Spring brings the annual Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions and a reminder that every dollar given to the offering goes directly to the field to help fulfill the Great Commission in North America. In the following pages we introduce you to eight NAMB missionaries who represent their 5,176 colleagues serving in the United States, its territories and Canada. Please join millions of Southern Baptists during the Week of Prayer for North American Missions and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, March 7-14, and all year long in praying for these eight dedicated missionaries. Pray for their effectiveness in reaching those around them for Christ, and for God to confirm your own mission in bringing the gospel to your world.

Week of Prayer missionary profiles by Adam Miller.

DAY 1
An Van and Lienhoa Pham

An Van and Lienhoa Pham photography by paul obregon

An Van Pham learned church planting in a communist prison in Vietnam. During his time there he taught the gospel to other prisoners and trained them to tell others the good news. Pretty soon he had helped start a number of cell groups that sprung up throughout the camp.

He and his wife Lienhoa are only a few decades removed from their life in communist Vietnam, from which they escaped with their first child on a tattered and crowded fishing boat camouflaged by a fish net. After days at sea, the group of 120 refugees was set adrift by engine failure. Many died of starvation and dehydration aboard the boat, and An Van and his wife ended up in a refugee camp until they were able to immigrate to the United States.

A former Buddhist, An Van now works with more than a hundred Asian and dozens of other multi-ethnic congregations around Atlanta through the Georgia Baptist Convention (GBC), where he has served since 1987. Jointly funded through NAMB and the GBC, his objective is to assist the associations and local churches to start new work with Asians and other ethnic groups.

The Asian population in Georgia has doubled and even tripled in some areas over the past ten years, An Van says. We cover about 11 languages and dialects in this area, and we are seeing a greater need for churches who can reach these different cultures.

An Vans primary strategy for reaching the lost sheep among the multi-ethnic population in the state is to help establish leadership to shepherd the flock of believers who can reach their communities for Christ. An Van says it is also important to train the co-laborers in leadershipthe pastors wives.

I believe that more than 50 percent of missions and churches that have not grown in the last 10 years are at a standstill, because their leadership team is so weak, he says. This is why I am working with seminaries and convention leaders to train church leaders who have had no seminary experience or very little formal Bible training. Strong leaders need to be well educated. We are also working to train their wives.

An Van has worked with institutions such as Boyce College at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, through which students can earn bachelors degrees in a distance-learning program. Pastors also have the opportunity to earn master of divinity degrees through Southern Seminary. A teacher himself, he is often able to teach classes locally and has helped develop the Contextualization Leadership Development program, a certificate program that trains pastors who havent had the opportunity to earn a high school diploma.

So, the program has trained more than 100 leaders, most of whom have gone on to start churches. An Van also helps host an International Youth Camp where youth from local churches can take their unsaved friends to have a good time and hear the gospel. Over the years many young people have rededicated their lives or made professions of faith.

Many of those kids make commitments to serve as pastors and missionaries, An Van says. These kids will be the generation that takes over as the leaders.

DAY 2
Mike and Ana Daily

Mike and Ana Daily with Lauren and Justin photography by ken touchton

Mike and Ana Daily help Southern Baptist churches find needs to fill. Serving in the largely Hispanic population of Miami-Dade County, the Dailys have little trouble finding what theyre looking for in the way of a community whose physical and spiritual needs seem to mount with each new season.

Director of Church and Community ministries for the Miami Baptist Association, Mike has helped churches pinpoint ways to reach their communities by doing everything from handing out thousands of New Testament Bibles at the Dade County fair to offering tutoring at after-school programs to going door-to-door handing out shoes to kids who would otherwise play barefoot in the streets. Most immigrant families supported through day labor are living off $7,500 to $12,000 a year, often supporting families of four or more.

Our first task is finding out from the churches what are the needs of the community, says Mike. Then well find resources from the state convention, the North American Mission Board or other churches or from foundations. Then well go in and show the love of Christ to the community by meeting them at their needs.

