Today on the Brightest Voices Podcast I am joined by Adam Pietrantonio, a missionary to Japan. Adam shares His testimony in school as a philosophy student, how the Lord called him to Japan, and the lessons he's learned since living on the mission field.

About Adam

Adam has been married to his beautiful wife, Sabrina, for just over four months. He is a 30-yr old career missionary to Japan with Fellowship International. He and Sabrina are both on home assignment in California, preparing for their second term in Japan. He is the only Christian in his family, coming to faith in 2011 during his third year of philosophy studies at York University in Toronto. God used the people and ministry of Power to Change - Students to draw Adam to Him. Since then, God has slowly and gently led Adam to this season of long-term mission work in Japan. God has used used Japanese friends in Canada and trips to Japan to give Adam a desire to love and serve Japanese people in word and deed in culturally-resonating ways.

In this episode of the Brightest Voices Podcast, missionary Kristy Holliday shares about her work in Mexico at a school for the death, her journey to the missions field, and her life currently loving on her community during tough times. Kristy also prays over every listener that they would have the courage to let the Lord use them where they're at.

                                                   About Kristy

Kristy Holliday is about to celebrate 31 years of marriage to Tim. they have 6 kids and 5 grandkids and one on the way.  she grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was a Political Science and Public Policy major, at one time considering law school. her husband spent 20 years as a submariner in the US Navy, and so they moved around a lot. she came to know and follow Jesus as Lord while in college. She served as an ESL director and teacher trainer for about 15 years, before becoming a missionary and since coming to the field she serves with Mission to the World at Isaiah 55 Ministries in Reynosa, Mexico, at the US/Mexico border just south of McAllen, Texas. She am the coordinator for Neighborhood Outreach Ministries at Isaiah 55 Ministries, and is also responsible for communications and other administrative tasks.

In this episode, Mark doesn't shy away from hard topics. If you've ever wondered how you should respond when you hear about refugees in the news, this episode is for you.

                                              About Mark

Mark and Jennie Cloherty are currently Strategic Cordinators for Refugees and full time staff with Servant Partners. Servant Partners is an urban ministry based in Los Angeles with teams working and living in urban poor neighborhoods in 25 cities around the world. They are based in Miami and their current role takes us all over Latin America.  Mark and Jennie have been married for 11 years, and have 3 children. They met on the mission field in Central Africa, working in the DR Congo and Uganda. We have experience of working in different contexts, we have lived in Africa, Europe and now the US. Mark is originally from the UK, Jennie is American.

In this episode, Pastor Harrison Kwok speak passionately about the job each and every one of us has as Christians.

About Harrison

Harrison was born in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. His parents moved to the Yukon nearly 50 years ago. He gave his life to Christ in 2009 at the University of Victoria. He met his wife Kaitlyn shortly after. Currently, they have 3 energetic daughters ages 6 and under. He is the pastor of a church plant in Whitehorse called the Northern Collective Church.

Originally from Fort Worth, Texas, Jesse Northcutt has been serving with Greater Europe Mission in Dublin, Ireland for thirty-eight years. His ministry has focused on evangelism, church planting, leader development and field leadership for GEM Ireland. He is married to his wife Joyce for forty-six years and they have six children and sixteen grandchildren. He loves to connect with people as a member of a local gym and golf club and by volunteering at a busy charity shop in his town of Swords. He also serves as an elder at his local church, Swords Baptist Church.

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It's been quite the journey for Brightest Voices, I've learned a ton. Here are 5 lessons that I've learned while chasing my dreams that you can take to heart as you chase your dream too.

When you think about a missionary, where does you mind go? I hope if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while that you know that missionaries are at work in many different places doing all sorts of things. But for most, when they picture a missionary, they think living in a hut in africa, or in the jungles of South America. But there are missionaries everywhere, why? Because sin is everywhere, and there are hurting people everywhere who need help.

Today I talk with Rachel Parentaeu, a missionary in Scotland whose ministry is all about connecting with people who are going through rough times.

Rachel Parenteau is originally from Toronto, Canada and is serving as a missionary at Charleston Community Church in Dundee, Scotland. She serves with an organization called 20schemes which seeks to revitalize and plant gospel-preaching churches in Scotland's 'schemes' (areas with high levels of poverty, social deprivation, crime and drug and alcohol abuse). She studied psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada and is currently studying theology at the Union School of Theology located in Bridgend, Wales. In her spare time she likes to kickbox, do watercolour painting and spend time outdoors. 

