2021report - Multiply

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Our Mission Family

Our network of missional teams is working to make Jesus known in 70 nations. These teams are made up of;

76 Global Workers trained and sent long-term from North America,

19 Global Workers, sent from MB conferences in other nations and,

80 National Leaders working in partnership and alignment with Multiply’s regional mission strategy.

Our missional teams and their projects are actively supported by;

268 North American churches, 4,000+ North American households and, many members of our International Community of MB Churches.

Financial Overview

Fiscal Year in $USD: June 2020 - May 2021

We are grateful to God and to our donors for a strong fiscal year. Our Board of Directors has authorized us to use $400k from our surplus towards important global ministry support and IT projects in our next fiscal year (starting June 1, 2021).

Net Results

In addition to the net operating surplus shown here, our global workers and ministry projects have accumulated $391k towards their reserves which are held separately on our balance sheet (previous year accumulation: $383k).

* Our 2020 comparative results do not include discontinued operations which were reported separately.

How Your Gifts Were Put to Work

24% | Church Mission Engagement
17% | Church Partnership Support
7% | Mission & Discipleship Training (includes Short-Term Mission programs)

4% | Missionary Care
Equipping & Team Health

9% | Administration
Finance, IT, Legal & Governance

Our Generous Donors

This financial summary represents the work of Multiply Network funded by US and Canadian churches and donors.

For more info, contact our Director of Finance, Jeff Friesen at [email protected]

Hope Remains

For many, 2021 began as a year of hope! We hoped the pandemic would be over. We hoped churches could resume regular activities. We hoped life would return to near normal. But we were all disappointed, and sometimes tempted to despair.

Yet how often during these difficult days we heard stories from near and far that gave us hope. We received strength to press on. We read in Scripture about “the God who gives endurance and encouragement ... the God of hope” (Romans 15).

Later, Paul writes to a discouraged church: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:7-9).

It has not been an easy year for Multiply. We have experienced numerous challenges and setbacks, yet, by God’s amazing grace and compassion, we too can say, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed.” In the midst of a pandemic, new opportunities for witness in word and deed have emerged. In a world of closed doors, some exciting new doors have opened. While some workers are retiring or moving on, new Timothys and Esthers are emerging “for such a time as this.”

Over our collective mission journey as a Mennonite Brethren family, our forefathers have also faced times of testing. A century ago, the Spanish flu ravaged the world with even more deaths than COVID-19. At the same time, mission work all but shut down in Russia while many believers faced not only the restrictions of Communism, but also civil war and starvation. Yet, even in the midst of all that, there were encouraging stories of love, good deeds, and Gospel expansion in Russia, China, and elsewhere.

I hope, as you read our impact report (multiply.net/2021report), you too will be encouraged to have hope, and to press on in your assignment from our missionary God. I also invite you to prayerfully consider how you might be an instrument of hope to those in need of good news.

Thank you for your partnership in this Gospel of hope.

Vic Wiens
Interim General Director

Regional Reports

Central & South America

We are seeing increasing ownership among the churches to reconcile their nations to God without having to depend on the north. There are a number of encouraging initiatives.

Regional Highlights

We are assisting Brazil’s MB mission agency (COBIM) as they bring together church planting networks in the farthest reaches of the Amazon rainforest.
Jorge (our Colombia conference leader) and his wife, Estela, attended COBIM’s mission training group with leaders from as far away as Mozambique. We expect these relationships to bear much fruit.
Franz Wolf and a team from Brazil provided Missional Leadership Training to a network of church leaders in the Dominican Republic.
The Matthew Training Center in Mexico is expanding its vision to serve our whole emerging network of missional MB leaders throughout Latin America.

20 Global Workers

17 National Leaders in Partnership
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Pass the Guampa

By Nikki White

Families can be complicated. So can churches, and groups of churches. This seems to be true everywhere, including Latin America.

Learn More >>

Emerson Cardoso
REGIONAL TEAM LEADER

Europe & Central Asia

In each of the European countries where we have ICOMB conferences, we are growing in the health and fruitfulness of our partnerships. In Central Asia, we are celebrating baptisms almost every month in a very Muslim country.