In Miami-Dade County, churches are confronted with language, culture barriers and religion barriers. Miami supports a population of 3.5 million, and nearly 90 percent of the communities are unchurched. The seasonal labor population combined with the influx of Haitian, Cuban and other Hispanic populations has brought with it a nominal form of Catholicism that Mike says increases the need for more churches to minister to people from these languages and cultures.

We also have what we call the up and outs, those who are very wealthy, Mike says. But nobodys doing an effective job yet of reaching them. So Im working with the churches to strategize and develop ministries to reach into these communities with the gospel.

The majority of the population is near or below the poverty line. This means benefits such as healthcare are out of the question. This is where Ana has stepped up to meet some of the medical needs with the Good News Care Center, a free clinic for low income individuals and families. The Center is where people who cant afford medical care can get check ups and shots as well as New Testaments and Jesus films in their own language, which is also usually playing in the waiting room. Its also a place where the Dailys are able to reach the international community.

People come here not only from the surrounding area but also from all over South America and other parts of the world, Ana says. Theyre trying to find new life in this country, and they come here with their sicknesses.

The Good News Center sees more than 200 patients a week, which means each year more than 10,000 people have the opportunity to be healed physically and spiritually.

DAY 3
Debbie Wohler

Debbie Wohler photography by gibbs frazeur

Debbie Wohler thinks of herself as an unlikely missionary. With a degree in physical education and her love of outdoor sports and elementary school students, she may fit the profile of a teacher or a coach. But Debbie has been able to use her gifts of skiing and working with children as ministry tools in Tahoe City, California.

Tahoe City is a tourist-heavy town with six ski resorts, many wealthy landowners and more than 12 million visitors a year. Tahoe City also is spiritually deprived and infiltrated with New Age beliefs.

Debbies ministry years in Tahoe City began in 1975 when she worked as a Summer Missionary. She returned later to work at the Olympic Training Center, and even after the center had moved to Colorado Springs, Debbie continued to call Tahoe City home. Now, even after 24 years of work there, the possibilities for ministry continue to amaze her.

Since moving to Tahoe City, Debbie has been able to minister at seven Olympic Games and hopes to attend the upcoming games in Athens, Greece. She also has helped start a ski ministry, ministries at Olympic Games and several ministries to children. She hopes soon to reach into the local public schools with the gospel.

No one is more surprised than I am that Im a missionary, Debbie says. But I decided early in life that I wanted either to be a missionary or an Olympic athlete. And here I am working as a missionary not only to children and students but to outdoor athletes and skiers.

During ski season, Debbie and her trained team of ski chaplains visit in pairs the local ski resorts. On Sundays, theyll hold 15- to 20- minute church services, which they advertise in local newspapers, with flyers and with large crosses planted in the snow.

Some resorts even let us put up permanent crosses, she says.

The great thing about having services in the open is that people see us, it makes them think about God, and they have to make a decision at that moment.

Debbie also uses the ski lifts as a place to share her faith. Dozens are baptized each ski season. In addition to her resort and sports-related ministries, Debbie also ministers to children and their parents throughout the year.

With the A Plus after-school program parents are provided inexpensive alternatives to daycare or kids being home alone. Parents Night Out gives married parents an opportunity to rekindle relationships and single parents the opportunity to take a breather. The Big A Club, Vacation Bible Schools and My Morning Out are other ways Debbie and the on mission Christians who work with her get to show their community that they care. They also are in the process of forming a full-time preschool program.

Debbie also sees her ministry as a missionary training ground. Each summer she works alongside Sojourners, Summer Missionaries and other students involved in ministry.

I dont want to raise another generation who doesnt know God. I dont want to be a part of that, says Debbie, agreeing with Truett Cathy who says, children are a message we send to a generation we do not see.

Debbie has seen a number of kids shes known since elementary school grow up and go to the international mission field.

She estimates that the ministry reaches about 17,000 children a year. This year, the ministrys mailing list includes 635 families.

Debbie credits much of her ministry success to Gods working through Southern Baptist churches who have given her support through labor and finances.

In fact, she was able to purchase two passenger vans with the 3 million soup labels sent to her by more than 3,700 SBC churches.

