VM Missions
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MissionExcellence Accredited Member
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MissionExcellence Accredited Member
Jim Cross
Board Member
Jim came to Christ as an adult. While working in a shoe store in a mall in Cleveland, he met a man who worked in a Christian bookstore. This man witnessed to Jim and eventually Jim accepted Christ as Lord of his life. He then transferred to Cedarville University in Ohio. While at Cedarville, Jim met his wife, Janice, while working on a Christian ministry team.
As CFO of Village Missions for over 29 years, Jim gained a great deal of practical, daily nonprofit experience and made impactful contributions to all the organizations he served. Bootstrapping systems from the ground up, he has the know-how to get things done in a budget sensitive environment. In his current position as CFO of the Wernie Youth & Family Treatment Center, he has gleaned experience in treasury, risk management, pension and investments and benefits administration.
Jolene Erlacher
Board Secretary
Jolene grew up as the daughter of missionaries. She has worked with short- and mid-term missions teams for over 15 years. Jolene has a doctorate in leadership and is the founder of Leading Tomorrow. She serves as a speaker, instructor and leadership coach specializing in intergenerational leadership and ministry. Jolene has written two books, Millennials in Ministry and Daniel Generation. She is passionate about effectively engaging the next generation in Kingdom service. Jolene and her family currently live in central North Carolina.
Don Johnson
Board Vice Chair
Don earned his BA and MA in Bible from Columbia International University and an MBA from Liberty University. He has been a missionary with SEND International since 1987 serving first as a host-receiver for STMs in Alaska and Russia before spending 10 years as the Assistant Director and then Director of SEND’s STM department. Currently, he is Assistant to the US Director for Special Projects. His responsibilities include speaking, writing, recruiting, researching mission trends and providing training for both short-term and long-term missionaries.
Marti Wade
Board Chair
Marti Wade has been serving with Pioneers since 2007 and is currently Content Strategist for the Marketing Team. She is also editor and publisher of the weekly missions publication Missions Catalyst and has served as an instructor for Perspectives on the World Christian Movement since the 1990s. Previously she was part of Caleb Project, where she helped train and send out dozens of short-term teams to do relationship-based research to support church planting in cultures where the people have little opportunity to hear the gospel. That kind of work allowed her to travel to Central, South and Southeast Asia; North Africa; and Europe.
Greg Short
MissionLinked
Director
Greg was born and raised in Colorado and actively attended church. It wasn’t until after university that Christianity and a relationship with Christ took on a life changing significance in his life as he was being introduced to Young Life. He went on to work with Young Life, starting clubs in Singapore, Vancouver, Canada and Toronto. While in Toronto, Greg met Janet and they were married in 1985.
While in SE Asia Greg, fell in love with Asian people, cultures, and food. However, their spiritual darkness was a continual challenge and in 1986 Greg and Janet answered the call to return to SE Asia. Their ministry involved church planting, MK care, leadership development and equipping of nationals to form reproducing churches, business development and strategic planning. After returning from Asia, Greg was involved in financial planning, banking and lending.
Greg has degrees from Colorado State University and Regent College. He was blessed to be in one of the first initial classes for what later became Perspectives in 1981.
Greg is very excited to be the first Director of MissionLinked and is totally dependent on God to make this a ministry which will be able to bless the nations.
Greg and Janet live in Vancouver, Washington and have three grown children, one married who gave them a very special gift of a granddaughter in 2020.
Bill MacLeod
MissionConnexion
Director
Bill MacLeod is the Executive Director of MissionConnexion, which he founded in 2001 during his fifteen years as a missions pastor in Portland, Oregon. Its signature event, Mission Connexion Northwest, has become one of the largest annual, church-missions-mobilizing events in the USA impacting thousands. Mission Connexion sponsors smaller, theme-focused events throughout the year designed to help strengthen local churches in practical ways in their missions mobilizing potential.
While working on Luis Palau’s historic Mission to London in 1983, he met and married his wife, Joan, and they have three married children and eight grandchildren. He holds earned degrees from Cairn University (BSc in Bible), Western Seminary (MDiv), and has been a certified Perspectives presenter since 1996.
Bill has been involved in city-wide mobilization efforts for more than 40 years, from directing regional endeavors with Luis Palau Association in the 1970’s and ‘80s in Scotland, England and Wales, on up to Luis Palau’s Portland CityFest in 2008. He has also helped direct community-development projects in Africa and Central America.
