Younoussa Djao
(Côte d’Ivoire)

This current is one of several within the Mission Commission that will help ensure that we do not forget missions practitioners who are speakers of languages other than English (or the dominant language of the missions community in their region). Regional Synergists will be MC point-people, representing the MC to those language communities, assisting the MC to communicate well with them, as well as helping to represent their concerns and missions thinking to the wider missions communication.

Younoussa serves with SIM and is Francophone Africa Coordinator for numerous organisations, including New Generations and Global Trust Partners, and is Chairman of Africa Transformation Initiatives. He is a long-time Associate of the Mission Commission and continues to strongly believe in the vision and mission of the MC and the help its can be for the Body of Christ and God’s mission. Younoussa’s history, both with the MC and with missions in Francophone Africa will help maintain good connections with the wider missions community. Younoussa also has a desire to encourage younger leaders in missions from Francophone Africa to develop relationships with the MC.

Barbosa Oliveira Jnr
(Brazil/South Africa)

This current is one of several within the Mission Commission that will help ensure that we do not forget missions practitioners who are speakers of languages other than English (or the dominant language of the missions community in their region). Regional Synergists will be MC point-people, representing the MC to those language communities, assisting the MC to communicate well with them, as well as helping to represent their concerns and missions thinking to the wider missions communication.

Barbosa has been a missionary with One Challenge (OC International) for more than 30 years. He is a mentor of young leaders, helping many to be developed from Africa, Brazil, and the US. He has helped many organizations to better understand the African continent and start their ministries in African countries. He says that the networks among Portuguese speaking nations in Africa is extensive and in different ways fruit has been seen through those efforts and networks. However, he still has a big dream: to see a concerted missionary effort coming out of those particular countries toward the evangelization of unengaged people groups of Africa and beyond.

Ruslan Maliuta
(Ukraine)

This current engages with missions activities specifically focused on reaching, protecting and developing families, particularly where the gospel is least available.

Ruslan serves primarily with One Hope, a global ministry that helps children engage with God’s story, supporting several networks, including the 4/14 Movement and the World Evangelical Alliance. He is a co-founder and formerly served as International Facilitator of the World Without Orphans movement. He is passionate about advocating for children and families, by catalyzing and supporting collaborative initiatives.

Darcy Caires Jnr
(Brazil, USA)

This current focuses on local congregations’ participation in the mission of God. It includes sending church missions networks but has a broader scope. It will engage with all explorations related to how local churches engage in both local and global/cross-cultural missions.

As a pastor of a local church and leader of a Portuguese-speaking church network, Darcy’s heart is firmly in the local church, and his passion is to see the local church in dialogue with the global Church and God’s mission locally and globally.

Jo Herbert-James
(UK)

This current will ensure that theological issues concerning our environments and habitats are not eclipsed as core to our participation in God’s mission. It will connect with related Creation Care and Sustainability initiatives within WEA and Lausanne, TEAR Fund, and Micah Global as well as other likeminded groups who are faith based.

Jo also serves as a Deputy Leader in the MC. She has a passion for a robust biblical approach to Creation Care. Jo has worked in environmental justice with TEAR Fund UK as Theology and Networks Manager, and ran the Justice Conferences in the UK and is involved with Just Love UK. She is a PhD candate at the University of Wales Trinity St David in Cardiff, researching environmental theology.

Jill Ford
(UK)

This current embraces all manner of creative expressions in the pursuit of God’s mission. Alongside ethnodoxology (contextualised worship), this focus bridges relationships with existing arts, worship and ethnodoxology networks and connects with the many ways art is used to witness to God’s Kingdom and bring healing to a hurting world.

Jill is the Arts Programme Leader and lecturer at All Nations Christian College. She is actively training and mentoring international students in creative cross-cultural ministry and mission. She works alongside a global network of arts trainers to deliver specialist training courses (i.e. Arts for a Better Future, Arts and Trauma Healing, Intercultural Worship) and is currently very involved in the Arts Plus Europe Network, sitting on the Exec Committee seeking increased collaboration as they connect those with creative gifts in the areas of Church, Missions, Academy and Marketplace.

Chris Pullenayegem
(Sri Lanka/Canada)

This current includes all missions theory and practice related to people on the move across borders to live permanently—economic migrants, global diaspora, refugees, and other displaced people. It is closely aligned with the WEA Migration & Refugee Network and Lausanne’s Ministry to Diaspora.

