Duane and Penny Unruh
Ministry Description: Duane and Penny are involved with sharing the gospel of Christ and starting churches in Belgium. Testimonies:
Duane: When I was a young boy, my parents explained how God loved us so much that He was willing to send Christ His Son to die for me. Then God raised Jesus from the dead proving Christ has the victory over Satan, sin and death. When I understood the work Christ had completed, I was ready to believe and put my trust in Him for my own salvation (Romans 10:9-10). When I was 15 I investigated the Scriptures and was amazed by the character and purposes of God. It was at this time I came to a renewed point of surrender to anything God wanted. I had the opportunity to graduate from Grace University of Omaha, Nebraska, with majors in Bible and music. Then I had the privilege of serving as a youth pastor and child counselor until moving here to Belgium.
Penny: I also accepted Christ as my Savior, while just a young girl, with the help of my mother and grandmother. In junior high I experienced many doubts about salvation and forgiveness but again received the guidance of my mother who showed me the promises of the Scriptures. I graduated form Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, with a degree in teaching and coaching. I have had the opportunity of supervising youth groups and working with ministries in Mexico and Western Europe.
In our single days, both Penny and I spent time in Belgium with summer ministries. Since then God has steadily grown our interest, burden, calling and fit for a commitment of our lives to church planting ministry there. C Et
Contact Info:
Duane and Penny Unruh duane.unruh@efca.org 011-329-245-49-21
Heerweg-Zuid 224
9052 Ghent
Belgium
Anniversary: June 7
Birthdays: Duane – May 27, Penny March 27
Austin 1-23-1992, Micah 4-2-1994, Landon 2-5-1997
Ghent City Team update January 2012
ReachGlobal Mission in Ghent, Belgium
THE GHENT CITY TEAM:
We are excited to announce the beginnings of the Ghent City Team in Belgium with ReachGlobal Mission. With about a half-million residents today, the city of Ghent is the cultural center of the East Flanders province. It was a leading European trade city in the Middle Ages and remains a crossroads for technological industry today. Ghent has followed Europe’s catholic traditions for centuries, but now can be considered an established center of free thinking and thorough secular ideals.
We (Duane & Penny Unruh) have been working with others and through ReachGlobal mission in the Ghent area for three terms to:
- re-establish a church on the south side of the city
- start multi-church youth and young adult groups serving the larger city area
- hold outreaches with English camps
- promote sport camps across Flanders
But now, most of this ministry is coming to an end for us personally: we are releasing the local church to be ‘missionary free’; the youth groups are running on their own; and the sport camps have their own Belgian national board.
This is a transition time for our personal ministry but we trust, a growing time for ministry around Ghent. We feel lead by God to reinvest in the greater Ghent city area with new ministry initiatives, taking advantage of the network of relationships that have been built up in past years; therefore, a ReachGlobal ‘Ghent City Team.’
We hope to team up with nationals and also find new missionaries that would give their lives to making disciples of Christ here. Flanders still only has about half of one percent who call themselves evangelical believers. It remains a ‘cold’ mission field but also one where a lot of gospel ‘seed-sowing’ needs to take place.
THE CURRENT VISION:
Our vision is to partner with Flemish churches in order to start new churches in outlying towns where there is no witness. We also want to start new churches among immigrant people groups within the city. We are asking the Lord for several individuals or couples who would join us in evangelism and disciple making ministries with the goal of starting new churches.
A second key goal is starting new ‘justice’ ministries to the poor, abused and ignored. Just this week I had the opportunity to pray with a young man wanting to receive his permanent residency in Belgium but who’s process looks like it has hit a dead end. He comes from a country closed to traditional missionaries but here we could talk freely about the Lord and how God was leading in his life. This past November, 13 local believers from seven area churches went through the training course on how to care for immigrants in our secular culture and share Christ with them.
We have more dreams. We would like to explore wilderness ministry as an outreach and a way of ‘making disciples’. A student ‘retreat and study’ center would be a great ‘fit’ in our area. We also see a need for children’s workers and other church and community ministries.
Would you pray with us for short-term and long-term partners who would consider using their God-given gifts to make disciples of Jesus and help start churches in Flanders? We are excited to see how God will lead in the Ghent area!
