Missions to Europe, Asia & Africa
Albania
Berti & Jenny Kona
Rev. Albert (“Berti”) Kona is pastor of Reformed Church in Durres (Kisha Reformuar Durres), which is the first Reformed church in Albania. He is a native Albanian who attended Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and then returned to his homeland to plant this church. He is a member of Calvary Presbytery.
During the Cold War, Albania was dubbed “the most atheistic nation in the world.” Having planted Kisha Reformuar Durres, Rev. Kona is also involved in several translation works: John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied; Boettner’s Doctrine of Atonement and The Reformed Faith; The Westminster Assemblies Directory of Worship; and for the first time in history, bringing to the Albanian language and people the primary textbook of the Reformed Faith, John Calvin’s The Institutes of the Christian Religion. This latter project is done with the gospel hope that the Lord of the Church will use this sharp tool in Albania.
Berti is married to Jenny from Spartanburg, SC and they have three children: Annabella, Miriam and Johannes.
Visit them on the web: www.missiontoalbania.org
Belgium
Matthew Lamos
Born into a covenant home and raised in the PCA, Matthew did undergraduate work in languages at the University of Istanbul before returning to the US to work with a refugee resettlement organization and in campus ministry in Atlanta, GA. He earned his Masters of Divinity at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, doing much of his study by distance from Belgium while serving in various churches there. He has been called by the Blue Ridge Presbytery of the PCA to evangelism and church planting in Ghent, Belgium, a city of some 260,000 people that lies about 40 miles west of the capital city of Brussels. The country of Belgium is historically Roman Catholic but now secular and pluralistic. Along with much of Western Europe, the number of Bible-believing Christians is quite small. Please pray for the small core group of Reformed believers in this city and for the Lord to provide them with strength, perseverance, and His leading as they seek the growth of the Kingdom in Belgium. Pray that they would remain faithful and joyful, always remembering the glorious truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
England
Ben & Anna wontrop
Benjamin is a native of southwestern Virginia, and graduated from Virginia Tech in 2011 and then Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 2016.
Benjamin serves in the northeast of England at All Saints Presbyterian Church, in the city of Newcastle (All Saints https://allsaintspres.org.uk/ is a congregation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England and Wales, EPCEW). The church is one of the largest in the EPCEW and is seeking to grow into a congregation that can resource the work of the wider church throughout the northeast of England. It is actively involved in church planting and has founded the only Presbyterian seminary in England – Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary (WPTS). In addition to his work at All Saints, Benjamin serves on the sessions of All Saint's three church plants and is a board member for WPTS. Benjamin also serves on the session of a small church in the city of Hull, which he is seeking to support. Benjamin is married to Anna, a native of the northeast of England and they have two young children - Joy (age 3) and Ezra (age 1).
Germany
Sebastian & Isabel Heck
Reverend Sebastian Heck formed the ministry known as R2G – Reformation to Germany – a church planting ministry of the Selbstandige Evangelish-Reformierte Kirche (Free Evangelical-Reformed Church) in Heidelberg. Germany, the birthplace of the Reformation, is now a dark, spiritual place consisting of proud atheism and agnosticism. Reverend Heck’s vision is to see the establishment of a vibrant, confessional Reformed church in Germany in order to spread the Gospel throughout the land anew. Publishing is also part of his larger objective in which to teach the people a Reformed Christian faith and worldview. He also seeks to provide training for future elders and church planters that is crucial for a movement of Reformed churches. R2G is also the convener and organizer of the Heidelberg Conference on Reformed Theology, an annual international conference with the goal to bring Reformation to Europe.
Visit R2G on the web at: www.reformation2germany.org
Hungary
Peter & Erika Szabo
Peter A. Szabo was born in 1982 and was raised in a Roman Catholic home in Hungary. At the age of six, however, his mother, a family doctor, became a follower of Christ when one of her patients witnessed Christ to her. This brought a radical change in Peter's life. From that time on, he was brought up in the instruction of the Lord. He was twelve when the Lord gave him a new heart and saved him by His infinite mercy. But there were still important lessons to be learned. At this time, Peter and his mother were still in the Roman Catholic church. Not only were there very few gospel-preaching churches in Hungary, there was (and is) a great confusion about the role and importance of the church. Most Christians in Hungary attend liberal or weak churches, so Peter's mother was advised to stay in the Roman Catholic church and "be a light there". Only when they met with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Central and Eastern Europe (RPCCEE), did God reveal the biblical doctrine of the church and importance of church-membership. In the RPCCEE Peter and his mother found a confessional Presbyterian church devoted to the teachings of the Bible. Peter became a member of the church in 2004.