DAY 4
Mark and Christine Hobafcovich

Mark and Christine Hobafcovich with daughters Hadassah Ruth and Elizabeth Sophia photography by paul obregon

A native Romanian fleeing the communist clutches of the former Romanian dictator Ceausescu, Mark Hobafcovich knows what it means to need a ray of hope. As people groups coordinator for the North American Mission Board (NAMB), Mark hopes to provide Eastern Europeans, Middle Easterners and other ethnic groups a ray of the hope he has found in Jesus.

We have so many people we havent touched yet, Mark says. There are groups of Bosnians, Muslims and many others who have come to North America and are seeking freedom and peace here.

Mark was 20 years old when he and six friends escaped Romania in 1980. Risking imprisonment and even death, the group made its way to Yugoslavia and then to Australia, where Mark received Christ at First Romanian Baptist Church of Melbourne.

To help others find the freedom and peace he found, Mark says churches need to be more intentional about planting healthy reproducing churches with evangelistic passion that can reach out to specific people groups with their language and culture. If such a church hadnt taken in Mark and his friends in Australia, Mark may never have accepted Christ.

If you believe you can just evangelize a people group without providing them with a church, youve left the job half done, he says. They need a place they can go and grow and eventually bring other people to hear the gospel.

Mark estimates there are one million Romanian-speaking people in North America and only about 49 Southern Baptist churches dedicated to reaching them.

Marks job is to form relationships with pastors reaching various people groups.

He worked with associations, state conventions, churches and ethnic fellowships to assess the need throughout North America for culturally specific church plants.

The greatest need across the board is for churches and resources that can reach people in their native tongue. Mark says that while the message in English will communicate the gospel, it may not reach them as deeply as if they could hear the truth of the gospel in the language they were taught even as a child.

We need to proclaim the gospel in the heart language of the people rather than the mind language, he says. Thats why I believe the Lord allows people to come to the United States and Canada. Not only does it bring more believers from the culture and language, but it also brings nonbelievers into an atmosphere with the freedom to respond to Christ more openly. You dont have to go anywhere else to reach the world for Christ. Just step outside your house, and you are basically able to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

DAY 5
Michael and Michelle Dean

Michael and Michelle Dean with children Lauren and Nathanael. photography by gibbs frazeur

By serving in a place where great minds come together, Michael and Michelle Dean have the opportunity to see the world in their own front yard. Boston is home to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University as well as more than 70 other colleges and institutions, which all attract a large number of international students.

International students are some of the most strategic people to reach out to, Michael says. If you reach one student, they could, in fact, return and change their entire country.

In other words, when Michael reaches an international student, that student could become a missionary to the country he or she will return to after college.

As International Ministries Coordinator for the Greater Boston Baptist Association, Michaels job is to develop and implement ministries that will reach, teach and disciple internationals living in the Boston area. With thousands of international businesspeople and more than 50 consulates representing their countries in Boston, its very possible you could cross paths with the leaders of other nations. What makes Boston a challenge is that people have such limited access to the gospel.

Michael Dean speaks with Caryn Bullard of Lafayette, Louisiana, who he hopes will help get the Baptist Student Fellowship going at MIT.

I say that Boston is a lot more like Beijing than Nashville or Dallas, he says. People here have little opportunity to meet an evangelical Christian.

The Deans are trying to change this by taking the Bible to the students of Bostons institutions and with great response. For example, in one of his Bible studies, Michael was teaching about the apostle Pauls message to the people of Athens where he used the unknown god as a way of sharing the gospel.

To take advantage of the opportunity to reach the world in Boston, Michael and Michelle have tried to make themselves available on a personal level to the international population as much as possible.

We have internationals in our home, Michelle says, who works side-by-side with Michael. I find it important to have international students in our home, because at least 70 percent of internationals never get into an American home while they are here studying in the States.

The couple also has reached many of the students by helping them learn English. In addition to starting Bible studies on campuses and in local churches, the Deans have helped start English classes in churches, on campuses and even in Chinatown in Boston. Theyve been successful in forming relationships with churches, and with encouraging fellow believers to begin international ministries themselves.

