Missionary Bios

We have experienced how God is continually at work in us, restoring us to the full life that He desires for each of his children. And we believe God wants no one to be without this experience. This is why our hearts beat to make Jesus known throughout Québec and the rest of Canada. We are privileged to live and work in Montréal, a beautiful, multicultural and multilingual city where so many don’t have the hope that comes from knowing how much they are wanted and loved by God. Our work with P2C and in partnership with our local church and other local ministries consists in creating opportunities for people to encounter God and grow in their knowledge and experience of Him. We do this through mentoring local and national staff, teaching and serving in a variety of organized and spontaneous ways. Whether we are journeying with students, neighbours, fellow parishioners or ministry workers, we want them to know the joy of being made new and coming fully alive to their true selves as children of God.

Hello! My name is Noah Fensome and my Wife’s name is Roos. We live in Amsterdam, The Netherlands where we serve with Youth With A Mission. We’ve been in full-time missions for over 7 years. My role within the organization is to oversee our “Discipleship Training Schools” which is our 6-month entry-level program. I oversee a team of training staff as we host 50-100 students from all over the world for our programs. My wife Roos oversees our base’s communications department which covers all of our media, promotion, and our fundraising efforts. I attended NLCC for 18 years before moving abroad to do ministry. I even had my first few missions experiences with NLCC HSM going to Victoria, Portland, and Colima. It was here that the Lord called me to disciple youth and young adults, which is why I eventually pursued global missions.

**Please include my full name (Noah Fensome) and my giving number (FN06) on anything sent to me through YWAMcanada.org. Without my full name and giving number, the donations won't reach me.

I have had the privilege of being involved in DRIME since 2001. DRIME uses drama to help start conversations with people about life and faith and our hope is to always point people to Jesus.  We have DRIME teams around the world using this tool of drama, made up of locals so that ministry can happen in their own language and context. We currently have new teams starting in Quebec, South America and West Africa. I work out of the office in Langley, helping lead the ministry. Because I'm local, I get to be involved at NLCC on a weekly basis.  My husband is on staff at the church and we have we have 3 sweet, but busy daughters, Winter, Wren, and Poppy.

We’re learning what it means to be Jesus-centred peacemakers in a diverse world of conflict. Peacemaking is central to the gospel of Jesus. We want to create spaces for others to encounter Peace, whether that’s around our kitchen table, while playing street hockey, or organizing an event that gathers together others from different communities.
We’ve been living & serving in Berlin since 2010. We’re pioneering a peacemakers DTS & peace camps. We want to see participants cultivate their relationship with Christ & others. Our dream is to see Jesus-centred peacemaking hubs established & to see a Peace Institute founded.
Melissa is a teacher, creative & coffee snob. She’s also invested in home schooling & teaching German as a Directed Learning teacher. Ben is a teacher, video storyteller, a Star Wars nerd, & an avid Oilers fan. Liam has a good sense of humour & loves Star Wars lego. Cerys’ name has Welsh roots meaning “Loved One”. She’s full of energy & her favourite colour is pink.

Grace and Martin and their two kids are serving with Wycliffe Bible Translators. They joined NLCC as they came to Langley for their studies and absolutely loved being an active part of the Yorkson family until mid-2019, when they left for “the field” - the vast Southeast Asian archipelago. In this part of the world, many of the hundreds of languages spoken are being replaced by a regional trade language due to increasing mobility and trade. As Bible translation facilitator, Martin supports and guides local mother-tongue translators as they make Scripture available in this trade language. Grace and Martin, together with their kids, count it as privilege to be part of God reaching the hearts of people even at the “ends of the world”, and do so in partnership with NLCC.

**For all gifts, please specify “Martin & Grace, 229403"

Marko, originally from Thunder Bay, Ont., and Pauline, from Ireland, met in Calgary in 1993. They were married in 1996 and joined Wycliffe Canada in 1999. While training at the Canada Institute of Linguistics in Langley, BC, they joined the NLCC family. Sharing a desire to see every people group in the world have access to God’s great Word in their mother tongue, the Hakkolas moved to Mali, West Africa in 2001 and were assigned to the Koso* Bible translation project in Mali in 2003. Marko has worked primarily in facilitating translation of a panoramic Bible in two Koso languages, while Pauline’s role is to ensure that all translated Scripture is made accessible to the Koso-speaking peoples in every possible way. This includes radio programs, Bible storying, a Scripture app and the dubbing of the “JESUS” film. They are both excited to see God transforming Koso lives through His Word. 

*pseudonym for security

Pat and Rad are committed to sharing the Good News of Jesus with the Isaan people of North-East Thailand so they will experience healing, hope, abundant life, and address their physical needs through social-economic development. They are also involved in Expanding God’s kingdom through church planting and leadership training. With four church plants in Thailand, and a growing network of believers and pastors, it is exciting to see what God is doing.

John and Jenn have been attending North Langley Community Church for 21 years. John serves as Multiply's Ambassador to First Peoples in Western Canada. In this role, John and his wife Jenn seek to bring reconciliation between First Peoples and the Church through education, prayer and the facilitation of bridge-building encounters. John and his wife Jenn are currently engaging with several different nations within BC, urban aboriginals, and as cultural liaisons with youth in Vancouver.

Barbara joined Wycliffe in 1998. From 2000-2013, the Labrecque family served the people of Paama and Southeast Ambrym in the South Pacific country of Vanuatu. While there, they developed 6 years of Sunday school lessons, children's literacy materials, adult Bible studies in the local languages, and trained teachers and national translators. In May 2016, the 2 New Testaments along with significant portions of the Old Testament in each language in both printed and audio format were dedicated. 
Since 2013, Barbara has been serving at Wycliffe Canada's training school, the Canada Institute of Linguistics (CanIL) in British Columbia, Canada which trains the next generation of Bible translation advisors and Scripture use and literacy workers going out into all the world. Each year, students graduate from CanIL's programs, join Bible translation organizations, and begin working in minority language groups throughout the world.
Barbara is currently serving full time at CanIL. Thank you for your partnership through prayer and support to continue this ministry.