Regional Highlights

Two couples and two singles have committed themselves to training for bi-vocational church planting in East Germany.
We now have two missionaries engaged with LCC, a Christian university in Lithuania whose president is a former Multiply board member. There are 861 students from 56 countries, many of which are hard to reach.
We’ve registered our third official MB church in Central Asia. All our leaders come from a Muslim background. After four years we have four churches and two church plants.
In Eastern France, we have a missionary couple who live in a community of about ten thousand North African Muslims. Their courageous enthusiasm is starting to bear fruit.

26 Global Workers

7 National Leaders in Partnership
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Motivated by Relationships

By Mark J. H. Klassen

For Sarah Reed, ministry is all about relationships. “I am motivated to see people in right relationship with one another, and with God,” she said...

Learn More >>

Johann Matthies
REGIONAL TEAM LEADER

Sub-Saharan Africa

For people who are already familiar with suffering, COVID-19 brought a whole other wave, with many more people out of work and unable to eat, and other places racked with violence. Our African leaders are praying not that they would be saved from their trials, but that the church would respond in the Jesus way.

Regional Highlights

In Uganda, we are developing a delightful, holistic missional partnership with thirty-eight churches that have longed to join a family, and they feel like they’ve found it with us.
In Burundi, we started Discipleship for Development training with many of the church leaders. Eyes are opening leading to a newoutlook on outreach.
In the midst of extreme hardship in DR Congo, exacerbated by COVID-19, Nzuzi Mukawa is working alongside 96 denominations, helping them understand and become engaged in mission.
The Dzaleka refugee camp, where hopelessness abounds, is the epicenter of the MB church of Malawi. And from there, they bring hope to surrounding villages.

5 Global Workers

19 National Leaders in Partnership
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God Sent Grace

By Mark J. H. Klassen

When Esther was thirteen, her father passed away. Her mother and her extended family couldn’t care for her, so they discarded her. “They threw her...

Learn More >>

Doug Hiebert
REGIONAL TEAM LEADER

Middle East & North Africa

We can’t share too specifically because people are still receiving lashes, being thrown in prison, or getting killed for their faith. Nonetheless, we see more and more house churches, and a network of leaders coming together to support each other in mission.

Regional Highlights

A team just returned from one Muslim stronghold that had almost zero believers just five years ago, reporting that many disciples of Jesus are connecting and sharing their faith.
One of our Egyptian leaders initiated a trip to Sudan, where many believers were filled with boldness to witness. One of the participants then took the Gospel into Libya.
Our North African partner churches have experienced severe hardship over the last several months, but our brothers and sisters continue to report amazing testimonies of new believers and baptisms every month.
In the Middle East, in the country that looks the most hard-pressed in the news, we’re working with the most mature believers we’ve met in the region. Suffering produces character.

1 Global Workers

20 National Leaders in Partnership
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Touching Heaven Online

By Nasser al’Qahtani and Mark J. H. Klassen

Irfan has been a part of leading an online Arabic Bible School for years, but recently he adapted some of his learning and experience toward...

Learn More >>

Nasseral’Qahtani
REGIONAL TEAM LEADER

South Asia

There’s a real warmth in the relationships we’ve formed with our many partners in this region, partly because there are so many obstacles to the gospel being shared. The detailed stories can’t be told in this format for security reasons, but behind the many house churches started each year are real people whose lives are being transformed.

Regional Highlights

Our partner’s church planting network across twelve states in the north is growing significantly, so we have helped them build a much-needed training center to support their growth.
Other partners have recently started a church planting network in a large city. Wee are now seeing new churches start as people move to other states.
One partner is working among his own Muslim people in the far north, which is one of the most unreached areas in the world.
In the south, our long-time partner leads a network of church planters on behalf of our Indian MB Conference. They are also bringing the gospel to a completely unreached tribal group.

6 Global Workers

8 National Leaders in Partnership
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A Family Set Free

A family in a small village in South Asia was tormented by an evil spirit. One by one, each of them was oppressed by the spirit: the father,...

Learn More >>

DH
REGIONAL TEAM LEADER

Southeast Asia

After years of faithful service, many of our missionaries are experiencing increasing fruitfulness as they align with our growing network of Thai and Myanmar church leaders. It is a joy to witness the maturing work of Christ in these local believers and a privilege to serve them.

