A limited podcast series with powerful stories from global mission leaders who are seeing God at work today. Recorded live at Mission Fest BC 2026 in Chilliwack, British Columbia, these interviews reveal how ministries are courageously sharing the love of Jesus with those genuinely seeking truth and hope.
Through these honest testimonies and real-world accounts, Faith Works offers a rare glimpse into the sacrificial efforts, breakthroughs, and quiet miracles unfolding across nations. You decide:
Does God still work in the world today?
“Now it’s our turn.”
For generations, the global missionary movement flowed largely from Europe and North America outward. But something historic is unfolding, explains Scott Gillespie of Action International (Canada). Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, believers from the developing world are no longer waiting to be reached — they are becoming the senders themselves.
From Filipinos serving in Mexico to Brazilians ministering in South Africa, a profound baton pass is underway as the global Church rises to carry the Gospel to the unreached.
“Persecution in India is rampant… now it’s like tripled.”
Yet halfway around the world, a simple T-shirt reading Faith in God reopened a conversation that had been dormant for fifteen years.
For Calgary entrepreneur Christine Koneri, founder of “Bethel Masterpiece“, faith is not confined to church walls or private devotion. Through handcrafted décor, apparel, and everyday objects, she is discovering how intentional design can and open doors for deeper dialogue — and sometimes even call prodigals home.
“Just by changing the mindset of the way they farm, we can increase yields by three to four hundred percent.”
For Steve from Tearfund Canada, real transformation in Africa does not begin with foreign aid convoys. It begins with local churches, local farmers, and simple agricultural techniques capable of tripling harvests without fertilizer or expensive technology. In communities where families once survived on four months of food per year, these changes are helping produce enough to feed households year-round — while quietly transforming villages from the inside out.
“Lord… if You are real… send Nicolai back here by Easter time.” They’d been three days without food.
A forgotten farm near the front lines of Ukraine’s war zone… and a prayer whispered into the silence by a couple who weren’t even sure God existed.
But this story is about more than aid. It is about the strange power of showing up – through the work of Nathan Elias and Faith Mission for Ukraine.
“When artists find a home, they stop running.”
In the crowded casinos and neon-lit streets of Macau, a quiet movement is starting to gather around dinner tables, guitars, and wounded hearts led by Chien-Chien Hsu.
Through the Macau Musician Christian Fellowship, Christian artists rejected, misunderstood, or exhausted by church culture are rediscovering belonging. Not performance. Not platform. Family. And from that place of safety, something unexpected is happening: worship is returning, songs are being written again, and isolated artists are finding healing together.
Raised in Saudi Arabia in a deeply religious Muslim family, Dr. Joktan memorized the Qur’an by age thirteen before a life-changing dream led him to Christianity. This episode traces his journey through rejection, persecution, and survival—revealing a story of conviction, resilience, faith, and hope that endured against extraordinary odds.
“I’ve had friends who had never even heard the name of Jesus in Hebrew… then they saw the word Yeshua.”
For Roai Stanley of Jews for Jesus Canada, Jewish evangelism begins not with argument, but with recognition: Jesus was Jewish, the New Testament is deeply Jewish, and many Jewish people have never been invited to consider that following Yeshua can be a faithful expression of Jewish life.
The barrier is not always unbelief — often, it is unfamiliarity.
“You come to a point,” says Dr. Rivera, “where you look at that person and realize there’s nothing more you can do for them… and that’s usually when God shows up.”
YWAM Ships Philippines started a humanitarian work that has grown into an unusual alliance between Church, State and just ordinary Filipinos determined to reach their own people with practical care and hope.
Sometimes, in tiny village clinics far from modern hospitals, they witness things they still struggle to explain.
“I have no idea what he prayed… but he was crying.”
In a small meeting room beside the Port of Vancouver, a Chinese cargo officer prayed to Jesus in Mandarin while a Canadian chaplain listened without understanding a single word. Years later, that same sailor would send back video of his baptism, his family gathered around a Bible player, and news that his son was now learning about Christ. Sometimes the Gospel travels the oceans one ship, one sailor, one family at a time. Lighthouse Harbour Ministries is there.