Jessi has served with YWAM in Asia since 2008 and in 2015 she moved to Nepal and joined Naresh in his ministry to migrant brick factory workers in the Kathmandu valley. Since then their ministry has grown to include a church plant which Naresh pastors, school sponsorships for disadvantaged kids, the running of a children's home, and vocational training programs. They are both passionate about discipleship and seeing people grow in intimacy with God. They welcomed their son, Gabriel, in November 2019.

Learn more about their work at RedemptionFoundation.org

Married since 1972 with three daughters and 6 grandchildren, we have been in full-time pastoral and missionary ministry for 35+ years. We are privileged to be serving as Member Care Associates with Frontiers Canada while maintaining connections with MORE Network Canada. We are passionate about seeing/helping God’s people thrive in their walks and works wherever they are placed. Our first book Dark Night Experience, published in 2015, is now available for free download at bit.ly/dnxbookfree

My name is Jen and I have been working with YWAM in Hong Kong for 10 years. My first taste of missions happened at NLCC through a trip to C country. I had always wanted to go on a missions trip but I always had a reason why I couldn’t go. As they described the trip I felt God say that “if I didn’t go on this trip, my life would never be what it was supposed to be and I would always regret it!” so I went and it completely changed my life. This is where I heard about the team in Hong Kong and how they were using performing arts to share the gospel.
We have grown from a performing arts team to a ministry including 25 people, a foodbank, children’s camps, campus ministry, elderly outreaches, homeless ministry and more. We seek to mobilize all generations to display God’s beauty through the arts, empower the marginalized, and to reach out to the all and every; proclaiming God’s message of hope and seeking to provide comfort to all in accordance with God’s word through Isaiah 61.

Hi my name is Claudia Petersen. I've attended NLCC for 15 years and currently direct and run a Christian Teacher Training Program in Uganda for local Christian teachers and administrators. I have taught for over 40 years in both the government and private school systems. Fifteen years ago I travelled to mentor young teachers at our sister school in Kibaale, Uganda where I fell in love with the people, especially the children. I've been working and growing a team of dedicated Ugandan trainers in a program called, "Transformational Teacher Training ( T.T.T.)" We serve both rural and city schools and aim to provide quality professional teacher training in the hopes of creating a future generation dedicated to loving and serving Jesus Christ in whatever they do. We feel that education is pivotal in introducing and expanding God's kingdom. I currently serve under an established NGO organization called, "Classrooms For Africa".

Sergio Rocete and his family serve the congregation of Cristo Centro Independencia in Tijuana through preaching, teaching, worship leading, counseling, and discipleship training.  They have a ministry to drug addicts and have outreach programs to deported families and the poor.  They have recently planted a new congregation in a remote area of Tijuana.  Sergio and Martha have been a great encouragement to many people from the Aldergrove campus (formerly Bethel) who have gotten to know them over the past 25 years.

Donations to the Rocete Family Ministry can be made throught the The Great Commission Foundation.

My name is Aleah Warkentin and I am honored to work for a global youth organization called Young Life. At Young Life our mission is to bring the good news to unchurched teenagers in our local area. Through our system of the four “C”s - Club (youth events), Contact work (face to face with teens throughout the week), Campaigners (bible study), and Camp, Young Life sees many kids coming to faith each year. Our prayer is that through relationships with these teens they will come to know Jesus. We focus on teens who don’t know Jesus by getting involved in public highschools. Loneliness is very present in the teens in our culture, and at Young Life we want to enter into their world and build friendship, offer mentorship, and tell them how deeply they’re loved by Jesus. We love Jesus, we love fun, and we want to show that a life with Jesus is life to the full.

In my role as a writer on the Multiply (MB Mission) Media Team, I focus on telling the stories of our global workers in such a way as to mobilize prayer and praise. To this end I correspond regularly with over 120 global workers, and occasionally I travel to see them in their countries of service and gather these stories in person. I am responsible for the content of the posts and stories in the Daily Prayer Guide, as well as two other publications affiliated with the MB Conference and General Conference, and am a regular contributor of features for the quarterly publication of the Witness, as well as for the MB Herald. I am also involved in the training of new short- and long-term global workers, specifically in the area of prayer and prayer ministry, and teach prayer seminars at various other churches throughout the year. At NLCC, I oversee curriculum development and training of our prayer ministry teams.

We are excited to work alongside speakers of minority languages in Cameroon, doing transformational language-related ministry in support of Bible Translation. Translating the Bible into the languages of minority people groups isn’t just about fixing a communication barrier. Translation itself is part of God’s message! In Jesus, God “translated” himself into human form so we could know him more fully. Now we work to help translate His Word for minority peoples so that they can truly understand that God cares for them, in their context and culture. God speaks their language too! We appreciate your prayers and partnership as we embark on this journey together.

Hello, I’m Michaila Hedd, residing in Amsterdam and working with Youth With a Mission. I work with The Cleft, our Red Light Ministry, where we foster relationships with the women by delivering warm drinks to the brothels and offering language and skill courses in hospitality, barista, and resume building. Our goal is for women in prostitution to step into the freedom God has for them. I also lead Hidden Treasures, a homeless ministry, providing warm drinks, food, and essentials twice a week, aiming to meet their practical needs while showing them Jesus’s love and hope. Having attended NLCC since I was born, I am grateful to maintain a connection while serving abroad.

*When signing up to donate, use my full name and code: HM22.