Each Gathering 2024 worship session included a testimony from someone that attends a USMB church. Many attendees reported in their Gathering 2024 evaluation that they looked forward to hearing these personal stories of coming to faith and testimonies of God’s faithfulness.
Pastors’ Conference testimonies
Aaron and Maggie Halvorsen, Community Bible Church, Olathe, Kansas, lost three children to miscarriage in three years. “Aaron and I have seen so many ways that God has been faithful to us,” Maggie said, sharing that the experience solidified her and her children’s theology that God is good and deepened her appreciation for the church. Aaron, meanwhile, said he wrestled with helplessness, but God carried the family through suffering. Today, the Halvorsens have five children.
Jason Quiring, Greenhouse Community Church, Saratoga Springs, Utah, shared three stories of God’s faithfulness, including his family’s call to help people find hope and light in Utah, seeing people come out of Mormonism and the recent sixth-annual Gamechangers sports camp and vacation Bible school, each attended by 100 children or more and assisted by 60 volunteers from Kansas and Nebraska. “God is faithful,” Quiring said. “God calls us to stand in his faithfulness and be faithful in return.”
Yanira Lopez, Iglesia Manantial de Agua Viva, was born and raised in El Salvador in a funeral home, giving her a different perspective on life and death. She and her husband and two children moved from California to Omaha, where they were trained to be disciples at Iglesia Agua Viva. IMAV was birthed from IAV and is the second Hispanic church in the Central District. “Because God is in you, he is moving you to do something that you’re not even thinking you would do,” Lopez said. “It’s not about us. Trusting was part of our development and journey.”
National Convention testimonies
Jules Mukaba, Restoration Church, West Chester, Ohio, was born into a Catholic family in the Democratic Republic of the Congo but visited MB churches because he was drawn to the singing. After initially rejecting the idea of becoming a pastor, Mukaba repented and was ordained in 2013. In 2016, he came to the U.S. and connected with U.S. Mennonite Brethren. In 2022, when the church’s lead pastor died, Mukaba stepped into the role. “Now I see myself as a missionary and pastor,” he said.
Joanna Chapa, Multiply, shared her journey with long COVID-19 and autoimmune disorders. In 2020, while serving as a mission worker in Peru, her entire life was upended, she said, when she contracted COVID-19. Her physical body has not been the same since.
When she didn’t understand her suffering, she brought her pain, doubts, fears and anguish to God, recognizing he may not respond as she desires. During this time, the book of Job was been a favorite for its posture of authenticity, rawness and pain.
“He takes our cries onto himself and expresses himself to the Father as one who was a man of sorrows,” Chapa said.
Over the last four years, Chapa has realized that God longs for us to reflect him when there is pain. Instead of sugarcoating the pain, believers are to embody the hope of the God who is with us in the storm.
Because of her health, Chapa moved from Peru to LaGrulla, Texas, to work as a regional mobilizer with Multiply. Today, she asks God to help her be aware of how she can comfort others as he has comforted her, recognizing that with Jesus it is possible to experience both great grief and great joy.
“When someone is going through a significant moment, whether painful or joyful, be present, be with, be Jesus,” she said. “Humanity longs for with-ness, especially when in pain. In the pain and in the joy, I’ve learned that God remains the strength of my heart. He is mine forever.”
Yvette Ngale, Royal Family International Church, Fairfield, Ohio, originally from Cameroon, shared a vision she had of a gate in which she heard a voice saying to “Let them know that they’re going to shut the gate soon.”
As she asked God for the vision’s meaning, she recognized that the gate was at knee level and not easy to get through. Ngale encouraged people to be salt and light and die to their own desires. She shared about her work representing USMB on the MCC board, including a trip to Cambodia to put on the first peace camp there.
“When you do things with Christ, you are not alone,” she said. “You are not working alone. You are not doing it with your own strength. You’re doing it with the Lord.”
Janae Rempel Shafer is the Christian Leader associate editor. She joined the CL staff in September 2017 with six years of experience as a professional journalist. Shafer is an award-winning writer, having received three 2016 Kansas Press Association Awards of Excellence and an Evangelical Press Association Higher Goals award in 2022. Shafer graduated from Tabor College in 2010 with a bachelor of arts in Communications/Journalism and Biblical/Religious Studies. She and her husband, Austin, attend Ridgepoint Church in Wichita, Kansas.