Pastor Naat was a Buddhist housekeeper for our missionaries twenty years ago. Now she leads an emerging conference of churches with a vision to reach 199 communities in Thailand.
Hundreds of people gave their lives to Jesus during the Christmas outreaches in Myanmar. Through COVID-19 and a coup, our team continues to plant churches in new villages.
The Sinclair-Peters were forced to leave Myanmar and start over in Thailand a few months ago. They are once again leading people to Christ and sending them out as evangelists.
Somdy started a church his first week in the unreached Isaan region of Thailand. Now this church ran an outreach where 200 people heard the Gospel for the first time.

22 Global Workers

3 National Leaders in Partnership
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When Everything Goes Wrong

By By Louise Sinclair-Peters

It was over two years ago that God gave us a vision for the Beautiful Butterfly Project, a vision to teach young Buddhist women in Myanmar how to...

Learn More >>

Louise Sinclair-Peters
REGIONAL TEAM LEADER

East Asia

PK’s ministry over the past few decades has been an inspiration to this whole region. He reached his goal of raising up 1,000 leaders by 2020 and now is sending Khmu workers into several surrounding nations. We honor him for modelling God’s love to so many people.

Regional Highlights

We’re working with a group of inspiring Japanese evangelists who are breaking their own social and cultural norms to share the Gospel in parks and on the streets.
Our churches in the Philippines that started from campus ministries have gone back and started their own campus ministry. They’re already seeing fruit in spite of COVID restrictions.
In Thailand, Siriwan and her husband, Wichian, have started a holistic discipleship program on their farm, as well as leading a ministry to girls in juvenile prison.
In Northern Thailand, Chaloerm and his team are planting churches in six northern provinces. They are seeing many people coming to know Jesus through prayer and preaching. They have targeted six new unreached villages in 2022 and there are fourteen emerging leaders receiving Bible college level training to prepare for serving Jesus.

9 Global Workers

8 National Leaders in Partnership
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Ayumu’s Journey

Ayumu went on a long journey to meet Jesus. As a 26-year-old man in Kyushu, Japan, with a speech impediment, Ayumu one day decided to run away...

Learn More >>

Bob Davis
REGIONAL TEAM LEADER

North America

Regional Highlights

COVID-19 has brought shared suffering to North America in ways we haven’t
experienced in decades. This has shaken both believers and unbelievers,
with many reconsidering what life is about. In our mutual vulnerability and
uncertainty, we share the hope of the Gospel to those in the most need.

Sherry Heidebrecht has six churches working together in Abbotsford to bring a church planting network leader (Arun) from India to lead us in bringing the Good News to Punjabi immigrants.
God is on the move through the Congolese. Doug Hiebert is working in partnership with local churches in Saskatchewan and Ohio to empower Congolese leaders on mission locally and globally.
Derek Parenteau is working as a prison chaplain in Ontario, seeing many prisoners turn to Jesus in their desperation and receiving the call to tell others when they are released.
Our newest First Nations leader received credentialing in partnership with the Canadian and Ontario conferences. Six more are in mentoring relationships with local church pastors and have almost completed the program.

6 Cross-Cultural Workers

We’re just starting to get involved in cross-cultural mission in some pockets of the US and Canada. We look forward to what God will do through these indigenous and immigrant leaders and their teams.

Tibetans in the Neighborhood

By Mark J.H. Klassen and Eric Geddes

Kora lives in a Tibetan neighborhood where she serves as a youth worker. It’s where she first encountered a Tibetan boy named Champo. They met when...

Learn More >>

Come Join a Team

Emerson Cardoso - Latin America Regional Team Leader & Larry Neufeld - Director of Global Partnerships

In a vision, the Apostle Paul saw a man beckoning to him and calling out, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” This story from Acts 16 causes me to ask two questions: first, am I attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit in the same way as Paul and his team? And second, am I aware of the same call for help today?

In Latin America, we live in a time of awakening to the Macedonian call. During this pandemic, our workers have needed to reinvent themselves to meet the needs of those around them, and as thousands of immigrants are coming to our region from the Middle East, Africa, and Central America, they are crying out to us like the man in Paul’s dream.

Latin America is calling out for more workers to support travelling evangelists in their discipleship of young believers and help establish them in faith communities. Others on our team there are serving among suffering migrant workers, remote indigenous churches, the poor and the marginalized. They are working hard to support, encourage and train leaders for these ministries. Come join the team.