“For two years, even though I was outside the cell, I was actually still in a cell.”
Samuel Okurut survived 90 days in a Ugandan torture chamber, but freedom did not truly come when the door opened. It came when forgiveness broke the prison inside him. Years later, that same redeemed pain would lead him to create Father’s Heart Village for abandoned children of El Salvador — the “Benjamins” of this world — and to a calling rooted in one promise: God is Father to the fatherless.
“They would hold secret English camps in the forests while communism still ruled Eastern Europe.”
What began as conversational English lessons became something far more dangerous — and transformative. Decades later, International Messengers Canada is still using language, hospitality, and radical love to reach people wary of religion but hungry for connection. From hidden camps behind the Iron Curtain to refugee schools in Beirut, the Gospel continues to travel quietly through conversation, trust, and human relationship.
“Forty-two percent of Canadians are functionally illiterate,” according to Carey Joe Johnston of Literacy and Evangelism Canada.
Not overseas. Not hidden in some distant developing nation. Canada.
Behind storefronts, suburban homes, prisons, and workplaces are millions quietly struggling to read well enough to fully navigate life — including the Bible. Through Literacy and Evangelism Canada, churches and volunteers are discovering that literacy itself can become ministry: unlocking language, dignity, community, and, for many, the first real opportunity to encounter Scripture for themselveJs.
On the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside — among addiction, loneliness, homelessness, and cultural fragmentation — youth teams from around the world are discovering that ministry is less about having answers and more about learning how to see people.
“Their presence is very impactful,” says Isabella Gertzen of YWAM Vancouver.
Rather than sending students into the city simply to preach, the ministry trains them to listen. Teams prayer-walk neighborhoods, share meals with strangers, hear stories, and learn how to engage people with dignity and compassion.
“We don’t want people to go overseas for Christ,” missionary Dave Block says quietly. “We want them to go overseas to get Christ.”
After more than three decades serving in Muslim and communist nations with WEC International Canada, Dave speaks less about ministry strategy and more about intimacy with Jesus. For him, the greatest miracle is not dramatic healing or even resurrection stories — it is a changed heart: a violent husband becoming gentle, an addict becoming free, a distracted soul learning again how to sit quietly in God’s presence.
“If you really want to start ministry… you can do it in three days.”
For decades, missions often moved through large institutions, lengthy pipelines, and traditional structures. But according to Erwin Van Laar of Great Commission Foundation, something radically different is emerging. Across Canada, the U.S., and beyond, independent missionaries, church planters, and unconventional pioneers are stepping forward — not waiting for permission, but responding to what they believe is the direct call of God.
For more than a century, the Gideons placed Bibles quietly into hotel rooms around the world. Today, under the name ShareWord Global, thier mission remains the same — but the method is changing. As public institutions become less accessible to Christianity, the organization is now training ordinary believers to become “the new hotel nightstand”: carrying Scripture, sharing testimony, and practicing relational evangelism in everyday life. For Tony Fraze, the Gospel was never meant to stop with us.
Steve McElroy introduces Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) as an organization shaped by both disruption and resilience. After being forced out of its original field in Central Asia, OMF reimagined its calling, expanding across East Asia with renewed purpose.
McElroy emphasizes mobilizing believers to engage creatively in God’s mission, even in difficult or restricted contexts. Rather than retreating, OMF adapts—finding new ways to express the gospel through relationships, service, and cultural sensitivity.
“You told us to do the stuff… and it worked!” recalls Matthew DelBlanc, Director of Pacific Life Bible College.
For one Bible college student standing in a remote Costa Rican village, Christianity became more than lectured theory when a woman with severe cataracts asked for prayer. Moments later, she was reading clearly again. Through programs like the gap-year missions initiative at Pacific Life Bible College, students are discovering that stepping outside ordinary life often creates space for extraordinary encounters.
Do miracles still happen today? You be the judge.
