Relentless Forward Progress

Welcome!

Melissa has already served two years in Berlin as a short-term missionary with ReachGlobal and is back in the US raising support to go Long Term (5 years or more) with the same organization and Berlin Team.

Her desire to serve Germany is fueled by a deep conviction to use the talents and passions God has given her for His Kingdom purposes. She spent her 20s in the US working across various ministries of Ohio telling stories of God’s work locally and abroad through photos, videos, and social media.

It was serving with her local church’s high school youth department however, that Melissa developed a love for organic discipleship and evangelizing relationally: by simply doing life with people, getting to know them, and making sure that they know there’s a God who made them and loves them.

As a university student, Melissa spent her junior year living in northwest Germany. She immediately began the search for a church community and was disheartened to find empty cathedral after empty cathedral. Finally, she was blessed to find a vibrant, yet small, church community on the outskirts of town. Her experiences that year left her filled with hope and a burden for the dwindling European Church. She has been praying for a pathway back to Germany ever since, wanting to link arms with and serve the church in whatever capacity she could.

During her first term, God opened up relational inroads with friends found through shared hobbies, church partnership, and most notably her beloved East Berliner anarchists. It’s that last group, forgotten and marginalized by their own country, that Melissa’s heart breaks for the most and is eager to support churches that would welcome her rough-around-the-edges punks.