Missions to Europe, Asia & Africa

AFRICA

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. Jay and Sumter have two sons, John (‘20) and Michael (‘22), and one daughter Maggie Mae (‘24).

Pretoria, South Africa

MAURITZ & EUODIA BEZUIDENHOUDT

Reverend Mauritz Bezuidenhoudt is co-pastor at Grace Reformed Church (GRC) in Pretoria, South Africa.  GRC is a multi-ethnic English-speaking recently particularized congregation with members of diverse religious, ethnic and economic backgrounds most of whom are not originally from Pretoria.

Pretoria, the capitol of South Africa is predominantly Afrikaans, Sepedi and Setswana, but most migrants use English as their preferred second language.

Mauritz and his wife, Euodia, have two children, Nadya (13) & Yehoshua (7).  As native South Africans, they returned to South Africa in 2023 after living abroad for 16 years. Mauritz is an ordained minister in the PCA and also in the Gereformeerde Kerk in Suid-Africa (GKSA) of which GRC is part of. His main shepherding responsibilities are preaching, counselling, evangelism, and maturing the congregation. Euodia teaches Sabbath school for 5 to 10-year-olds and also leads the ladies’ Bible Study in their home. Their family enjoys and values hospitality and friendship building as a core part of their ministry.

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 U.S. to work with a refugee resettlement organization in Atlanta, Georgia. 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. The country of Belgium is historically Roman Catholic but is now secular and pluralistic. Along with much of Western Europe, the number of Bible-believing Christians is quite small. Matt leads a small core group of Reformed believers in this city. Please pray for the Lord to provide them with strength, perseverance, and His leading as they seek the growth of the Kingdom in Belgium.  aldis@swissmail.com

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. He 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). 

All Saints Presbyterian Church, New Castle, ENGLAND

FRANCE

Gethin & Katie Jones

The Church in France been growing remarkably in the last 70 years with 10 times as many evangelical churches now as there were in 1950. However, many would have little appreciation of the depths of what the Bible teaches and even of their rich Christian heritage in France. Gethin first came to France in 2009 to work with the IFES team serving students in Paris. Having felt a call to stay long term to encourage and grow the Church in Paris, he stayed to work at a local international school and help as part of the core of Chapelle de Nesle when it was planted in 2012. In 2014 he went to pursue his theological studies at Westminster Theological Seminary, before completing a year’s traineeship in Ealing, London and being sent out as a minister by the International Presbyterian Church. Gethin served as the Assistant Minister at la Chapelle de Nesle, a reformed evangelical congregation in the heart of Paris from 2018 to 2023.

Katie joined Gethin in the summer 2021 when they got married. Katie has been learning French and has adapted well to life in France. In 2023, Gethin and Katie moved to Lille to start the work of planting Eglise de la Trinité. 

United for Missions Worldwide

GERMANY

Berlin

In September 2012, the EPCEW began a monthly church planting Bible study in south-west Berlin. The small group of German believers showed great initiative as they published the Westminster Standards (which had already been translated) for the confessional basis of the church, along with a German hymn book. They established a ‘Presbyterianische Kirche’ Berlin website (www.epkd.de) and a Facebook page. After several years of having EPCEW ministers fly over to Berlin to lead studies and strengthen the core group of believers, a young German minister named Johannes Müller was called last year to plant a German-speaking church in Berlin.

Berlin Presbyterian Church was officially made a mission church of the EPCEW in 2024, and Mr. Müller hopes to complete his ordination exams later this summer, after which he will be installed as minister.

Heidelberg

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

Stuttgart

Nathan & LEA Gibbs

Nathan is from Washington State and he and his wife met while volunteering for an international missions organization in Germany. Lea was raised in southwestern Germany, where they have lived since marriage in 2018. They both attend Covenant Fellowship Church (CFC), a PCA plant in Stuttgart, Germany where Nathan has served as an intern while also starting a job in the IT industry. During his time as an intern, the internal call to ministry was confirmed many times by outward calls by the Senior Pastor of CFC as well as by multiple members of the congregation. After much prayer and consideration, he began to study part-time online at Edinburgh Theological Seminary to get a Bachelor of Theology. Nathan is now serving at CFC as the full-time church planting apprentice. After completing his seminary degree, his vision and mission is to start another church plant in Germany.

While Germany has a reputation and a history of being a Christian country, and still retains many of the outward trappings of Christianity such as a state church and religion classes in public school, in reality, it is a deeply secular, post-Christian nation. Only 2% percent of Germans are evangelical, Bible-believing Christians, with around 50% being nominal members of the theologically liberal, rapidly failing state churches, and a staggering 40% not identifying themselves with any religion at all. 

If you are interested in partnering with Nathan or would like more information, please don’t hesitate to reach out: ngibbs14@gmail.com

Covenant Fellowship Church (PCA), Stuttgart, Germany

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)

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.

www.missiontoitaly.com

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

www.okinawacovenant.org

SOUTH KOREA

Jae & Jesslyn Park

Jae Park was ordained to the gospel ministry on 1 September, 2024 at Eastwood Presbyterian Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He is partnering with Ministry to the Military and Internationals, which was established to plant Presbyterian Churches overseas to  meet the  spiritual needs of U.S. Military personnel, their families, Department  of Defense Civilians, Contractors, Expatriates, and local nationals that  speak English as a second language.  A recent graduate of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and newly ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), Jae and Jesslyn are planning to move to Pyeongtaek, South Korea to plant an international church just minutes from two large US military installations: Camp Humphreys and Osan Air Base.Jae and Jesslyn have two children: Chaelyn (‘19) and Zion (‘22)

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

zuerichpres.ch