In South and East Asia our national leaders have a vision to grow their established churches, and plant new churches in communities that have never heard the Gospel. They are asking for even more workers to help build relationships with locals through outreach initiatives, sharing the healing love of Jesus with the broken and hopeless. They are looking for people to invest in and support young leaders whose vision is to lead and grow their fledgling house churches into missional outposts. Come join the team.

In Central Asia and the Middle East, a vibrant, growing Church is struggling under oppression. They are asking for even more workers to come and encourage and disciple young believers, especially women who, in these regions, are in particular need of support. Religious and political restrictions make it challenging for us to establish a presence in these countries, but more workers with a business or vocation can help our team members to gain access in this context. Come join the team.

In Africa, Asia, Europe, and in many countries around the world we are hearing a call for more people who are willing to surrender their lives to bring the Good News to the lost.

Today, we are being called to respond to this spiritual dream with immediate missional action. All around the world we are hearing of the urgent need for even more workers to join our teams, serving alongside local believers and our national partners to see lives and communities transformed by the Gospel.

Would you pray about joining one of our mission teams? It may be that today’s Macedonian call is for you.

To learn more about how to get involved go to

Multiply.net/serve

“If you dare to believe that you are beloved before you are born, you may suddenly realize that your life is very, very special. You become conscious that you were sent here just for a short time, for twenty, forty, or eighty years, to discover and believe that you are a beloved child of God. The length of time doesn’t matter. You are sent into this world to believe in yourself as God’s chosen one and then to help your brothers and sisters know that they are also Beloved Sons and Daughters of God who belong together. You’re sent into this world to be a people of reconciliation. You are sent to heal, to break down the walls between you and your neighbors, locally, nationally, and globally. Before all distinctions, the separations, and the walls built on foundations of fear, there was a unity in the mind and heart of God. Out of that unity, you are sent into this world for a little while to claim that you and every other human being belongs to the same God of Love who lives from eternity to eternity.”

—Henri Nouwen, Finding My Way Home

Additional Reports

ICOMB - International Community of Mennonite Brethren

We initiated regular meetings with ICOMB to discuss how the church and the mission can work together more effectively. It has been a sweet season of collaboration. One outcome of this is calling our networks to fast and pray for the nations the first week of January.

Regional Highlights

We continue to serve ICOMB through the development and delivery of Missional Leadership Training (MLT) in partnership with MB Seminary. MLT modules are currently being translated into ten different languages.
Multiply and ICOMB cooperated to deliver individual scholarships, investing in 17 church leaders (Bachelor to Doctor levels); and collective scholarships to schools, investing in over 90 students.
Bob Davis, while continuing to serve as E. Asia Regional Team Leader, has also been seconded to serve as an advocate for ICOMB in USMB churches.
Mensagens Missionais (Missional Messages), a Portuguese collection of sermons and articles, edited by Victor Wiens, was published in 2021, resourcing pastors and evangelists in Brazil, Angola, Portugal.

19 International Partner Missionaries
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Bound for Peru

By Mark J.H. Klassen

“We’ve never been to Peru,” said Pablo Chavez, “but we can honestly say that we are in love with the people there and the churches, and we can...

Learn More >>

North American Mobilization

Mission Development Program | Carol Letkeman

TREK Central Canada ended with a debrief retreat, and now all the participants are in missional placements with local outreach ministries and in the marketplace! Despite COVID, Jesus brought together sixteen risk-takers to grow in their missional impact!
Both SOAR Saskatchewan and Heartland were able to flourish during COVID in a hybrid mode of delivery. Both programs were international, with Saskatchewan partnering with Panama and Colombia. Heartland saw participation from Japan, Europe and USA in addition to a large Manitoba showing. Missional training is so much more holistic as we engage with Jesus from many cultural perspectives.

Eastern Canada Team | Robyn Serez

What started as one youth pastor approaching Multiply to learn about mission opportunities for his youth has turned into nine churches (and counting) discerning together how to disciple their youth on mission and to work towards a SOAR Ontario program for the summer of 2022. The most exciting development is that the youth leaders and pastors are the planning team and are actively invested in finding the populations of the least reached in their own communities.
At the September Pastors Credentialing Orientation, the First Nations Ministry team from Multiply, along with a newly credentialed First Nations leader, facilitated a first ever afternoon of dialogue for new credentialing candidates. The panel discussion raised more questions than answers, stirred more discomfort than satisfaction, and shed fresh light on the long and challenging road of reconciliation that is ahead for the church and the First Peoples.

