Missions

Our denomination, The Evangelical Covenant Church was founded by Swedish immigrants in 1885 as a voluntary covenant of churches committed to working together to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.

The history of our church indicates in many ways our commitment to bringing the Good News of the Gospels to all we can reach. The original name of our church was Svenska Missions Församling or Swedish Mission Congregation. This serves to reminds us that at our beginnings we recognized and focused on the importance of supporting the work of spreading the Word.

Over our history we have helped provide support for Missionaries, their children, and their programs. Our missionaries have served from Alaska to Zaire.

Currently Country Covenant gives ongoing support for the ministry of Karl and Sue Petersen. They have been Covenant missionaries to Mexico since 1994. Karl's father William Petersen Jr. was pastor of Country Covenant from 1954 to 1960. After birth, the newborn Karl called Country Covenant's parsonage, home.

Country Covenant is also supporting Sarah Beckstrom. Sarah, a graduate of North Park University (BA in Youth ministry and Biblical studies) is on a one year mission (September 2004 - July 2005) to the city of Bukavu in the far eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) formerly called Zaire. Serving with CMS she will be working with Women and Children who have been traumatized by the many years of war in this region.

This is Sarah's fourth trip to Africa. Previously she spent one semester on an exchange program from North Park studying at Daystar University in Kenya. Then she served on a short term mission trip to Kenya in the summer of 2002, where she worked with homeless girls, through the Homeless Children International organization.

For information on Sarah's summer 2002 in Kenya click on this link. Kenya Trip

Sarah's third trip to Africa in March of 2003 was to be a one month circuit of youth ministries with CMS in Northern Congo. However, as she was flying to Entebbe, Uganda, rebel soldiers attacked and killed many in the region she was to be working in. This prevented Sarah and her CMS partner from entering Congo. She instead worked with other ministries that CMS has in Uganda.

Country Covenant has also supported Josh Stoxen. Josh, a graduate of Judson College (BA in Youth Ministry/Adolescent Studies) has worked with a youth ministry program at Crossroads Church in Ferney-Voltaire, France for the past two years.

Because of its closeness to Geneva, Switzerland, the church has a very diverse makeup, with people from over 30 different countries. English is the common language at the church, though the youth ministry has seen an increase in French-speaking youth over the last year.

This year Josh is serving as youth ministry team leader, working alongside the associate pastor and two other interns. The main youth program is called FAT (Fun and Truth) Friday and takes place weekly. It includes a meal, games, and a message, and is for ages 11-17.

A new program called The Core was started on Sunday evenings as an opportunity for older students to go deeper in their faith. God seems to be using both programs to impact students, and between 70-100 teens attend FAT Friday every week.

During the rest of the week, Josh meets with students to build relationships and foster times of discipleship. He also hosts a weekly small group for young adults and has helped with a church-wide outreach called Alpha.

The youth ministry is planning on participating in two trips this spring; one is a service project to Poland with Youth for Christ, and the other is a Crossroads-sponsored mission trip to England. Please pray for all these ministries and for the leaders and volunteers involved.

Josh plans on returning to the States in the summer of 2005 to attend seminary in the fall of 2005. He has his own web site (Running with Aslan) and invites you to visit it. Weekly updates and pictures will be posted there.

Walter and Ellen Stuffle current members of our church have been active in various short term missions. They have worked with a number of organizations and have traveled as far away as the Congo.

Gertrude Bjork	China	1919 - 1924
John and Julia Dahlstrom	Alaska Congo	1946 - 1948 1950 - 1951
Carl and Vivian Edstrom	Congo	1951 - 1964
Steven Dwight (MK*)	Taiwan	1950's - 60's
Matt and Sue Matson	Mexico	1988 - 1990
Kim Mancini	Japan	1991 - 1993
Richard and Marlys Johnson	Columbia	1976-2003

* Steve was a Missionaries Kid (MK) and was supported by our Sunday School Children.

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AFRIKA DIRECT
Sarah's Newsletters from Africa (all are Adobe PDF format files)
September 2004	October 2004
November 2004	December 2004
January 2005	February 2005
March 2005	April 2005
May 2005