How do you make friends with internationals? Just go say hello, Michael says. Oftentimes they have a need, and if you help them meet some of those needs you have a friend for lifeif you want it.

The Deans ultimate vision is for churches across the continent to begin international ministries. Later this year Michael will chair a national committee to form a strategy to do this. With roughly 30 million internationals in the United States, Michael says, Christians can do foreign missions without leaving the country. The Deans are looking for long-term volunteers to serve with them. For more information visit bostonbaptist.org.

If we dont share the gospel with internationals while they are here, a third of them will return home and never hear the gospel, Michael says. We dont have to just talk about them or pray for themwe can build relationships with them.

DAY 6
Stephanie and Ross Smith

Ross and Stephanie Smith photography by gary chapman

Stephanie Smith knew nothing about hockey in 1993, the year she felt called to share Gods love with the hockey community in Minnesota. In a state nicknamed the State of Hockey, the sport is a way of life and Stephanie and her husband, Ross,are bringing real life to the sport.

There are 10,000 lakes in Minnesota, which become natural ice arenas each winter, Stephanie says. With several indoor and

outdoor rinks in each community, ice sports have had a major influence on Minnesota culture.

In a state where only one out of every 1,400 people attends a Southern Baptist church, one out of nine is affiliated officially with a hockey team. In the rough-and-tumble world of hockey, the name of Jesus isnt often talked about in the context of the gospel, and a significantly higher percentage of those in the hockey community report that they have no church affiliation or evangelical influence compared to the rest of the state population.

Most times all theyve heard is Jesus as a swear word, Stephanie says. Sports travel, practices and games conflict with traditional church times and without seeing a need for religion, its rare for a hockey family to go to church and hear about Jesus, which means we need to go to them.

After Stephanie worked in hockey for nine years, the Smiths acquired operational control of a Junior Hockey teamthe Northern Lights, a team that serves as the training ground between high school and college hockey and as a platform for their faith.

While Stephanie works as a trainer strengthening players and preventing and treating injuries, Ross handles administrative duties as general manager and president of the board of directors for the Northern Lights. This gives the couple the time they need to build relationships and be a light to players, their parents and the league.

The Smiths also have success reaching young athletes through their summer hockey camps. At one camp, they witnessed 115 professions of faith.

The couple works with 16- to 20-year-old aspiring athletes who are in the process of making critical life decisions. Before joining the Northern Lights, players are required to sign a contract agreeing to maintain good grades, refrain from using tobacco, alcohol or drugs and to complete 100 hours of community service. Because of their positive choices and involvement in the community, the players have had a major impact on the next generation of players.

Hockey is a sport known for violence, anger, lack of self-control and just acting out, Stephanie says. Christianity is about God transforming us, giving us control and meekness. Once people notice the difference, they want to know more. They find that we have a different personality, ethic and different way of looking at things. Then they want to know what makes us tick, and that gives us the opportunity to talk about a relationship with God.

The Smiths have reached international athletes and many athletes across North America through their work with the Northern Lights and Stephanies position with USA Hockey and the Winter Olympics. With the privilege of serving in Salt Lake City during the past Olympic Games, Stephanie looks forward to finding Gods place for them to reach hockey players and fans in Turin, Italy, in 2006.

DAY 7
John and Kim Piepmeier

John and Kim Piepmeier photography by gibbs frazeur

John and Kim Piepmeier are not the first Southern Baptist missionaries whove tried to reach the people of Kiana, (pronounced kigh-anna) Alaska, a village of 400. The Inupiat Eskimo people of Kiana have become their people and have even given them Eskimo names: Qayaaqpaq (pronounced ki-yuk-puk) and Ayagiaq (pronounced i-ya-gack).

From the very start its been about building relationships and building trust, John says. This means taking on some of the native culture things like doing what they do, eating what they eat, and just being part of their community.

