by Julie Daubé

Roughly 175 Alliance Missions leaders gathered in Athens, Greece, for the Global Leadership Conference at the end of 2024 to celebrate what God has been doing in their midst. International workers (IWs) from The Alliance’s four specialized structures—aXcess, Envision, CAMA Services, and marketplace ministries—encouraged one another with testimonies of God’s faithfulness from their time serving Him in some of the world’s hardest places. Following are some highlights from this event.

CAMA

In Latin America, residents of Colombia who were affected by a lack of essential basic services now have access to drinking water. CAMA helped by providing funds to build a water treatment plant. And in Cuba, funds provided by CAMA helped purchase relief supplies that were distributed by Alliance churches to those affected by recent natural disasters.

In Asia/Pacific, Cyclone Yagi caused flooding and mudslides across Myanmar—leaving an area already ravaged by war in chaos. Thanks to support from our Alliance family, a local church was able to provide food, clothing, and shelter to those left in need by the cyclone, making it possible for Christ followers to demonstrate His compassion in the places most in need of His love. Within a span of 10 days, the Philippines were hit by six typhoons, affecting over 1.1 million people and resulting in over 160 deaths. Through their global partners, CAMA is providing much-needed funds to ease the suffering of those affected. And in Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia, our workers are helping persecuted refugees hear that even though they feel the world is against them, there is a God who loves them.

In Africa, through the work of CAMA’s agricultural experts, hundreds of pastors and farmers have received training in Farming God’s Way—a solution to the food security and poverty crisis facing agricultural communities. In Europe, hundreds of people in Ukraine have said yes to Jesus, and thousands have received help by over one million dollars in relief efforts given through CAMA. In Kosovo, young people coming to the Bridge outreach are hearing about Jesus and starting to respond to Him. In the Middle East, CAMA has provided aid to multiple countries in need.

Envision

Envision’s 22 sites around the world are committed to identifying and developing missional leaders through short-term missions opportunities and innovative ministry strategies. Envision workers have successfully hosted their first teams and interns in the Holy Land and Japan and have launched new locations in Manchester, England; Senegal, West Africa; and with Inca Link in Latin America. Furthermore, Envision is identifying and developing leaders from local communities in Taipei, El Salvador, Cleveland, New York City, Chicago, Bangkok, Atlanta, and with Inca Link. Recently, Envision received or is preparing to receive new workers in Miami, Berlin, France, Japan, Senegal, the Dominican Republic, the Twin Cities, and Cleveland.

Envision has also welcomed refugees and people seeking asylum due to war, evacuation, and other crises at their sites in Berlin, Atlanta, Cleveland, New York City, and Chicago. In other locations, Envision has been involved in innovative ministry strategies and people development, including Deaf ministries, coffee shops and coffee roasting, and more.

marketplace ministries

The reason we do what we do is because of the Great Commission—go, make disciples, baptize, and teach. This is what marketplace workers are doing all over the world. They are fulfilling the commands of Jesus through their careers, impacting the communities around them, and meeting the spiritual and practical needs of people.

In North and West Africa and Southeast Asia, one marketplace couple teaches at a school, runs a marketing company, and has started a theological school to train local pastors. Another couple runs a consulting and coaching business, training local business leaders, sharing the gospel with them, praying with them, and discipling them. One group runs a K−12 school as well as a training center, where they share the gospel with every person who comes through their building. One marketplace IW carried the Olympic torch in a communist country and also carried the torch of the gospel throughout Southeast Asia, which included starting an international church.

aXcess

aXcess—Middle East/central Asia (MCA):

A team located in a highly sensitive area of Asia is proclaiming the gospel to three unreached people groups. Some 60 prayer warriors prayed to open the gates of heaven, and now the harvest has begun with 13 members of one of these unreached people groups accepting Christ.

In two Middle Eastern locations, teams of Alliance workers use community centers to bless and engage hundreds of people. For years, these teams have been praying for those of the region’s dominant religion to respond to Christ and for those new believers to be filled with His fullness, learn to make Him King, and form churches that multiply. After churches would form and then lose strength, this past year, a group in each location has formed that has remained and gained momentum.

The latest round of violent conflict in the Middle East began in earnest on October 7, 2024. Though there are obvious challenges, including the ethnic and religious divide, our faithful workers in the region have stuck together in long-standing partnership.

In Mongolia, our Darkhan team is transforming lives, raising up leaders, and coming alongside the Mongolian Alliance church network to extend gospel access to new places and to plant new churches.