Central Canada Team | Lloyd Letkeman

Reconciliation comes through listening and walking together to form a common story of mutual understanding, respect, and love. We were able to facilitate over a dozen Blanket Exercises with churches, mission trainees, and Christian educational partners. kairosblanketexercise.org.
MUD Cafes and One-Hour Mission trips: Rebecca Hiebert and Pastor Naat, hosted a Mission-Under-Discussion Cafe” at the height of lockdown. A small group was able to meet in person (while others joined online) to sing together, enjoy a bonfire, and hear how our Thailand churches served a COVID field hospital and loved the community well. The church grows through this time! multiply.net/1-hour

British Columbia Team | Greg Laing

Our First Nations Ambassadors, John and Jenn Johnstone, were busy in ministry when the discovery of the unmarked graves at the Kamloops Residential School rocked our world. Since then, they have been heavily in demand engaging deeply with numerous churches and contexts. A very touching testimony was published in the MB Herald: multiply.net/mbheraldtribute
Thanks to generous churches and donors, the global workers who were temporarily grounded in BC with COVID restrictions were redeployed. We sent one BC TREK participant to serve in Africa and one Global Servant intern to assist ministry development in France. There are encouraging reports from BC-based global workers using creative means to share Christ while developing their local communities. Locally, we assisted four BC churches to innovate a shared, church-based young adult discipleship pathway. Several churches have begun to collaborate and serve newcomers in our midst, especially immigrants from the Punjab in India and migrant workers. D&S, long-term workers formerly based in South Asia, are working towards mobilizing a missionary with church planting gifts from India to Abbotsford to serve as consultant with our churches.

Midwest US team | Stephen Humber

We hosted the first ever TREK program in our region and sent out nine young leaders in two teams: one to West Africa and one to Burundi. Watch a short video here multiply.net/trek-westafrica
Over 200 people were impacted through the Vision Summit, which was held in two locations in Kansas over four days and featured all missionary speakers. One participant said, “Before the Vision Summit, I felt dullness and distraction hindering me from the Lord. Now I feel a renewed hope and a fresh vision of what the Lord has for me in the future.” Another said, “I thought I was where God wanted me to be. Now I know the stirring in my heart every time mission is brought up is a whisper from God that he has other plans.”

Western US team | Galen Wiest

Pablo and Maricela Chavez are in training and preparing to serve in Piura, Peru as long-term missionaries. They come as proven leaders from our Hispanic MB Conference and are engaging these churches in partnering with them in Peru.
Reedley MB has been building a partnership relationship with the churches and leaders in Lithuania. Meetings in December with Johann Matthies have strengthened this vision and given the church practical next steps to continue to build this relationship.

Prayer Ministry and MHOP | Chris Wright & Nikki White

People are praying for twenty hours each week, for God’s Church, and the Great Commission.
Our prayer groups are supporting Multiply workers and mission in several nations around the world, including Japan, Turkey, Portugal, France, Germany and Austria as well as USA and Canada, actively involving more than two dozen Multiply leaders and missionaries in our calls.
Multiply’s Prayer Ministry Training seeks to help inspire and equip others toward more effective intercession and personal prayer ministry.
Over the last five years, this training has impacted over twenty-five North American churches, as well as resourcing multiple FOCUS and TREK teams, global churches, university and MB seminary student groups, and even two other global mission agencies.
In September 2021, this course went fully online, with twenty-eight registrants from ten churches. The next online course is scheduled for January 22 - February 19, 2022. See: multiply.net/prayer-ministry

Leadership

Multiply is honoured to work in close collaboration with both the US and Canadian Conferences of Mennonite Brethren Churches as their global mission agency. Our Board is made up of representatives from each conference.

For more information on our Global Lead Team, Executive Team & Board of Directors please visit:

multiply.net/about

Thank you
for praying,
giving and serving.

Thank you for registering with us.

Our Mission Family

Financial Overview

Net Results

How Your Gifts Were Put to Work

Our Generous Donors

Hope Remains

Regional Reports

Regional Highlights

Regional Highlights

Regional Highlights

Regional Highlights

Regional Highlights

Regional Highlights

Regional Highlights

Come Join a Team

Additional Reports

Regional Highlights

Leadership

Global Impact Report 2021