Two flights from Chiang Rai, Thailand, an overnight bus, and a 90-minute drive into the mountains. That’s what it takes to get there. The place: a Hmong village in the mountains of a Southeast Asian Country filled with oppression. But, even with the government restrictions they live under as followers of Jesus, these leaders hunger for God’s Word.

I always loved playing soccer, and ultimately that is what God chose to use to draw me to Himself. For more than three years, I had been praying and asking God, “What do you want to use my life for?” When this opportunity came, I knew that God was answering my prayer.

Dear Friends and Fellow Supporters, Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. 4 Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. -Philippians 1:3-5 These words of Paul came to life for me five years ago when I returned from my first trip to San Pedro Sula. I left Kentucky thinking I was embarking on a short-term mission trip much like any ot

Three years ago, God opened a door I never expected. For seven years, He used Rancho Bonito and Sparrow Academy in Honduras to shape and prepare me. Now, looking back, I see that God was giving me a small glimpse of something much bigger than what I understood at the time. When He called me to Thailand, He was not closing the chapter He had written in Honduras; He was continuing it.

We have been ministering in the Rancho Bonito community for more than a decade now serving, preaching the Gospel, and working toward community transformation and life change. It is a community of significant need and abundant hurt and for the majority of our time here, two different gangs were present.

One of the greatest gifts of long-term mission work is getting to witness not just beginnings, but becoming. On Monday, February 2, something deeply meaningful happened at Sparrow Academy. Two of our former students, young women who first walked through our doors as little girls, officially began serving as teachers’ assistants.

We recently celebrated another graduation at Sparrow Academy, and again I watched (online from Thailand) these students, future college freshmen, professionals, leaders, and world-changers graduate with hope written all over their faces. At Sparrow Missions, we work to see the cycles of poverty broken and with these graduates, you could see it happening in real time. It was beautiful. It was holy.

Our Honduran National Director, Cristian Lopez was the catalyst toward locally-led ministry in San Pedro Sula. Learn all about his journey with Sparrow Missions from translator to National Director.

One of the privileges I have that I rarely get to share publicly is the opportunity to travel to a closed country where persecution is very real and the Gospel is resisted. There, I train pastors who courageously lead underground fellowships among people whose villages are still deeply tied to shamanism and spirit worship.