When we think of Scotland, we think of rolling green hills and peaceful countrysides with bagpipes playing in the background. That might be the reality for some, but for Rachel it’s far from that. She works in the Schemes of Scotland, home to some of the highest numbers of domestic abuse and violence in all of Europe. Rachel’s job is to simply connect and love those who need it most. She hosts many different events and groups through the local church and aims to minister to people in a way that's actually helpful to them instead of harmful, and she walks us through how we can learn to do the same for those who are hurting in our lives. 

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Did you know there are 7,360 languages spoken in the world? And that some portion of the Bible is translated into only 1,160 many of them? But only 704 languages have the full Bible? How crazy is that?! Just let that sink in for a moment. There are so many lost people in the world that need to have the word of God available for them.Thankfully, there are many faithful missionaries in the world that are working hard to bring the bible to those who need it. 2,731 languages have active translation work happening right now. 

In today’s episode I got the pleasure of meeting two of those faithful missionaries actively translating the Word Of God, James and Jenneka Lundeen, and hearing all about what the process of Bible translation is really like 

James and Jenneka Lundeen serve with Pioneer BIble Translators in Tanzania, East Africa. Pioneer Bible Translators seeks to bring the Bible to people groups

who do not yet have the full Bible in the language that speaks best to their hearts. The Lundeens met while in graduate school preparing to go overseas to work in missions.

They are living and working with their people group in Tanzania, and working with a team of native speakers to translate the Bible. They are excited to see how the Bible

and the Holy Spirit will transform this community of people.

I talk with James and Jenneka all about what their lives are like as missionaries and Bible translators in Tanzania living amongst a people group much different than their own. We talk about the struggles of learning a language and immersing yourself in a new culture and they share the nitty gritty of what you need to know if you would like to do the same. 

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Ministry is something that we’re all called to do, some do it at home and others make a home overseas and do it there. Regardless of where life takes you there will always be people there, and people should be at the heart of all our ministries.

Today’s guests, Matt and Kristy Messick, have a beautiful view of how ministry should work and does work in their lives. This episode is packed full of love, Matt and Kristy’s love for eachother, Their love for the lord, their love for his people, and their love of making others love strong though their marriage ministry, which you’ll hear all about.

Matt and Kristy Messick live in Loja, Ecuador with their six kiddos, and have been serving in missions ever since they met on a dusty road in 2001.  Their desire is to help couples learn to live well together, and to love being married!  Matt and Kristy love to laugh together, walk together, and find ways to not do ministry and life the 'normal way'.   The marriage ministry; MAS en Mi Matrimonio started in 2016, and by God's grace, continues to grow.  

Join me  as I chat with this wonderful couple who are sure to entertain you as well as inspire you. Their personal story of how they met is a whirlwind from start to finish and hearing about how the Lord has built their marriage from there is beautiful so you’re definitely not gunna wanna miss that. They also share their advice for how to run a successful marriage ministry, which I’m sure is no easy feat but they do it with such love and faithfulness. Without further ado let’s get into the goods!

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Do you ever feel like your head full of dreams is running at a million miles a minute and you just wish life would catch up? Sometimes it’s hard for us to remember to stay in the here and now, we have a vision of where we’d like to be and when we look at where we are it seems like we’ll never get there. Or maybe you have the opposite problem, you feel like you’re right where you want to be oly to have God take you in a completely different direction than what you planned for.

If you can relate, pay careful attention to today’s episode with Gwynne Gardner as she teaches us how to live life one step at a time.

Gwynne grew up as a military kid and was constantly on the move and has seen the Lord's faithfulness in every step of her journey. It was in high school when she felt the call to missions when she was on a mission trip to Finland. After college, she did an internship with the mission organization, Josiah Venture, in the country of Slovenia and from there she knew this was where God had been leading her. After eight years of service in Celje, Slovenia, working with her local church and helping lead a youth rock choir, the Lord made it clear that it was time for her next adventure and to take another step of faith. The Lord opened the door for her to join the international communications team located at the Josiah Venture headquarters in the Czech Republic. She now serves on this team as the Social Media Manager. She has a desire to see the gospel advance through the media highway and to use social media as a platform to tell young people across Central and Eastern Europe all about Jesus. 

She’s had a whirlwind of experiences, and that’s why she speaks so passionately about not getting ahead of yourself and learning how to take a journey with the Lord, one step at a time.  

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