Other organizations Bill has worked with include Promise Keepers, Operation Mobilization, the Billy Graham Association, as well as serving on various boards and councils including People International, MissionNext and Biola University.
Brittany Busby
MissionWorks
Executive Assistant
Brittany has been a part of the short-term mission world since 2007 when she did a Discipleship Training School (DTS) with Youth With A Mission (YWAM). Her three years with YWAM involved working in the Administration Office, staffing schools, working with local churches and traveling around the West Coast. Her time with YWAM took her to South America, Europe and Asia, serving a variety of ministries.
Brittany’s first mission trip was in 1998 on a DELTA team to Naples, Italy. Twelve years later, in 2010, Brittany started working at DELTA Ministries. In 2013, she took on the role of Administrative Assistant for the Standards of Excellence (SOE). Brittany and her husband have served on youth staff at their church since 2012 and also serve on the worship team.
Brittany is married to Morgan and they welcomed their first child, Payden Ulysses in November 2017 and their second, Juliet Athena in September 2019.
Support BrittanyMelissa White
MissionWorks
Marketing Director
Melissa is a native Pacific Northwesterner. She loves the outdoors, being with family (especially her nephews and nieces) and traveling to new places. Places that are close to her heart include New Zealand, Africa, Italy and Israel. Missional work has always been a joy and seeing lives changed for His glory is indescribable.
Support MelissaTory Ruark
MissionWorks
Chief Operations Officer
MissionExcellence
Director
Tory went on his first STM trip as a freshman in college and it turned his world upside down. God put lots of great people around him to process the experience and disciple him and, thus, he developed a passion to disciple others through the life-changing experience of going on a mission trip.
Tory began working as an STM Coach with DELTA Ministries in 2004 and became COO of Standards of Excellence (SOE) in 2016. He’s served in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, Haiti, Zimbabwe and Italy and mobilized teams to many other countries. Tory’s Master of Divinity from Western Seminary mixed with practical experience in the STM world as a team leader, mobilizer, trainer and pastor allows him to bring insight that’s both biblical and practical. Over the years, he has worked with churches from all over the United States, spearheaded organizational partnerships and coordinated DELTA’s response to the earthquake in Haiti that mobilized hundreds of short-term workers over three years.
Tory is married to Judy and they have five children: Lucas, Hannah, Malayna, Tyson and Lucy.
Support ToryBrian Heerwagen
MissionWorks
Chief Executive Officer
Brian’s first short-term mission (STM) was in 1980. Over the years, he has been to mission fields all around the globe and has led or been on countless mission trips. He has been the CEO of this ministry since 1985.
Brian has a degree in Business and Organizational Leadership. He was lead author of “The Next Mile, Short-Term Missions for the Long Haul” and was part of the national leadership movement that wrote and established the Standards of Excellence. He loves seeing people transformed from the inside out through great training and considers it a privilege to help people serve with excellence “where they live” and on mission trips.
Brian and Lorraine were married in 1986, they have three grown children, all married, with kids of their own.
Support BrianRandy Schmor
Board Member
Randy is Gateway Director for the North American Baptist Conference. He has led and trained short-term mission teams for over two decades. He uses the guidelines within the Standards of Excellence to empower others with the knowledge and skills of how to build appropriate and thriving global partnerships. Randy has a heart to help churches partner with each other worldwide and to advance the Kingdom of God.
Isabel Lee
Board Member
Isabel came to Christ at an early age through the faithful teaching and life testimonies of her parents. She graduated from Washington Bible College and Columbia Graduate School in Bible/Missions. After her sophomore year in college, Isabel served with SEND as a summer missionary to Taiwan and then joined SEND after graduation where she served more than 22 years in Taiwan and East Asia. She was involved in church planting: evangelism, discipleship, mentoring, seminary teaching and leadership training. In 2000, Isabel was relocated to Hong Kong to assist SEND in starting up the Fountainhead Office. She served in various leadership roles with SEND: Taiwan Field Council, Language and Orientation Coordinator, Short-term Missions Coordinator, Advisor to the Area Director on National Church Relations and Asia Regional Council. Isabel initiated the Asia Regional Equipment Seminar for SEND women.
Since returning to the U.S. in 2001, Isabel continues her involvement in missions, traveling to Ulan Ude, Korea, Egypt, India and Uganda to equip believers and leaders for ministries and to mentor those desiring to go into full-time service. She’s involved in refugee work in Lebanon, Macedonia, Clarkston, GA, and Riverdale, MD. She also taught “A Taste of Perspectives” in Egypt. In recent years, Isabel has traveled to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Turkey and Qatar to learn about God’s work among the Muslims in those countries.
