Mark and Dalene serve as area directors for AGWM Western Europe, leading a team of 90 personnel and their families who are serving faithfully in the countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Monaco. Their focus and passion is mentoring and equipping the next generation of pioneers to plant churches and university ministries among the least reached secular peoples of Europe, where lack of access to the gospel is the most acute.

Mark and Dalene served as assistant pastors on the West Coast before beginning their overseas ministry in 1993. They pastored a filipino congregation in Hong Kong for two years and pioneered university ministry on the campuses of Bangladesh's three largest cities for 14 years before moving to Europe in 2010. They planted a university ministry and bi-lingual church in Grenoble, France and for the past 14 years have directed a training hub for new missionaries, preparing and mobilizing young adults to join pioneering and planting teams in France.

Their vision is to now see two new training hubs established in Longwy, France and Tilburg, Netherlands - preparing a whole new wave of young adult church planters and pioneers to assist the national movements of the Benelux nations in their church planting efforts.

DALENE likes baking, renovating furniture, mentoring, Mexican food and Jane Austen flicks.

MARK likes coffee, baseball, history books, documentaries, slam poetry and Cajun food.

The area of Western Europe is comprised of the five nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Monaco. We take care of the pastoral, mentoring, member care, training and administrative needs of Assemblies of God global workers who minister in these nations. We also partner with national Pentecostal church movements, leaders and pastors, assisting them in their church planting, pioneering, specialized ministry, resourcing and training needs.

We established our first Western Europe Training Hub in Grenoble, France. We have spent the past 14 years equipping and mobilizing the next generation for church planting and pioneer ministry - seeing apostolic-minded workers mobilized to effectively pioneer in locations such as Toulouse, Nice, Rennes and the Isère region.

These hubs provide exposure and experience in cross-cultural ministry, intensive language study, one-on-one mentoring, and key ministry or planting skills. After a 1-2 year process, we mobilize participants to join pioneering teams in strategy with our national church partners.

Our vision is to establish two new training hubs in two strategic cities near the southern (French speaking) and northern (Flemish speaking) borders of Belgium.

LONGWY, FRANCE

A UNESCO world heritage sight, Longwy is located in the NE corner of France, only 15 minutes from the Belgium and Luxembourg borders. Our teams will join the over 250,000 commuters who daily cross the borders of Belgium and France for work. They will  pioneer campus ministry and church planting in neighboring Esch-sur-, Luxembourg or venture into the least-reached Ardennes region of Belgium to establish new faith communities.

TILBURG, NETHERLANDS

This dynamic university city in the Dutch Brabant region is just 20 minutes from the Flemish border. Only 40 pentecostal churches exist among the 7 million people of Flanders (north Belgium), with an average size of 15. Many pastors are currently retirement age. We partner with the national movements of the Netherlands (VPE) and Flanders (VVP) to train and mobilize Dutch, Flemish and American young people for pioneering work in key un-evangelized and unchurched towns and cities.

THE COUNTRIES

Benelux is a term for the 3 countries of Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg, comprising over 30 million people. Thousands of sizable towns and villages do not have one Gospel believing church.

THE NEED

Averaging only 1.75% born again believers, most people will never meet someone who can explain hope in Jesus. Thousands of towns still do not have any viable church, so sheer distance keeps seekers from access to the Gospel. These nations desperately need a new wave of church planting. Governments  have eliminated  religious worker visas, so we must be creative in locating our training hubs just across national borders. From there, we’re able to send in teams to develop sustainable platforms and see churches, non-profit BAM projects and university ministries planted.

THE VISION

The national movements in the Benelux region have goals to see hundreds of  new churches planted in the next decade, but they don’t have the means to recruit or train the needed teams. That’s where our training hubs help meet this critical need to see next generation planters prepared to pioneer in the neediest, yet most resistant places.