Global Vision Update 2024
Reaching the nations through the nations
Inside: Church-planting partnerships in Egypt, plus stories from Peru, Kenya, Malaysia, and more inside!
DEAR PARTNERS,
As we reflect on the past year, I want to thank you for your part in reaching the nations through the nations. Your support has driven incredible progress in reaching new unreached people with the gospel, and this update highlights what we’ve achieved together through God’s grace.
Via is in many ways a catalyst, sparking church-planting initiatives where they may not otherwise begin by providing key trainings, on-site coaching, partnerships, and strategic insights. Our role is to create an environment for missions partnerships to flourish, giving ongoing support for church-planting initiatives. See the following page for a great example.
Thanks to this approach, we’re seeing new churches grow in unreached areas led by local believers and capable of multiplying in ways we couldn’t do alone. This past year you helped deploy over 4,400 missionaries! We’re incredibly grateful for your prayers, support, and partnership, and look forward to the impact we can make together in the year ahead.
With gratitude,
Dave Rofkahr, Executive Director
Left to Right: Dave Rofkahr, a community leader, Pastor Ayman, & Roy Fruits. This is Pastor Fruits’ second time to the region with Via, and his church has committed to partner with three new church plants with Via’s Delta Project, a catalytic church-planting partnership.
Faces blurred for security
Ayman’s church will meet in a church abandoned due to terrorist activity
Pastor Ayman’s (inset photo) church will be located in a Muslim community
FROM RUINS TO REVIVAL
The Delta Project is replanting abandoned churches in Egypt’s heartland
Egypt’s Nile Delta region is a land of abandoned church buildings. For centuries, the church in the Delta has faced severe persecution from radical Islam, and in the early 2000s many had to flee their homes and cities. The region is home to half the country’s population — including 55 million Muslims — yet there are few remaining evangelical churches.
A renewed church in a Muslim community
But where many see ruins claimed by fear and spiritual drought, Pastor Ayman sees potential. In fact, he is determined to reclaim one of these abandoned properties and plant a new church within its densely populated Muslim community. What’s more, Ayman is not alone; he’s part of a coalition of pastors and church planters who have a vision to plant 100 churches within the Delta region by 2029.
Delta Project a model of catalytic church-planting partnerships
However, planting 100 churches in staunchly Muslim communities requires seed funding and significant dedication. To make this possible, Via is connecting Delta Project church planters with American and Egyptian churches. The goal is for Western and Egyptian churches to each cover half the needed funding for five years to support and empower these pastors revitalizing the church in the Delta.
As this is being written, Via staff, along with pastors from Minnesota, Michigan, and Cairo, are visiting the ruins pictured to the left with new Egyptian church planters. Please pray for the Delta Project partnerships and church-planting efforts. If your church would like to join in on the partnership, let us know!
PRAY for our first Egyptian church planters as they advance the gospel within Muslim strongholds.
Name changed and face blurred for security purposes.
GIVE You can fund a Delta Project church planter for $300/mo!
GO Gather a group from your church to encourage or train our Egyptian partners. vianations.org/delta24
A NEW GENERATION RISING
Young Asian believers are stepping up to lead the next wave of missions
PRAY “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:38
GIVE Help fund an Explore translation for an Arise Asia conference.
GO Join our Via teams in Asia at an upcoming conference or training. vianations.org/ arise25
A wave of young Asian missionaries is stepping up to bring the gospel to the unreached. Recently, in the Buddhist-majority country of Myanmar, 128 Burmese young adults committed their lives to cross-cultural missions. Similar movements of youth are happening in Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Nepal, and beyond.
Arise conferences spreading across Asia
Over 5,000 young believers have gathered at Arise conferences, and the numbers keep growing as God raises up new leaders to fulfill the Great Commission. These young believers are determined to bring the message of Jesus to those who have never heard it.
Equipping future missionaries with Via’s Explore study Via partnered with Arise Asia to provide follow-up initiatives and practical tools, like our Explore study, to equip these young believers to leverage their lives for the Great Commission long after the events. This partnership has sparked new translations of our materials and strengthened our ties within the missions community in Southeast Asia.
The impact has been profound. One woman attending an Explore study was moved to tears when she realized through Genesis 12 that “God blessed her to be a blessing.” Another participant shared, “I never understood how central God’s heart for the unreached is.”
Through Arise Asia and our teams in the region, Via is empowering the next generation of missionaries to spread the hope of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Upcoming Arise Asia conference locations
Above: 128 Burmese students committed to go as cross-cultural missionaries
Top: Introducing Explore at Arise Indonesia
Bottom: Asif, Via’s Pakistani partner, speaks at Arise Pakistan
“TO
BE BORN DIGO IS TO BE MUSLIM… BUT NOT TODAY.”
God sends Kenyans to bring the gospel to an unreached people group in Kenya and Tanzania
1
Surrounded by Muslims
Pastor James’ church resides in the Muslimdominated city of Mombasa, Kenya. But he had a problem: his church was hesitant to reach out to Muslims, fearing they didn’t know how to find common ground or defend their faith. He needed a way to train his people in evangelism and discipleship. And he needed a clear vision around which to rally them.
Rallying the Kenyan church to reach a 99.9% Muslim and animist people group
On a sunny day in March of this year, James was one of sixty pastors who attended Via’s Explore the World Christian Lifestyle conference. James was shocked to learn that there are 23 people groups who haven’t heard the gospel in Kenya. One of them lives a mere two and a half hours south of his city. The Digo people live on the border of Tanzania and overwhelmingly believe in Islam, blended with traditional animist religion. Only 0.1% of the half million people are believers.