Chris leads the WEA Migration & Refugee Network and is Director of the Congregational Vitality Initiative at the Vancouver School of Theology. He is a ministry practitioner committed to a holistic approach to ministry, integrating faith, justice, and compassion in contextualized, incarnational ways. He has held senior positions in private, government and not-for-profit sectors. He also has decades of experience working in the areas of church renewal, new ministry and migrant church development and discipleship/faith formation.

Rob Hay
(UK)

This current formalises a role that has existed in the Mission Commission since 2006 as the MC sought to strengthen relationships with the World Council of Churches’ Commission on World Mission and Evangelism. Since that time, relationships between the WCC’s CWME and WEA’s Mission Commission have strengthened, as have the relationships between the WCC and WEA. The Mission Commission is committed to working together in God’s mission with other expressions of the faith.

Rob currently serves as Head of Learning and Ministry Development for the Diocese of Leicester. Previously he was Principal of Redcliffe College UK between 2005 and 2017. Rob has been Mission Commission liason to the WCC’s Commission on World Mission and Evangelism since 2007.

Adriaan Adams
(South Africa)

This current is aimed at helping the Mission Commission strategise well for the inclusion of younger leaders and nurturing integenerational relationships within the MC community. It includes remaining aware of the latest thinking in intergenerational relations in the marketplace, the missions community and wider ministry good practice. We anticipate this current will influence wider intergenerational development throughout the global missions community.

Adriaan is the longest serving operational leader in the Mission Commission and currently serves as a Deputy Leader. Adriaan also leads GenerationIndex.com, which helps organisations incorporate young people into their workforce, develop them well and integrate them into their organisations as positive influencers. The organisation is motivated by this theory: “by identifying the common behavioural trends between generations, and creating intentional focus within the workspace to address them, a more healthier environment of collaboration will be developed”.

Francina de Pater
(Netherlands)

This current embraces ministries and thinking concerning the ministry to and welfare of students who leave their homelands to study overseas. It includes a close relationship with the Lausanne Movement’s Worldwide International Student Ministry Network (WIN) and international student ministries globally.

Francina de Pater is the Lausanne Catalyst for International Student Ministry, national director of the international student ministry department of IFES Netherlands, and the international student ministry coordinator for the regional team of IFES Europe. She also has her own coaching and counselling practice, and enjoys being involved in her local church leading a ministry that reaches out to the many tourists that visit their church each year. She and her husband also helped plant an international church in Gouda, Netherlands, through which they have connected to many refugees and other internationals from around the world.

Mark Hedinger & Kate Wiseman
(USA & UK)

This current will continue to ensure that the ministry of the International Missionary Training Network (IMTN) will remain in strong relationship with the Mission Commission, within the WEA Global Witness Department. The IMTN developed out of MC task forces and projects and has since become a network independent of MC oversight but still closely related to the MC.

Mark’s vision and purpose for his life and work, confirmed again and again by the Lord, is to equip God’s people for effective service in a culture and language different than their own. That purpose is at the core of the organization that Mark leads (CultureBound). Mark has previously served cross-culturally in Latin America (with Crossworld/UFM) and since 2008 has been training people for cross-cultural ministry.

Kate serves as Head of Learning Services for All Nations Christian College, the largest missionary training institution in the UK. Her passion is to provide and
facilitate others to provide accessible, effective cross-cultural mission training. Kate also has expertise as a librarian and musician.

Jay Matenga
(New Zealand)

This current connects the Mission Commission with the national associations of missions organisations around the world, also sometimes called national missions movements. The MC aims to continue as a point of interconnection for all national and regional missions alliances, who are considered key stakeholders in the MC. In most nations, these associations or alliances exist independently of National Evangelical Alliances and it is the MC’s desire to foster closer relationships between the missions and church alliances within nations where they exist, similarly between regional missions and church alliances.

Jay serves the WEA as Director of the Global Witness Department and as Executive Director of the Mission Commission, which sits within the department alongside the Global Evangelism Network. Jay also leads Missions Interlink NZ, the missions alliance in Aotearoa New Zealand and serves on the working board of the New Zealand Christian Network, the National Evangelical Alliance.

