Northern Light Ministries

One of our friends commented, "You two have lived many different lives."

Every turn in the road of our lives together has been exciting and new. 2010 will mark 40 years of  marriage and we can look back and see how God has prepared us for our current "life" in Mexico.

Our life has been greatly blessed by our children and grandchildren.  Our three married children have blessed us with 6 grandchildren.  We have the priviledge of having our grandchildren visit us during their summer vacations when they reach the age of 10.  We have received three of them so far.  These months have cemented our relationship with our grandchildren.  

Briefly sharing our "lives with you":

· Don completed his doctorate degree at Trinity Theological Seminary in Religious Studies in 2008. His dissertation focused on the obstacles that indigenous people face in sharing the gospel in their home villages and possible solutions to those problems. 

· Don was an Associate Professor at Corban College, Salem, Oregon (formerly Western Baptist College) for eleven years, as director of the youth work program.

· Don has served as Youth Pastor and Associate Pastor for over thirty years in the Pacific NW and Alaska.

· We as a family served in Cote d'Ivoire for one year as assistants to missionaries, teaching and caring for their children in a mission school.

· Ilene has a B.S. and is a registered nurse. After our experience in Africa she realized the importance of becoming a ‘generalist' nurse, becoming diversified in knowledge and ability in nursing. Ilene has been a nurse since 1973. She has also worked as a Director of Children's Ministry.

1996 brought a changing point in our lives. We moved from Salem to Alaska because Ilene developed environmentally triggered asthma and could no longer live in the Willamette valley. For two years in Soldotna, Alaska we earnestly sought the Lord for His direction. It was at that time we developed our mission, Northern Light Ministries, an independent non-profit organization.

In 2003 we left Oregon knowing that we were to go full-time. We were not certain how God intended to use us, but within one week we knew the path. God made it clear.

Since 2003, God has expanded the scope and vision of NLM.  Northern Light Ministries is under the legal umbrella of the Free Methodist Conference of Baja, California. Free Methodists are Bible-believing and evangelicals.

We are now working hand in hand with Pastor Ramon Ross Rubio who is the Director of Instituto Biblico Baja. God has used NLM to help realize the vision of this Mexico leader to prepare and train men and women for the ministry ... as pastors, lay-leaders or as missionaries ... taking the gospel throughout Mexico and into the world.

We are now (2010) further blessed to receive Pastor Dwight and Sarah Hires in this partnership.  We have been long time friends and they have participated in the work of NLM as a sending church for the past five years.  Now God has called them to be sent. 

The mission and purpose of Northern Light Ministries in 2010 has grown and developed:

The work of NLM is to partner, prepare, send, support believers to become leaders with vision and passion to reach Mexico and the world for Christ.

Northern Light Ministries facilitates short-term teams in ministering to the needs of pastors, brothers and sisters in Christ in Mexico, especially among the indigenous.

We have been blessed to work not only with Free Methodist churches but with many denominations: Conservative Baptists, General Baptist, Grace Brethren, non-denominational community churches, Christian churches, Evangelical Free, Nazarene, Presbyterian, and CMA.

God has been a faithful provider...there is no more wonderful place to be than in the center of His will.