What if James’ church could be a part of bringing the gospel to the Digo people? What if this was their role to play in completing the Great Commission? This was a vision around which he could rally his church! 2
Pastor James studies Explore with other pastors
3
Collaboration and prayer leads to two new churches being planted
James formed a coalition of pastors at the Explore conference to try to reach the Digo people. Three months later, they sent a group from their churches to begin the work of sharing the gospel. Via helped train them in evangelism to Muslims through a God’s Heart for Muslims study and provided encouragement along the way. Over the next four months, the churches from Mombasa grew a team to live and work full time among the Digo people and have now planted two small churches!
We rejoice that God has brought the good news to these people who’ve never had the chance to hear it before and moreover we thank God that he chose to use James’ church to do so! Who better to be the messengers than the Digo’s neighbors?
Names changed for security purposes.
PRAY that these two new churches would flourish!
GIVE Invest in localized resources and pastor trainings.
GO Send a team from your church to join with us in encouraging and equipping the Kenyan church. vianations.org/ digo24
Two new churches planted among the Digo people!
Nairobi Mombasa KENYA TANZANIA
The Digo people
KENYA
TRIBE-TOTRIBE CHURCH PLANTING
Via’s team in Peru brings discipleship and mission vision to the Amazon jungle
In the jungles of Peru, in a village near Iquitos, one small church is preparing to take the gospel to neighboring tribes. Born into the Bora tribe, Pastor Ricardo Peña married a woman from the Yagua tribe, blending two cultures within his household. Over the years, he has become an apu — a leader in his tribe — and though his location is remote and his resources are limited, he is ready to share the good news with the unreached tribes around him. Ricardo was not always so passionate about the gospel, however. In fact, it was not until his son became seriously ill that he even believed in Jesus. “There was no cure, and no one could heal him,” he recalled. “Desperate, I began to pray, and God answered my prayer.”
He began to pastor the believers in his community, even though many of them cannot read the Bible for themselves. “We had no one to encourage us to keep going, until I met Ronald,” he said.
Scan the QR code to watch Pastor Ricardo’s testimony, translated into English!
Discipleship aimed at gospel proclamation Ronald, a pastor who serves part time on our Via Peru team, wanted to pour into Ricardo to strengthen his church. But Ricardo had bigger ideas. “Ronald asked me if I needed more training as a pastor. I replied that it wasn’t just me who needed teaching, but all of us here. Once we are all discipled, we can go out to other villages and communities, bringing them the gospel.”
Indigenous churches reaching places foreigners cannot Our team in Peru helped facilitate an Explore study with Ricardo, leaving him feeling more prepared to reach neighboring communities. His vision is for the entire Yagua church to complete Explore, so they too can catch God’s vision for the nations. Our team in Lima is just a few hours from this tribal church and is committed to walking alongside Pastor Ricardo as he equips his church and begins reaching other tribal peoples in the Amazon who have never had a missionary bring the message of Christ’s love.
Iquitos
Lima
Left: Pastor Ricardo
Middle: Our staff member Ronald teaches Ricardo’s church members
Bottom: Pastor Ricardo (back row with headdress) and his church PRAY for the unreached tribes in the Amazonian jungles and for Peruvians to be mobilized. GIVE
EUROPE → 19 million believers
LATIN AMERICA → 107 million believers
UNITED STATES → 88 million believers
Via Team Via Global Partner
Large numbers of Christians Both Christians & unreached
Large numbers of unreached
Our data is collected from Operation World and The Joshua Project.
Via’s 50 countries
BRAZIL → 52 million believers
AFRICA → 209 million believers
OUR MISSION:
INDIGENOUS MISSION MOVEMENTS TO THE UNREACHED
Each of the 50 countries colored green or dotted are home to at least 1 million believers. They have strategic access to the unreached (colored red), with many sharing similar languages, geographic proximity, and cultural parallels.
Thankful for God’s provision
Thank you for your partnership and entrusting us with your offerings to the Lord. Below is a breakdown of our spending.
2024 Expenses
$9,382,157
Staff Care & Development
Member care, leadership development, & training events
Operations
General operations & administration
Field Teams
Resource translations, trainings, conferences, & special projects
Trainings and Translation
Over 30 field team budgets
Staff Compensation & Ministry Expenses
Over 91% of the $7.9M raised by our 200 staff
Reaching the nations through your partnership
$112K (1.2%)
$609K (6.5%)
$239K (2.6%)
$534K (5.7%)
$7.9M (84.1%)
The vast majority of our funding comes from the thousands of believers who personally know, pray for, and support Via staff members. Your partnership is vital in helping our staff and teams reach the nations with the gospel!
Thank you!
God has already opened many doors for the year ahead
We have over 80 translations in the works and we’re launching new teams in Nigeria, Jordan, and the Philippines! Our 2025 budget is $11.7M. Explore our partnership opportunities at ViaNations.org/give.
Celebrating ministry impact
Your prayers and support are transforming lives throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East, & Latin America.
Discover
Helping churches in 50 countries discover how they can play a significant role in world missions.
Develop
Providing training and discipleship to develop believers for their role in God’s global mission
161,775
People exposed to God’s global mission
47,766
People developed through trainings and discipleship
Deploy
Connecting believers with opportunities to deploy as full-time mission workers.
4,446
New missionaries deployed by our staff and partners
Via Staff family together last year. These 200 families are serving in 24 nations to multiply mission-sending movements.
PO Box 3556
Fayetteville, AR 72702 formerly Center for Mission Mobilization
Reaching the nations through the nations
“I want to disciple my church, so that we can go out to other villages and tribes, bringing them the gospel.”
Full story inside!
Pastor Ricardo Peña, Peru