Having graduated as an economist Peter started to work for the government in Budapest. (Budapest is the capital of Hungary and a home to two-million people.) But he head a deep desire to study God's Word, so beside his secular work he started to study theology at the RPCCEE's seminary online. He finished his studies in 2009 and entered into full-time ministry on January 1, 2010. He was ordained as the pastor of the RPCCEE church in Budapest and still continues his ministry here. In this period, the Lord blessed the church with spiritual and numerical growth, the church has grown from about 20 members to 70 and is now the 'flagship' church of the RPCCEE. The main characteristics of Peter's (and of the whole RPCCEE's) ministry are the faithful expository preaching of God's word, the importance of biblical worship, the dedication to shepherding and biblical counseling.
Besides his pastoral ministry, Peter was asked to help with the training in the seminary. Together with the other pastors Peter had the vision for a new, module-based seminary that is committed to the precious truth of the Reformation and is dedicated to train Hungarian natives for the gospel ministry.
Moreover, Peter has been thinking a lot how the fragmented Reformed churches and church plants in Europe could work together, know about and encourage each other. Last year he and other pastors from all over Europe started 'Reformation Europe' as a platform that will show a united face of confessionally Reformed churches/church plants in Europe.
Peter met first with Erika, his later-to-be-wife in 2005. They got married in 2009 and have three children: Andris (8), Eszter (6) and Hanna (4).
Reformed Presbyterian Church of Central and Eastern Europe (RPCEE)
Indonesia
Dr. Craig & Lisa Sheppard
In 2019, the Board of Trustees of Reformed Theological Seminary appointed Dr. Craig Sheppard as the Executive Director of the Center for Reformed Theology (CRT) in Jakarta, Indonesia. Jakarta is home to more than 30 million people, and the country is officially the largest Muslim country in the world. RTS’s connection with Indonesia began in the 1970s when Indonesian students started attending RTS. After graduation, these alumni returned home and pastored churches and started seminaries. The Sheppards moved to Jakarta to partner with a major Christian university (~20,000 students) and school system (~39,000 students in 47 schools). Dr. Sheppard’s primary role has been to preach regularly for the university staff and students, and particularly to equip university instructors and K-12 teachers in Christian education in general and the Reformed faith in particular. Along with these responsibilities, he has been a part of helping establish a new Reformed denomination in Indonesia, the Presbyterian Reformed Evangelical Church of Indonesia. To date, five new churches have been planted, with four of the five now having seminary-trained full-time pastors. The denomination is nearing full governmental registration.
Along with these responsibilities, Dr. Sheppard also teaches intensive courses for RTS in the USA and online, including Christian Encounter with Islam, Ecclesiology and Sacraments, Contemporary Theology, Missions, and Evangelism.
Dr. Sheppard and his wife Lisa have five grown children and are awaiting the birth of their first grandchild!
Italy
Mike & Ivana Cuneo
Mike Cuneo was raised as a Roman Catholic until God called him to Himself when He was 21, giving Him a new heart and new life in Christ.
He was ordained by Calvary Presbytery (PCA) in 2007 and was sent as a pastor/missionary to Viterbo, Italy, where he labored until 2020. He and his wife, Ivana, are presently laboring in Umbria (Central Italy), in partnership with the Reformed Church of Perugia (Chiesa Riformata di Perugia). Then have a shared hope with other brethren for the planting and building up of Italian Confessional Presbyterian and Reformed churches.
Mike is married to Ivana, a native of Palermo, Sicily. They are engaged in a wide array of activities, ministering to those inside and outside of the church.
Pray, together with Mike and Ivana, that Christ would build His Church by saving His people and maturing them. Specifically pray with them that the Lord would raise up godly men and families. They must first be converted, and then mature to be servant leaders in their family, in their community, and in the local church.
Japan
Miguel & Hannah D’Azevedo
The D’Azevedos moved to Okinawa in July 2022, the Island of Japan that is located south of the main island, close to China and Taiwan. There are several US military bases in Okinawa, including the largest Marine base outside of the United States. Okinawa is home to approximately 90k Americans (about 30k of these are military), 25k other foreign residents, and 1.4 million Japanese.
