Mission to the World (MTW) is the mission-sending agency for the Presbyterian Church in America. We first partnered with the MTW team in Cambodia on our vision trip in 2019. One of MTW’s core values is to establish healthy local churches. The missionaries focus their work on the growth and maturity of indigenous churches and their local leaders. To learn more about MTW, visit www.mtw.org.
“But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.” - Exodus 17:12
Partnership with MTW
John received a call to missions in middle school while serving on summer missions with his church youth group. He knew he wanted to become a missionary because the gospel was the greatest gift he’s ever received, and now he wants to spend his life sharing that gift with others. He followed the call to missions by going to Cambodia on two short-term trips and as a one-year intern with MTW in 2017–18, teaching English, living in the church dorms with Khmer college students, and serving the church in the village. As a long term missionary, John has been serving faithfully in Angk’jeay village at a village church plant with another missionary family in student outreach, teaching English, and discipleship. He will be transitioning to Phnom Penh in 2024 to minister to college students and young adults.
John Lee - Phnom Penh, Cambodia
John and Carol Gim - Phnom Penh, Cambodia
John and Carol joined the MTW Cambodia team to serve in the local church planting efforts. Their passion to serve the Cambodian people came in different ways. While visiting Cambodia in 2012, Carol was struck by the beauty and resilience of the Cambodian people who rebuilt their lives after the genocide. John’s desire to serve in Cambodia grew from his time serving as an intern with MTW Cambodia. Now as a family, the Gims serve in Cambodia together.
John and Carol support church planting efforts through mentorship and discipleship. With a background as a ruling elder in the PCA and a career in corporate, John walks alongside young adults to mentor them in their spiritual growth, careers, and marriages, and helps train ruling elders for the churches. With a heart for ministry and experience serving in various ministry roles, Carol provides mentorship for lay leaders in the church with a focus on children's and worship ministry. Together, the Gims are walking alongside the Cambodian people on their journey.
James and Shine Lee - Occidental Mindoro, Philippines
God has called James and Shine Lee as long-term missionaries to the Philippines, to continue the mission work that Shine’s parents started in Occidental Mindoro. For the past 30 years, Shine’s parents have been faithfully ministering to the Mangyans, a local Indigenous people group. After leading many Mangyans to Christ, Shine’s parents planted churches throughout Occidental Mindoro. In order to raise up local pastors and lay leaders, they started All Nations Mission School, which became an important training ground for gospel ministry.
One of the most pressing needs for all the local pastors and lay leaders is ongoing theological education. As an ordained pastor, James (M.Div., Th.M.) primarily focuses on equipping the current and the next generation of local pastors and lay leaders. As a counselor, Shine ministers to women and children in various capacities. It is their prayer and hope that more unreached Mangyans will come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and that this gospel movement will not only have a lasting impact on the island of Mindoro, but also spread throughout the Philippines for the glory of God.
Mark spent 10 years of his childhood in Tokyo and became a Christian at Stanford University. He worked for Rakuten, Japan's largest internet mall, to confirm his call to Japan before seminary. Mark is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California and is a PCA teaching elder. He is pastor of Kaihin Makuhari Grace Church—a church in the Presbyterian Church of Japan.
KMGC is a 60-person church planted by a veteran Presbyterian pastor in 2001. Mark leads the MTW Makuhari Team that is focused on serving East Kanto with Kaihin Makuhari Grace Church by making disciples in a densely populated residential neighborhood (35,000 people in a third of a square mile), and training shepherds and undershepherds for Japanese church ministry at KMGC. Makuhari Team is a team of diverse missionaries and Japanese nationals with a variety of experiences, backgrounds, and gifts, but with a singular goal to help plant and bolster Christ-centered and Confessional churches.