In another area, the team is strategically preparing to enter a new country by first serving local refugees from that nation and then planning to launch there. And in central Asia, where Alliance workers were once expelled, two families have successfully relaunched gospel presence through a business, proving that closed doors can reopen in unexpected ways.

aXcess—Europe:

One of the most exciting ministries The Alliance has in Europe is among the diaspora. Despite conflict in this region, we celebrate the movement of people around the world and the gospel opportunities this is creating in Europe. God, in His sovereignty has allowed this movement of people from unreached, unengaged people groups to Europe, and for the first time, their paths are crossing with Jesus followers in Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France.

As the conflict in Ukraine has dragged on, Alliance Missions has been part of a church movement there. The Alliance-affiliated Light of the Gospel network dropped from 13 churches before this crisis started to 8 churches as the war began but has quickly grown to 27 congregations inside Ukraine and 5 mission churches outside Ukraine, with as many as 50 preaching points inside the country. Late last year, that network submitted their paperwork to join the Alliance World Fellowship (AWF).

An IW couple who decided to continue ministering in Ukraine throughout the conflict has been able to provide real-time physical and spiritual support to a movement distributing hundreds of thousands of dollars from our Alliance family toward aid and ministry support and to this church network. In turn, the network has mobilized humanitarian aid and gospel witness to the front lines of the conflict.

aXcess—Africa:

At Bongolo Hospital in Gabon, our IWs train Christian health-care professionals, some of whom stay in Gabon while others proclaim God’s name and provide excellent care in places The Alliance can’t easily reach. Since the late 1970s, workers had been seeking accreditation for the hospital’s training programs—just recently, there was a breakthrough. In only a few months, the nursing, midwifery, and nurse anesthetist programs were all accredited through the military hospital program, and now medical students are sent to Bongolo directly from the medical school in the capital.

In West Africa, young men and women continue to answer the call to ministry despite political uncertainty, insecurity, and terrorism. As of December 2024, 147 students were enrolled in pastoral training schools. That same year, the first Deaf church started services. God also brought 40 members of the majority religion to an English center where they engaged in Scripture reading with a team of Alliance workers. One of them, Noah, was reading with a team member about the healing at the pool of Bethesda and the authority Jesus claimed based on His relationship with the Father. Instead of denying that Jesus is God—as expected—Noah responded, “We need to tell people more about Jesus!” Several weeks later, Noah asked a worker to pray for him to have a clearer view of who Jesus really is.

aXcess—Asia/Pacific:

In Japan, there is a rapidly growing ministry to Vietnamese people, both among the diaspora and among overlooked and marginalized migrant workers from Vietnam. Alliance workers are joining with our AWF partners to train not only their workers but also Japanese nationals to minister in Japan. In Indonesia, our IWs have been working with the national church and with the Bible colleges, helping them to instill a missional heart in their students. IWs are also working among the diaspora leaving the unrest in Hong Kong and fleeing to Taiwan, as well as partnering with the Indonesian church working with the Indonesian diaspora. The many Bible college graduates in this region are now entering some places where Alliance workers cannot go. Cambodia also has a powerful ministry through an impactful medical project that is partnering with the government. Stories of first believers and baptisms are emerging from among the previously unreached people groups served by this outreach.

aXcess—Latin America:

Since first arriving in countries such as Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador in 1897, our IWs have persevered in gospel ministry—so much so that this year at Council 2025 in Columbus, we are celebrating the retirement of 10 workers, each with an average of 35 years of gospel proclamation. That is over 350 years of cumulative service. We also welcome 12 new IWs to the region, more than half of them multicultural.

In Mexico, we celebrate a catalytic church-planting project with the goal of having five churches in Guadalajara and in the five surrounding states by 2025. This is a spiritually dark area with 26 million people, of which less than 1 percent are evangelical, and is referred to as the Circle of Silence due to the lack of gospel witness. Four of those five churches in Guadalajara have been planted, and we pray for two other churches that are in the developing phase.

We also celebrate one of the oldest evangelical seminaries in Latin America, established in 1928 in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Just over 25 years ago, Alliance workers launched a regional master’s level seminary, FATELA (Facultad Teológica Latinamericana), and have over 350 graduates who serve as pastors, leaders, and missionaries. In Uruguay, SETAU (Seminario de Estudios Teológicos Aliancista del Uruguay) has seen more than 40 students studying for gospel ministry since our IWs have returned to the school. In Paraguay, IMAP (Instituto Ministerial Aliancista Paraguayo)—started in 2018—celebrates its 27 graduates from the three-year program. Finally, in Panama we celebrate the nine Chinese-speaking graduates of the institute (seven licensed for ministry) and the partnership with NYC Chinese Alliance Church who are now expanding to Lima, Peru, where seven are signed up to study.

God’s Kingdom is advancing throughout the world because of the work of Alliance Missions. And in each country and among each people group they serve, Alliance workers remain steadfast in sharing the love of Christ with those in need.

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