Global Outreach Focus Areas
We partner with missionaries and send our own missions teams to minister to three main people groups: those living in Honduras, Hungary, and the First Nations people in the US and Canada.
Honduras
EFCCL sent its first short term team to Tegucigalpa, Honduras in 1997 to partner in healthcare and evangelism with World Gospel Outreach. Their goal is to tell people about Jesus and make disciples through 250 partner Honduran churches. Many people in our church family have been blessed by the opportunity to partner with this great ministry to help meet the needs of people who are known and loved by God.
We currently partner with El Ayudante, a ministry whose mission is to grow committed followers of Christ by meeting the needs of the local community in the Comayagua Valley and the surrounding mountain communities. Local communities are involved in creating their own solutions to the challenges they face everyday–physically, emotionally, and spiritually. El Ayudante aims to empower and enable by collaborating with families, churches, and local leaders to work as a team to solve the presented needs. Although they use the energy of short-term missions teams to meet needs, each activity fits into the larger picture of serving their communities where they need it the most. Because of this consistent involvement, a short-term project is part of a lasting, long-term challenge.
The clinic at El Ayudante provides accessible and affordable medical and dental care to 15,000+ people in a 25-mile zone. Their mission is to show the love of Jesus Christ, who heals and saves, by providing quality medical care through education, prevention, treatment, and follow-up care. Their learning center makes middle and high school education possible for students who are given scholarships provided by people in churches in the United States. Some people from the U.S. and from our church also contribute to university scholarships for students.
Through the efforts of Dave Bryan, David Palsgrove, the McCormick family (Dreiske moving and Storage), and Kevin Wegrzyn, our church has been able to partner with other churches to collect and send needed materials and equipment through the Denton Humanitarian Project to El Ayudante. These large shipments have included medical and dental supplies for the clinic as well as school supplies, furniture, and even heavy equipment. Special contributions have been dresses, tote bags, and feminine products made and contributed by EFCCL’s Sewing Seeds Ministry.
Our church sends short-term teams every November to do VBS, a women’s conference, build latrines, install water filters, and do other tasks that serve communities and share the gospel We have been invited to send teams back for many years as our partnership with El Ayudante has continued to grow.
Hungary
Our church’s partnership in Hungary began from two different initiatives. One was when our former Pastor, Bob Page, and his wife Linda visited Budapest when it was still behind the Iron Curtain. The second was when a former youth pastor brought an established student exchange program to our church with Karinthy Frigese, and International Baccalaureate High School in Budapest.
When the Iron Curtain fell, the mission arm of the Evangelical Free Church of America decided to open a field in Budapest. Beginning in 1996, our church began to send teams to Hungary, first to seek in prayer where God would have the place for ministry to begin. Out church tithed a portion from our capital campaign in 2002 and partnered with other U.S. churches to purchase a former movie theater, the Mozi Olimpia, where compulsory communist propaganda films had been shown. Many ministries and several churches are now housed in that building. A coffee shop, the Montázs Art Café, was opened about 8 years ago in the lower part of the building. Unforseen by anyone but God, a station on Budapest’s newest subway line opened just outside the door of the café a few years ago, resulting in thousands of people passing by every day. Out church also helped build a playground in what was a barren field surrounded by high rise apartment buildings in the area.
Since 1998, our church has sent teams every year to pray, to renovate the Monzi Olimpia building, and to serve in English camps and clubs. When the Covid pandemic shut down travel, we even hosted an online English camp with our church partner in Simontornya, a village where we have been invited for many years as a result of contacts made in an English camp some years ago in Budapest.
God has called people from our own church family to serve in Budapest. Kristen Dunham Yaiko, who had been part of the student exchange program from our church, and her husband Kevin served the International Christian School of Budapest for 13 years before returning with their four children to the United States. Mystele Kirkeen was on the Budapest City Team (BCT) until 2021 and presented concerts, art shows, and classes as outreach events. After 6 years of serving in Hungary, Sam Gatz is now the BCT Leader. Randy and Robin Kohl also serve on the BCT where Randy works with university students, mentors men through an International Church, and oversees security for Reach Global Europe. Robin teaches at the Reformed University and has been a board member of the International Christian School of Budapest, and the Montazs Foundation, which oversees the KMK (formerly Monzi Olimpia). Josh Friesen joined the Budapest City Team in October of 2023 to do sports ministry with students and young adults, and has now transitioned into a career position to return in discipleship and mentoring ministry. Our church also helps support several others on the BCT: Harold and Cindy Golden, Doug and Kristie Andre, Orsolya Lajos-Berla, Daniel and Kata Tillotson, and Kate and Matyas Kondor.
First Nations
Mount Currie is a settlement in the Squamish-Lillooet region of Southwestern British Columbia. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road about 160 kilometers north of Vancouver. In the summer of 1998, Ron and Mystele Kirkeeng heard about NAIM through a professor at Moody Bible Institute and took his advice to pursue the opportunity to serve with North America Indigenous Ministries (NAIM). NAIM is a community of believers that serves to advance the gospel in a variety of different ways throughout British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan in Western Canada, and Washington State, Montana, and New Mexico, NAIM exists to glorify God through building the Church by making disciples among First Nations.
Don and Mary Dehart lived in Mount Currie for thirty years. Their time in Mount Currie was spent building momentum in the lives of many families within the First Nation communities. They both served faithfully for many years leading a local church, making disciples, serving on NAIM leadership and were a part of Great Commission Partners upon retiring. Their deepest desire was for God to use them to imprint lives within our good Father’s kingdom work in Mount Currie. EFCCL partnered with them for many years.
Wylie and Temera Millar are currently living in Mount Currie with their daughters, Ashling and Zoe. Temera is First Nations from the Squamish Nation and Lil’wat Nation and is the Recruitment Director for NAIM. Wylie and Temera met in 2007 and were married in 2012. A long-time local truck driver, and thoughtful examiner of things pertaining to the defense of the faith, Wylie enjoys meaningful conversations, writing, photography, and paragliding, Their passion is to see more First Nations people know the truth and joy of Christ.
Students of Nexus Student Ministries focus on “relational evangelism” rather than doing projects. The individuals that serve on this trip each summer come in with the intent of building redemptive relationships that will develop beyond the trip experience. It is in these long-term friendships that we have seen the faith of many First Nations teens develop and strengthen. We have a handful of individuals who continue to return and be a part of God’s kingdom working there to help advance the gospel. For over twenty-six years (during the summers) we have invested in the community of Mount Currie, seeking to be a disciple-making movement of the next generation. We have continued to build trusting relationships with First Nations individuals from Mount Currie and the surrounding valley. We have seen God continue to build upon the faithfulness of students year after year. The hearts of kids have continued to soften and are starting to respond to the call to be followers of Jesus. We have had camps from twenty-four people to camps of one hundred and fifty every summer—the impact is being seen all over the valley. Every year since 1998, EFCCL has taken groups of anywhere from 12 to 38 people to serve at Red Soul Rising in BC!
Matt and Ashley Klockenga, along with their partners Ron and Jen, served in Cat Lake, Northern Ontario, Canada for 9 years in a group of about 700 First Nations people. By the grace of God, an indigenous church was established on that reservation. Pray for this fledgling church, especially that more young people will be led to become part of the church family and grow in grace and in leadership skills. The desire is for the church to be self-led, self-supporting, self-theologizing, and self-reproducing. Matt and Ashley have now moved to Illinois as Matt serves as VP of Missionary Sending for their sending agency, To Every Tribe.