For the past two decades, missions at Memorial Road has been our story. We sent missionaries — sometimes our own church members — to faraway fields and to the inner cities of the U.S. to plant seeds of the Gospel.
Some of those seeds fell on rocky or thorn-infested soil and did not produce fruit. Some seeds sprouted quickly but failed in shallow soil. But, just as in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower from Matthew 13, some seed found good soil and bloomed. New churches were born from the funds we gave every year on Missions Sunday. And now children who grew up in those churches are taking up the word of sowing seeds for the future.
Our story has become their story. And our congregation has matured from spiritual parents to spiritual grandparents, watching with pride and thanksgiving as we support a new generation of disciple makers, church planters and Christ followers.
Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3
Memorial Road supports 19 individuals working with Churches of Christ in Mombasa — from full-time evangelists to teachers to security guards. The amount represented touches all aspects of the ongoing outreach efforts within the church of Mombasa.
NGCS is a ministry training school for all of East Africa. Many of the students reside on the campus during the school year. It is also the umbrella organization for Extension Centers (such as in Mombasa) that provides distance learning and vocational education to accompany the spiritual training. Among the most important programs has become agricultural training for church leaders to provide food on the grounds of the church buildings.
This scholarship assist students with tuition for attending NGCS.
This project was initiated by the congregations in Mombasa, working together, to create a strategy for expanding evangelical outreach through Kenya by the congregations in Mombasa. The plan has moved into a phase of the adoption of oversight of an existing health clinic in an area several hours outside Mombasa.
Neema Village Tanzania, Inc, is a non-profit in the USA and a NGO in Tanzania and is affiliated with Churches of Christ with many connections to Memorial Road. Neema in Swahili means Grace and any good done has been done by the Abundant Grace of God! Neema Village began as “Neema House” in 2012 as a rescue center for abandoned, orphaned, and at-risk babies in Arusha, Tanzania, East Africa. During that time, more than two hundred thirty babies have been rescued, many abandoned babies have now been adopted and others who had lost their mothers during the birth were saved and have now been able to return home to an extended family member. We love the idea of “Families not Orphanages.”
A longtime fixture of MRCC’s Journey Land and location of significant mission outreach efforts, this support will provide a consistent source of funds for needed projects to enhance the operation of VOH’s missions.
HCC seeks to become an educational force in Christian education in Africa. Connected with the Village of Hope by students who have been at VOH and with an emerging nursing program with which OC nursing students can partner, this is a unique opportunity to initiate a connection to a College making an impact within a nation in which we have provided ministry assistance for years.
SABC is an outstanding, growing and increasingly stable Christian College with students from more than a dozen nations in Africa. Much like Baxter Institute, students at SABC go out from the school for internships/training for extended periods of time. Moreover, SABC works to assure graduating students are matched to potential long-term positions at those churches. Annually, SABC hosts an international Lectureship program which utilizes programming (such as Mary Nelson’s Missions Bible Class) and seeks a closer professional connection to MRCC and OC for training and situating graduates throughout the continent to preach and teach.
We support ministry in India that provides direct medical and dental care to those in need, evangelism training for those wishing to become preachers and teachers and television ministry to help reach millions of Indians who tune in each week. This support helps with direct care medical needs for surgeries in the clinics.
Memorial Road became the overseeing congregation for the Cherry family in 2019. They have been working as missionaries in an Auckland church plant for nearly 10 years. This congregation is at a literal world crossroad as immigrants from throughout the Pacific Rim are working in the country and then going back to their homeland.
Memorial Road supports the South Pacific Bible College and its mission to transform lives through the inspiration of Scripture, to multiply followers of Christ in the world. Located in Tauranga, New Zealand, SPBC has become a hub for spreading the good news of Christ throughout the entire Pacific Rim. SPBC offers courses, certificate programs, and degrees in Chaplaincy, Christian Leadership, Christian Studies, and Biblical Studies. Graduates go out to use what they have learned to grow and serve God’s Kingdom in churches and mission fields around the world!
EEM is a nonprofit, associated with Churches of Christ across Central and Eastern Europe. The ministry prints Bibles and Bible-based textbooks and materials — in languages including Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, and many more — and gives them to schools and individuals across the region. Recently, the ministry began supplying Bibles in Farsi and Arabic for the flood of refugees pouring into Europe due to conflicts in the Middle East.
Jake & Amanda Haskew have been long-term missionaries, successfully developing and launching a Vienna congregation – Donau Gemeinde Christi – with members from across the Vienna districts. This will provide support for determining next steps in the missionary work in that critical city.