The D’Azevedos live outside of the US military base and on April 26th, Miguel was ordained and installed as the pastor of Okinawa Covenant Church (OCC). OCC is a PCA church plant of the South East Alabama Presbytery and is the only presbyterian/reformed church on the Island. It is an international English-speaking congregation with the hope of becoming bilingual as the Lord enables. Currently, there is a core group of 50+ people meeting at the chapel on base every Sunday.
Contact Information: m.dazevedo@hotmail.com
Kenya, East Africa
Jay & Sumter Brantley
Jay and Sumter work with the Samburu of Kenya in order to establish and maintain Gospel-centered fellowships and churches. They do this through chronological Bible storytelling with men and women fellowships. Their hope is to see the Samburu people come to a full understanding of the Gospel and witness the creation of self-propagating Samburu-led churches.
The Samburu are an isolated tribe with very little access to the Gospel. There is an immediate need to evangelize the interior areas of Samburu land. As a community, the Samburu have many needs: the future of their children. the erosion of their culture and way of life, and access to clean water, education, and medical care. The arid landscape the Samburu inhabit causes many challenges. Their biggest need, however, is spiritual. They need to hear the message about Jesus Christ. Because of their remoteness and isolation, many of the Samburu have never heard the Gospel.
The very fundamental job of a missionary is to preach the Gospel. All other tasks flow from this one foundation. Our hope is to see the Gospel bring people life, both here and for eternity.
Pretoria, South Africa
Mauritz & Euodia Bezuidenhoudt
Reverend Mauritz Bezuidenhoudt is the Assistant Pastor at Grace Reformed Church (GRC) in Northern Pretoria, South Africa, a multi-ethnic congregation with worship services in English. GRC is a church plant out of the Heritage Reformed Congregations of North America through its senior pastor Reverend Brian DeVries.
Mauritz and his wife, Euodia, and two children (Nadya & Yehoshua) returned to South Africa in 2023 after living abroad for 16 years. He is a native of Pretoria and has longed to return to his home country and serve the Lord. Afrikaans, his native language, and English a second language are two of the four main languages including Sepedi and Setswana spoken in this region. Reverend Bezuidenhoudt preaches twice a month and leads worship services when not preaching. Other than his duties as a preacher, Mauritz leads a weekly Bible Study for young adults and teaches at the Mukhanyo Theological College. Euodia also leads the Ladies’ Bible Study in their home.
Grace Reformed Presbyterian Church Pretoria
Contact Information:
Mauritz.Bezuidenhoudt@outlook.com
Switzerland
FLORIAN & VERONICA WEICKEN
Reverend Florian Weicken is the church planter of Zürich Presbyterianische Gemeinde - Presbyterian Church of Zurich, Switzerland (www.zuerichpres.ch) which was sent out by the All Saints Presbyterian Church of Newcastle, England, part of the EPCEW (Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England & Wales). He is currently leading a monthly Bible study and has established a core group for the new church plant. Florian is originally from eastern Switzerland, and is married to Veronica, from Scotland.
After his military service and officers training in the Swiss Air Force, he completed a B.Sc. in Business Law. After earning his degree, he took a year of personal study at Edinburgh Theological Seminary. Shortly after working for a few years in Switzerland, Mr. Weicken completed his MDiv at Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in conjunction with Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in South Carolina.
Florian is currently working on a MA in Christian Theology at Durham University, in Northern England while setting up the church plant in Zürich - the city of Huldrych Zwingli and Henry Bullinger. The former is one of the first Reformers who introduced the concept of lectio continua in preaching. The latter was the first who defined Covenantal Theology.
Contact Information:
Reverend Florian Weicken
Minister for Church Planting in Zurich
All Saints Presbyterian Church
allsaintspres.org.uk
Taiwan
Mark & Jane Kuo
Mark and Jane Kuo and their five children are from Taiwan, their youngest two having been born here in South Carolina. After 8 years of college ministry in Taiwan, the Kuos moved to the U.S. in the summer of 2018 for Mark to attend Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary with the intention of returning to Taiwan for church planting.
While enjoying religious freedom and social stability, Taiwan has only 3.3% of the evangelical Christian population. Reformed churches are few and most are small.
It is Mark’s desire to pastor and plant confessionally Reformed and Presbyterian churches through the preaching and teaching of the Word, shepherding, discipleship, evangelism, and leadership training.
Having graduated with his Master of Divinity in May of 2022, Mark is called by Calvary Presbytery of PCA to be a Pastor of Evangelism and Church-Planting in Taiwan. Now Mark is raising support for the mission work in Taiwan. Lord willing, they plan to return to Taiwan in February of 2023.
Contact information: markchkuo@gmail.com
