incredible if they could lead Communion or bring blessed sacraments!”
Ministry Care: Home furnishings to enable hospitality, language lessons & retreat participation
“Being in an isolated and smaller city has its blessings and its hardships. One of the blessings is that my team and I are enthusiastically welcomed into life and community here as the only outsiders, creating the need for improvements in my home to create a more welcoming space as we reciprocate the hospitality. My hope is to get things like rugs, dusheks (mats/pillows), and Christian wall art that would help create a space that will make people feel at home. I also hope to take language lessons in the local language to aid in relationship-building here and open up more opportunities to tell others about the light that we have!”
“And one of the natural but harder parts of being in a smaller city is the separation from a greater spiritual community and the encouragement that comes from that. My organization hosts a yearly conference and retreat as a time for connection and spiritual encouragement, something that would be such a blessing for me to be a part of!”
Ministry Care Need: Retreat at Christian counseling center for international workers
Global Partner E - West Asia
This global partner’s work focuses on studying the local language, building connections with her friends and neighbors for conversations about faith, and teaching English to second graders at a prestigious public school.
Global Partner E (West Asia)
Pastoral Care: Listening/Friendship
“I think it would be so valuable to get to share what my world here looks like and to have extended time to talk through some of the nuances of what ministry looks like in my context.”
Ministry Care: Retreat at Christian counseling center for international workers
Several weeks at a Christian counseling center for international workers to process some of the tumult and transition of her first couple years on the field.
Ministry Care Need: Final push for New Testament publication this year
Brad & Maria Festen - Central African Republic
Brad and Maria work with Wycliffe Bible Translators and TeachBeyond from their base in Wheaton. Brad is helping to complete a translation of the New Testament in the Mpyemo language of the Central African Republic. Maria’s work in personnel is helping TeachBeyond promote transformational education in 60 different countries.
Brad & Maria Festen (serving the Central African Republic)
Pastoral Care: The Festens are based in Wheaton and participate in Resurrection. Pray for the final push toward publication of the New Testament.
Ministry Care: Final push for New Testament publication this year, a culmination of 24 years of work started by the Festens.
The Good Friday gift would facilitate the final push before publication of the New Testament in the Mpeyo language, a people group in the SW corner of the Central African Republic. Funding could cover: “technology to help with internet connectivity, full printouts of the New Testament for final proofing, preparation and printing of literacy materials, a trip to the language area to prepare the population for the arrival of the New Testament, or even meals for the translators so that they have energy for long workdays. Any remaining funds will be used to help with air travel. We would love for our whole family to be able to attend the dedication ceremony for the New Testament in Mpyemo.”
Background: from Start to Finish of Bible Translation
“We have been members of Wycliffe Bible Translators since 1995. After completing training, we moved to Central African Republic (CAR) and in 2000 helped to begin the New Testament translation project for the Mpyemo language. The Mpyemo people primarily live in the southwest corner of the country. Our work began with language learning and analysis in order to help the community create a writing system. Then a team of Mpyemo translators was established and trained. Actual translation of the Scriptures began in 2005, and the project is now moving toward completion. The New Testament is fully translated and consultant checked. Now we are in the pre-typesetting phase–cleaning up spelling inconsistencies, choosing illustrations and maps, writing captions, and other details. We hope to be ready for typesetting this April or May. Since returning to the US in 2017 due to a medical emergency, Brad has been working remotely with the Mpyemo team from Wheaton.”
Ministry Care Need: Scholarships and medical care for impoverished Cambodians
Fr. Gregory & Dr. Heidi Whitaker - Cambodia
Fr. Gregory is rector of the English-speaking congregation at Church of Christ our Peace in the Anglican Diocese of Singapore. Dr. Heidi is a pediatrician and assists Cambodian physicians. She also helps train future Cambodian medical doctors. They oversee a variety of outreach ministries to care for the most vulnerable in their community. The Whitakers have five children.
Fr. Gregory & Dr. Heidi Whitaker (Cambodia)
Pastoral Care: Teaching for local Khmer pastors on Anglican-specific topics, listening prayer and prayer ministry training for English congregation
Ministry Care: Scholarships and medical care for impoverished Cambodians, and Fr. Gregory’s first sabbatical
Scholarships & Medical Care for the Poor
“After we gained some grounding in ministry in Cambodia, it became very clear that paying for education and medical care is a prohibitive challenge for many families. We thus started a special projects fund that has provided scholarships to many young Cambodians from impoverished backgrounds, allowing them to continue their education and ultimately to help provide well for their families. Without scholarships, many struggle to pay their tuition and support parents in the countryside out of a barista salary. Funds are also allocated to pay for medical care for people, especially children, who cannot afford it. Very little free care is available in Cambodia, and medical insurance is not an established part of the healthcare system, so even obtaining simple preventive care is cost prohibitive for many.”
A First Sabbatical
“We are approaching 11 years in Cambodia, and after this duration of intensive ministry and leadership, we hope that Fr. Gregory can take his first ever sabbatical in 2025. We want to continue strong in service of the gospel and the kingdom of God! Fr. Gregory has goals for study and rest (which would certainly include coffee and photography) over a three month timeframe. To enable him to take a sabbatical, we need a visiting priest to come and care for the church in his place. If this sabbatical is not possible in 2025, funds will be allocated entirely to the aforementioned special projects fund.”
Ministry Care Need: Team-building retreat and housing needs for new teammates
Team of Five - Middle East
We are living and preaching the gospel through planting churches committed to the word and sacraments. We believe the Holy Spirit is moving in our region–drawing unbelievers to himself and into the arms of the Church. Currently, the team focuses on discipling and raising up local church leaders and establishing an NGO.
Team of Five - Middle East
Pastoral Care: Prayer and vision retreat for team
The team would like to have leaders from Rez host a prayer and vision retreat for them on spiritual practices to support longevity in ministry. This would be an opportunity for the team to continue to build connections with each other and set aside specific time to focus on spiritual practices and goals.
Ministry Care: team-building retreat, housing needs for new teammates
This team is in an exciting phase of growth, with the addition of new team members and further establishing their local church. The team would dedicate a financial gift toward a prayer and vision retreat, as well as helping newly arrived teammates with housing needs (such as furniture and appliances).
Ministry Care Need: Language lessons
Family T - West Asia
We are doing evangelism and church planting work to unreached people in West Asia. Since we are new to the field, we are currently focusing on language learning as few people here speak English.
Family T (West Asia)
Pastoral Care: Prayer and encouragement, devotional study
“We really would love to spend time praying together, receiving a devotional/message. The format could just be a study together in our home. …Specifically, encouragement considering serving when the future is uncertain. Due to visa/residency permit issues here, and with many teammates being forced to leave, we often wonder if we too will need to leave. Serving when we do not number our own days would be a great blessing.”
Ministry Care: Language lessons
“We currently have four language lessons per week each (eight total lessons) which costs about $1,000/month for us. The way we are doing language lessons blesses believers here: All four are brothers and sisters following Him. Our funds therefore flow to brothers and sisters here, and into their fellowships. Our language lessons are also a service of prayer and encouragement. …Two teachers are college-age guys growing in their walk. During each lesson [we] spend time encouraging them, sharing with them, and praying with them (i.e., language lessons are offering something to us, but also allowing us to give as well). Finally, these lessons are providing much needed financial relief to these brothers and sisters. Things are tough for many of our teachers, but these funds will allow us to let them know that we will contract them for several more months (minimum), giving them peace, and blessing them.”
