GLOBAL PARTNERS
Woodlands works with individuals across the world who are pursuing a vision to bring God's love and care to the nations of the world. We call these people our Global Partners. In some ways they are very ordinary every-day Christians, in other ways they are brilliant and courageous adventurers.
If you have any questions about our Global Partners, our monthly Global Partners’ Prayer or opportunities for short term-mission trips, please email the Global Partners team.
We rely on our regular church members to give financially to support the work of our Global Partners and we take an offering once a month on the second Sunday. Our Global Partnership Fund enables our partners to deal with very real and serious needs in the countries they serve in.
Cath O'Shea (Bucharest, Romania)
Cath lives and works in Bucharest, Romania where she has been for 8 years.
She works with a charity called the Refuge Center, which works with impoverished children, orphans, and kids in government social care. They help in practical ways, provide emotional support, run children’s camps, and share the love of Jesus with them. She is also involved with running a ministry apartment and hosts short term missions teams, as well as discipling new believers from a summer camp outreach. Cath loves the Romanian people and would like to begin fostering children at some point.
To learn more about Cath’s ministry, visit her Facebook page Cath is in Romania or email Cath O’Shea.
The Harvey Family (Arua, Uganda)
Chris, Mandy & Hannah live and work with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Arua, Uganda. Their desire is to bring gospel transformation to the hurting and forgotten people of East Africa.
Mandy works a lot with children in the local community and is helping a new church in a rural area to establish its own children’s ministry, as well as helping to run seminars and workshops aimed at equipping local Sunday school teachers. Chris teaches regularly in Discipleship Training Schools around East Africa, and serves on the YWAM base maintenance team. Chris is passionate about supporting Christians in rural locations and equipping indigenous leaders and Bible teachers.
To learn more about their ministry, visit the YWAM Arua website: www.ywamarua.org and subscribe to their YouTube channel for regular video updates.
Debbie Wright (Berlin, Germany)
Debbie lives in Berlin, Germany, where she has been for over 11 years. Over the past 6 years particularly, she has become involved with the ministry of BURN 24-7 (who work with many other ministries, denominations, and churches). This organisation runs ‘prayer burns’ where Christians gather together to worship and intercede for 24 hours. She initially took on a leadership role with BURN in Berlin, and now works with BURN across Europe, providing training for leaders across the continent.
Her goal is to see non-stop worship and prayer running in every city, town and village across Europe, for unity between cities and to see the Great Commission fulfilled. She does this by training worshippers in their callings and empowering them to lead others in worship.
To find out more about Debbie’s work with BURN 24-7, visit: www.burn24-7.com/europe
The Demaret Family (Avignon, France)
Jo and Eric, with their sons Louis and Jaoven, have been living near Avignon, France, for 20 years.
They are called to work with young people and are involved in working with the youth ministry at their church. They also run an annual festival in their city as a form of outreach, perform prophetic street evangelism, and have a regular outreach to teenagers at a local college.
The Knighton Family (Mareeba, Australia)
Joe and Emma Knighton and their two children have been living in Mareeba, Australia for almost 5 years. They serve with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) which provides aviation services to Christian and humanitarian agencies working in isolated and remote areas around the world.
Joe works as a senior flight instructor, providing remote area flight skills for existing pilots and also training up new indigenous pilots from across Australia and Papua New Guinea. Emma is a doctor and serves as a GP in a local prison, heads up a drug rehabilitation programme, works in a local hospital and provides medical support to MAF families.
To find out more, visit Joe and Emma’s page on the MAF website.
The Rutere Family (Kenya)
After many years serving at Woodlands, Joshua and Sarah moved to Dodoma, Tanzania in 2012, where they were involved in developing church leaders at St Johns University. In 2107 they relocated to the Pan Africa Christian University in Nairobi, Kenya where Joshua is co-leading the School of Theology as well as coordinating the the University staff fellowship. Sarah is heavily involved in the work of a young church community in the city, helping mentor young women leaders. Their children Grace, Ezra and Rebecca go to school locally and the family loves dogs, chickens and enjoying the African outdoors.
Ken & Ali Barrett (Alcala de Henares, Spain)
Ken and Ali are based in Alcala de Henares, near Madrid in Spain, where they have been for 34 years. There is almost no end to the ministries they are involved with! They preach and teach in local churches, run ministry trips to Peru, run community outreach through a local cafe (the Kofi Jaus), have established English conversation groups, host children’s after-school clubs, run handicraft groups for vulnerable adults, and provide pregnancy counselling to sex workers.
They also write, edit and publish Christian literature, and are involved in creative street preaching, as well as equipping others through systematic teaching of scripture. At a national level they dream of seeing Spain become a missions-sending nation as well as a fertile place for the gospel to be planted; they dream of seeing the local church engaged in reaching out with the gospel through creative community projects and fighting injustice.
For more information about the Barrett’s church visit: www.iglesiadealcala.es
Richard & Margaret Kemp (Montpelier, France)
Richard and Margaret have been living in Montpellier, France for 26 years.
They run a Christian coffee bar called Chez Théo, together with 4 other churches in Montpellier. The city is similar to Bristol and its size and appeal to young people and students. Richard and Margaret serve Montpellier by chairing a gathering of protestant pastors, and working with networks of French churches. They also run a house church aiming to multiply through the small group model of church. Margaret teaches at the University of Montpellier and in Nȋmes, as well as working at IBM. Overall, their vision is to make the gospel accessible to ordinary French people, and to show them its relevance to us today. They work to foster unity between pastors and churches across their city and France, keeping the main thing the main thing.
For more information about the coffee shop ministry visit: www.chez-theo.org
Samm & Andy Cheesman (Szeged, Hungary)
Samm and Andy have been living in Szeged, Hungary for 10 years. They are based on the outskirts of the south-eastern town of Szeged. Andy is the pastor of a local Pentecostal church of 50 people, and he also works full-time for a Hungarian software company. Samm is a senior law lecturer at a local university. Their vision is to reach out to south east Hungary and the neighbouring Hungarian-speaking areas. Samm and Andy work together with Hungarian leaders, particularly in the Pentecostal framework, reaching out to friends of the church and the needy in their region.
For more information on their local church, visit: www.sionszeged.info
The Arévalo-Squires (Lima, Peru)
Dennis and Charmian, along with their four children Elliot, Emily, Francesca and Louie, live in Lima, Peru, where they have been ministering for 21 years.
Dennis is the pastor of Centro de Fuego church, and Charmian heads up the women’s, youth and children’s ministries. Dennis is also involved in a church-planting and leadership development ministry called Multipli, which equips and raises up new leaders in Peru. Together they are involved in efforts to unify churches across Lima through prayer and friendship. They also run regular outreaches to the unreached people groups of Peru, living in the jungles and mountains.
To learn more about their ministry, check out their church’s Facebook page Iglesia Centro de Fuego or email Charmian Arévalo-Squire.