Geoffrey Hahn
(USA)

This current will keep the Mission Commission connected with the more academic world of studying and discussing missions practice and missiology. It will help the MC identify pressing needs in the practice of missions that could be studied further by the MC community as well as speak to current practice that could be helped by some critical assessment and advice.

Geoff is The Evangelical Alliance Mission’s (TEAM) missiologist and leads a group that identifies current issues that TEAM needs to be wrestling with and adapting to in order to be effective in mission today. They prioritize which issues need to be addressed first, and then roll out discussions and action plans to see the corresponding changes to mission culture and behaviour. He has been a member of the Overseas Ministries Studies Centre (OMSC)/Princeton Mission Leaders Forum for fifteen years, and has helped lead that missiological think thank for the last ten years. He is a member of the USA Evangelical Missiological Society and currently serves on the Boards of Mission Next, the National African American Missions Conference, and Faith2Share, helping those organizations to engage strategically with current missions trends.

Ryan Emis
(USA/Malaysia)

This current will track the main missions mobilization movements around the world and keep the Mission Commission apprised of the latest thinking in the area of missions promotion, missions education, and missions recruitment, as
well as the theology being developed to encourage the global Church to engage in
global missions.

Ryan is well known in mission mobilization circles and serves primarily with the Center for Mission Mobilization (USA) as Director of Global Partnerships from his family’s home base in Malaysia. He also serves as Associate Director of Global Development for the World Evangelical Alliance and Director of Global Consultations for the Lausanne Movement. Previously Ryan held responsibilities on the leadership team of the Global Mobilization Network, as Director of Ministry Advancement for Perspectives, and Area Director for Young Life in Stockholm.

JP Arceno
(Philippines/USA)

This current delves into the depths of emerging ‘cyber-contexts’, exploring the rich potential for missions that remains somewhat hidden from traditional missions strategies. Great masses of mainly young people are ‘native’ to massive online environments, making digital/virtual space a new context for missions that require new contextualised theologies.

JP is a Filipino based now in New Jersey where he pastors a culturally diverse congregation. His MA thesis explored the validity of “Digital Baptism”, which gained some interest in 2020 as COVID-19 forced churches online. JP is actively conversant in digital theology discussions in social media and is involved with major Evangelical networks exploring digital/virtual evangelism and missions. His vision is to see churches, ministries and missions all around the world aware of, actively participating in, and making a serious response when it comes to reaching out to non-Christians who live and relate inside virtual/digital worlds. It is said, 61% of the world’s population is now online, so we need (digital) missionaries to “go and make disciples” where the people are in these new cyber-contexts.

Ann Borquist
(USA/New Zealand)

This current intersects with all manner of theological education providers to grass-roots church leaders, indigenous movement leaders, and followers of Jesus who wish to increase their knowledge of the love of God in their contexts from an authentic biblical basis, with a particular emphasis on theological education related to missions activities.

Ann has served as a cross-cultural missions leader for over 30 years in the Philippines, Brazil, New Zealand, the Asia-Pacific region and in the headquarters of International Ministries (the mission arm of the American Baptist Churches USA). From her home base with Bruce in Aotearoa New Zealand, Ann is currently a Global Consultant of
International Ministries-ABCUSA working alongside Baptist partners in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Europe in the areas of “Mission From Everywhere to Everyone,” Contextualised Theological Education, Holistic Economic & Community Development, and Short Term Missions Engagement. She also contributes as a member of the TEE (Training to Empower & Equip, formerly Theological Education by Extension) team in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Evi Rodemann
(Germany)

This current will keep the Mission Commission focused on issues of succession in missions and it will enhance our commitment to welcoming newcomers into the MC community. It connects with a wide variety of leadership and younger-leader development initiatives, bringing that expertise into the MC to help us better strengthen our intergenerational relationships and younger leader development, while also representing the MC in other networks to help them model better younger leadership development as well.

Evi is the founding Director of LeadNow, which she started in 2021 to support the development of younger leaders, particularly in Europe. She also serves as a Deputy Leader for the Mission Commission and as a leader on the Lausanne Movement’s Younger Leaders Generation (YLG) team, among other youth and young leader oriented network involvements. Her personal calling is to engage with the young generation across Germany, Europe and beyond. She loves to see each person develop their God given potential and live a missional lifestyle wherever God places them. In this regard she has invested her life since being a teenager with being engaged with young people as well as taking young people onto mission trips.