Mel Latorre recruits soon-to-retire professionals in Brazil to serve part-time for a Brazilian church while they train for ministry. Upon retirement, the Brazilian government pays these ministers at a higher rate because of their service with a church. This allows the men to work full-time for a church without ongoing financial support from the church. This item helps to fund his work with multiple trainees across Brazil.
Memorial Road has helped support this work in Niteroi, Brazil, a metropolitan city near Rio de Janeiro for many years. From sending team members, to supporting through work funds and now, as North American missionaries are returning and leaving a functioning congregation, this support assists during this time of transition.
Harvest Brazil is a new, exciting and robust missions/evangelism project to plant Churches of Christ in the six Brazilian capitals that do not currently have a Church of Christ. The purpose of Harvest Brazil is to proclaim the good news by partnering with and motivating the Brazilian brethren to be involved in missions throughout Brazil. This objective would be achieved by forming a network of members from churches in every part of Brazil to create a sustainable source of support to recruit, train and send teams of Brazilian workers that would be cared for by mature, organized Brazilian congregations.
Salary support for the two family mission team overseen by Memorial Road. These families are having a significant impact in their community in Cuba and continue to be a source of good news through their work.
Funds from Missions Sunday help support a full-time Guatemalan dentist who works with Health Talents International, a medical mission associated with Churches of Christ, in the mountain villages of this Central American nation. Funds also assist with the costs of medical clinics while Memorial Road members are in the country providing care. Additionally, funds help defray trip expenses for Christians working on campaigns with Health Talents.
Memorial Road serves as the sponsoring congregation for the Baxter Institute, a ministry training school in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, that prepares men and women for ministry across the Spanish-speaking world. Among the school’s students are ministers and wives from the island nation of Cuba. Memorial Road supports these students, and those of other Spanish-speaking nations, as they study and prepare to return to plant churches and spread the Gospel.
For many years the Baxter leadership has struggled to find safe housing options for the greatly increased enrollment of married students both with and without children. Baxter’s ability to accept higher numbers of married students can be assured with dedicated housing for this category of student couple. The total project is nearly $400,000 and MRCC provided $50,000 in seed money to begin other fundraising and support for this project. This additional support will help lead Baxter to a greater sustainability of enrollment in coming years.
Assisting with support for members who join the spring campaign to serve in Honduras.
Funds help the Lighthouse Medical Clinic — an outreach of the Capitol Hill Church of Christ in downtown Oklahoma City — to provide life-saving medicines for people in need.
Several years ago, this Oklahoma City congregation began asking how to better minister to a community that was dramatically changing around it. The answer has been a significant shift of outreach through 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanic Christians. Our role has been to assist with support as these evangelists begin working with the congregation and will continue for a set period of time.
Memorial Road sponsors a two-year mission apprenticeship for young Christians. In past years, participants have traveled around the globe to serve alongside veteran missionaries, learning how to serve. Several have become missionaries or church leaders. Funds support current, in-the-field workers who serve Churches of Christ throughout the world. Funds also support Kent Hartman and Mel Latorre Jr in administrative roles in this ministry.
Mary Nelson, a missionary in New Zealand, has developed a website, missionbibleclass.org, that offers free, easy-to-use and easy-to-reproduce Bible lessons for missionaries and church members in nations around the world. The lessons are designed to be used anywhere — including developing nations where traditional Bible class material can be scarce.
Funds assist World Bible School, a Texas-based ministry associated with Churches of Christ that sends faith-based correspondence courses to students around the globe — via postal mail and, increasingly, the Internet. Christians across the U.S., including Memorial Road members, grade lessons and correspond with students. WBS has resulted in tens of thousands of baptisms and the establishment of new Churches of Christ worldwide — especially in Africa.
Funds provide limited assistance for mission projects outside the scope or timing of the regular Missions Sunday contribution. Those with a special request provide information to a committee that determines the request’s connectivity to Memorial Road, member involvement, personal investment, and other factors.
Missionary care is a core value of our mission efforts and the TCK program, created by MRCC families, is one of the most notable among churches of Christ. Focusing on young people who were raised primarily outside of the parents’ culture and who are coming back into the US for school, jobs, or to live (1st culture- that of the parent or home of origin, 2nd culture- that in which they have lived a large portion of their lives, 3rd culture- the US, where they are usually seen as “Americans returning home” but who have lived their lives outside of that culture). For many participants, TCK programs are, literally, lifesaving.
Creates ready fund for emergency travel/relocation.
Supporting students on mission trips.
Operational support for Next Gen, which seeks to provide mission points, congregations and individuals with multi-disciplined outreach programming. They note “that there are now alive today six generations in the church and society, and each has had vastly different experiences growing up of God, faith, church, communications, and more.