Isabel is an instructor of Perspectives on the World Christian Movement and Minister of Global Outreach and Women’s Ministries at Chinese Bible Church of Maryland.
Charlotte Kassis
Board Member
Charlotte is passionate about participating in the Great Commission through youth and worship. She has a heart for diversity and racial reconciliation. As a youth, she began serving cross-culturally and has been privileged to serve on over 40 short-term trips in over 20 countries. She has served in various roles in church ministry for 18 years. She is excitedly married to her husband Jusef and they are enjoying each day they are given with their son, Nicodemus.
John Jordan
Board Member
Raised by church planting parents in southern California, John is a graduate of Talbot Seminary with additional studies at Fuller Seminary and William Carey International University. Since 1993, John has engaged Villagers in multi-cultural outreach overseeing both long-term international workers as well as short-term international and local humanitarian work.
Under John’s leadership, Village provides humanitarian services to both local and international communities in partnership with nonprofit organizations, other churches and government agencies as the Health and Human Services department of Washington County. Through these partnerships, thousands of families receive Village-driven medical and dental care, legal services, food provision, basic supplies, education and most of all hope.
Prioritizing vulnerable and underserved communities, John’s passion is to see people’s lives transformed by Villagers devoted to loving others with the extravagant love of Jesus.
Dennis Fuqua
Board Member
Originally from Gig Harbor, Washington, Dennis received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Divinity degrees from Multnomah University.
He served as a pastor of Peninsula Christian Fellowship in Gig Harbor for 25 years. Dennis began working as the director of International Renewal Ministries [IRM] in February 2000. His leadership activities include facilitating summits, equipping others and developing and maintaining relationship connections with the network of people in IRM.
He has written multiple articles and three books. Dennis and his wife, Marilyn, have 4 grown children and 10 grandkids.
Jenny Collins
Board Member
Jenny Collins has been involved in short-term missions since 1992. She is an Associate Professor of Missions and Christian Ministries at Taylor University. She directed Taylor’s Lighthouse International Service-Learning Program from 1999 – 2013 through which she coordinated 88 three-week trips to 24 countries. She has chaired two church mission leadership teams. She earned her BS at Taylor University and her MAR from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; she is currently a PhD student in missiology at Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, IN.
Jesse Kroeze
Board Member
Jesse is a New Jersey native and traveled around Central America after graduating from Taylor University seeking adventure, mastery of the Spanish language and God’s leading on his life. It eventually brought him back to the Northeast where he took a position with Touch the World managing a coffee-house ministry.. It was here that his path crossed with the woman who would become his wife and their combined passions eventually carried them across the Atlantic to begin a ministry in Uganda, Africa.
After five years exploring the intricacies of community development as the Country Director of Touch The World – Uganda, Jesse was asked to return to lead the future path of the mission organization Touch The World as Executive Director. Along with his wife and three children, their oldest adopted from Uganda, Jesse seeks to partake in sharing the global perspectives of missions we have been called to as Christ’s ambassadors.
Kathy Mort
MissionExcellence
Training and Curriculum Director
Kathy has been involved in short-term missions since the late eighties. Before joining the Standards of Excellence staff, she spent over thirty years in public education. During that time, she primarily taught middle and high school students.
After earning her doctorate in educational leadership, she continued working in various district and school-based administrative roles from K-12. She has also served as an educational consultant domestically and internationally.
Kathy loves working with churches and organizations to develop and implement their own training programs to equip their short-term teams. She is an adjunct professor at Gordon College in Wenham, MA, and is an active member of the missions committee in her home church.
Dani Cypert
MissionGuide
Customer Care Manager
Dani came to know Christ as a teenager and took her first mission trip in college, which radically changed her life and maturity in Christ. She has been active, along with her family, collectively and separately in mission trips and full-time ministry to the local church. Trips include serving in British Colombia, Montana, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Kenya. Other family members have had opportunities to serve in India and Chad.
She loves being in ministry serving as a pastor’s wife, where her and her husband have served with three churches in Arkansas for the past 26 years, including church planting ministry.
Dani has worked as the Customer Care provider with ShortTermMissions.com for the last seven years, working part time from her home in Arkansas. She loves both serving sending agencies and helping them promote their trips well, as well as helping people find the mission trip that is the right fit for them.