Literally near the ends of the earth at 35 miles within the Arctic Circle, Kiana might make a good study of how geography affects a people. John has learned to hunt and skin caribou. Kim has learned how to sew native clothing out of animal skins. They have both acquired a taste for muktukwhale blubber dipped in seal oil. Because the weather during the winter is so harsh in the Arctic Circle, the Piepmeiers supplement their diet during winter with foods that might include salmon fillets, a freshwater fish called Sheefish, black bear and other meat to help sustain them as temperatures drop to as low as 60 degrees Fahrenheit. To heat their home and Kiana Baptist Church, the only Southern Baptist church for many miles, John and Kim transport hundreds of gallons of fuel to the house and church. But the weather affects more than physical comfort.

The lack of light during an Arctic Circle winter has contributed to suicide and alcoholism in the town. Since John and Kim arrived, the yearly number of suicides has dropped and some people are trading drinking for faith in Christ.

John and Kim came to Kiana, Alaska, from Missouri where they conducted campground ministries. The Kiana Baptist Mission hadnt had a pastor in nearly 20 years when the Piepmeiers took over there. On average between 12 and 15 people attend church services, and many others participate in the churchs different ministries.

The exotic locale of Kiana drastically affects the types of ministry done there. Johns sermons on Sunday are only the beginning of their full-time ministry. John and Kim also have to deal with septic tank backups, replenishing the heating fuel at the church, updating and repairing plumbing and performing other repairs. During the week the couple will meet people to sew animal skins, to skin animals, to fish or simply just to fellowship. This is when John and Kim are able to reach the most people.

Every year were here we see barriers break down, John says. Every year were here we lose our identity as the untrustworthy whites from Missouri and gain more of our identity as the couple who loves the people of Kiana.

DAY 8
Gregg and Janine Farah

Gregg and Janine Farah with daughters Elaine, Rachael and Kaitlyn photography by ken touchton

When Gregg Farah came back home, his home had changed. During his 15 years on the West Coast, his hometown of New York City had grown in its influence as a media, arts and financial center, had developed more than ever into a symbol of all that is good and bad in America and had become a target for terrorist attack. In the latest blow to the city, the monoliths of the World Trade Center were turned to dust and thousands of Greggs fellow New Yorkers had lost their loved ones.

While he was still living on the West Coast God made it clear that it was time to return home. So, in 2002, Gregg, his wife, Janine, and their kids left Saddleback Church in Southern California and joined NAMB as a missionary.

In spring 2003, God used Gregg and Janine to plant Mosaic Manhattan, a congregation that meets in a school near their apartment building only two blocks from Ground Zero. A church planted as part of Strategic Focus Cities emphasis for 2004 and 2005, Mosaic Manhattan aims to be just what its name impliesa church for all pieces of society.

Its not that we want to come up with a new way of doing church, Gregg says. We just want to redefine in peoples minds what church is.

While the church is geared toward reaching young professionals, artists and students, the doors are open to anyone in the community near the church which has more than 130 language groups as well as Jewish and Catholic populations. In part because of its proximity to the World Trade Center, the church has attracted a number of people who have questions they havent been able to answer.

Ive seen a lot of people open up and talk about the tragedy of 9/11, Gregg says. Thats good, but it also produces the wounds that folks have had hidden for the past several years. They have a lot of questions and often a lot of doubts.

Dispelling these doubts often means being consistent in the messages of the church and being a solid part of the community. This means excellence in message and quality in everything from the printed materials and website to the music and activities at the church to the quality of coffee the church gives away on a cold day. And while Gregg, Janine and their kids have already made Manhattan their home, their hope is also to have a ministry team living in the community as well, an ideal that costs have so far prohibited.

New Yorkers expect excellence, but they dont expect it from the church, he says. We want to raise their expectations.

Modeled after the original Mosaic, a Los Angeles congregation with its emphasis on experiencing God through the arts, Mosaic Manhattan is establishing itself as an arts-conscious fellowship. Often a church service at Mosaic will include graphic elements and visual art on a screen to illustrate a point in the message.

Storytelling is a main way of communicating scripture and, for the sake of illustrating a point, roller-blading across the stage is not out of the question. Stretching himself to become all things to all people, Gregg has even enrolled in a comedy class, so he can communicate more effectively. You might even catch him at a comedy club with his friends. For now, though, as his friends have suggested, Gregg plans to keep his day job.