The Cypert’s have two grown children. She enjoys teaching and discipling young women to grow in their love for God’s Word and each other, befriending International college students, traveling and trying all kinds foods.
Shirley Radford
MissionConnexion
Executive Assistant/Event Coordinator
Shirley participated in her first short term mission trip with a very small group of people. The team traveled around the northwest doing construction at churches and camps during the day and children’s programs at night. Twelve years later she had the amazing opportunity to be part of a short-term team that held festivals in Italy where lives were changed for the Lord. She had the privilege of returning to Italy four years later with her son to do another festival.
Shirley received a degree in communications with a minor in broadcasting. She used this schooling in various roles of employment from advertising, radio personality, accounting, event planning and administrative assistance positions. Her administrative skills have allowed her to be part of various ministries in the Portland area.
Shirley is currently the Executive Assistant at MissionConnexion where she assists in the details of running various events that challenge and equip individuals to fulfill the Great Commission. Shirley is married to her husband, Steve, of 30+ years, and they live in Troutdale.
Jake Embleton
MissionConnexion
Southwest Assistant Director
Jake is married to the best wife in the world and has three lovely boys. He lives in Tempe, AZ with his family where they reach out to international students and help raise up global workers to be a blessing to the nations.
Jake first went through Perspectives in 2005 where he learned about God’s heart for the nations and was hooked by this love story. Jake went on four trips that year and continued to go on multiple short-tern trips over the next several years. In 2012, Jake and his family moved to North Africa to serve the people there. After returning from living overseas he joined staff at a local church.
Liz Schober
MissionWorks
Bookkeeper
Jesus entered my life as a young, lost, wayward adult and I have never been the same since. I went from studying business and accounting to having babies, taking care of critically ill family members, volunteering at church and building houses in Mexico and New Orleans. Then in 2001, I opened up a homeschool curriculum and Christian bookstore/coffeehouse/school. Once the kids were through early college we closed the bookstore in 2010 and donated the business structure to a nonprofit. I thought life would slow down – but I am busier than ever.
I am happily married to my childhood sweetheart. We have two amazing biological children and a few others that let us claim them as our own.
I am happy to go wherever God takes me and I love to see Him working in my life and those around me.
June Cobean
MissionWorks
Administrative Assistant
Throughout my life, Jesus Christ has been important in my family life and activities. I was raised in a Christian home with loving parents, attended a nurturing church and was involved with U.S. outreach/missions as a young adult. However, it was not until becoming a born again believer during the third decade of my life that I realized that works were not the way to salvation. This heart and mind reaction to God’s calling proved vital to my walking through and surviving many life challenges. My family, work environments and finishing my BS degree became mission fields with a different perspective.
Because of family illness and challenges, my first priority is any call of need I might receive. However, upon leaving full-time employment status, I volunteered at several locations. When a Czech Republic STM team member trained by SOE staff, and a personal friend of mine recommended that I contact SOE, I did so. Since February, 2013, my focus has included organizing historical data, processing merger filings/documents and a plethora of administrative support activities.
Ken Johnson
MissionWorks
Chief Financial Officer
Ken was appointed to the role of Business Manager of DELTA Ministries International in the fall of 2015. Ken serves to develop future and current financial plans for ministry and oversee their daily execution. He works in partnership with the CEO to provide tools and reports that assist in stewardship and resource discovery for ministry.
Ken graduated with a degree in Business Administration from Warner Pacific College in 2009. Prior to attending Warner Pacific, he obtained a degree in Youth Ministry from Columbia Bible College in British Columbia, Canada. His passion is to combine his knowledge and experience in the business world and his love for Christ and growing the Kingdom.
Ken began his missions experience through YWAM, where his time was focused on ministering to the people of Nepal. In addition to YWAM, he has served on several short-term missions, both overseas and within urban centers in both Canada and the US.
Brian Heerwagen
MissionWorks
Chief Executive Officer
Brian’s first short-term mission (STM) was in 1980. Over the years, he has been to mission fields all around the globe and has led or been on countless mission trips. He has been the CEO of this ministry since 1985.
Brian has a degree in Business and Organizational Leadership. He was lead author of “The Next Mile, Short-Term Missions for the Long Haul” and was part of the national leadership movement that wrote and established the Standards of Excellence. He loves seeing people transformed from the inside out through great training and considers it a privilege to help people serve with excellence “where they live” and on mission trips.
Brian and Lorraine were married in 1986, they have three grown children, all married, with kids of their own.
