IDU Leadership - International Day for the Unreached

The Alliance for the Unreached is a consortium of several missions organizations that are focused in different ways on reaching unreached peoples. Leaders of the Alliance are available for interviews or speaking engagements related to the quest to reach peoples across the globe with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Board of Directors

Jon Fugler, Chairman of the Alliance for the Unreached; Chief Content Officer of TWR (Trans World Radio)

jfugler@twr.org Jon Fugler directs global content for TWR (Trans World Radio), a radio ministry that broadcasts the Gospel to 4.2 billion people each day. Jon spent seven years in leadership with Reach Beyond (formerly HCJB Global). Before God called him there in 2011 to take the gospel to other cultures, Jon worked in non-commercial Christian radio in California. He was the Executive Director of Logos Broadcasting (1994-2011), starting and operating stations along the California Central Coast. Before that, Jon founded and led Shepherd Communications (1983-1993), establishing KLRD, which became the flagship station for the Air 1 Network. Jon has served as Director of Radio for Campus Crusade for Christ and has consulted with a number of ministries over the years in the areas of development, ministry impact and staffing. Jon has a passion to take the love of Jesus to unreached people groups. He and his wife, Noonie, live in North Carolina. They have three children and seven grandchildren spread throughout the country.

Jeff McLinden, Vice Chairman of the Alliance for the Unreached; Vice President of Bibles For The World

jmclinden@bftw.org Jeff has worked for Christian nonprofits since 1979, including senior roles in resource development, creative marketing and management for Campus Crusade for Christ, the Christian Broadcasting Network and Bible Literature International. For 20 years he was vice president of the McConkey-Johnston consulting group and helped a broad variety of ministry clients learn how to engage their partners and friends in more meaningful ways. Jeff is the author of several popular books on marketing and fundraising and is co-founder of Raising-Support.com, an online training site for missionaries who must raise funds for their work. He also serves as vice president of Bibles For The World, and is responsible for communicating the ministry’s impact in touching millions of lives through the power of God’s Word, and for engaging partners in that ministry. Jeff and his wife live in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Larry D. Andrews, President/CEO of Partners International

LarryA@partnersintl.org Larry was appointed to serve as President / CEO of Partners International in February 2013. Since 1943, Partners International’s vision has been that local, indigenous ministries in the least-reached, least resourced nations will be proclaiming the Gospel to every person and building a thriving church for every people. The mission of Partners International is building the Church in the least-reached places by partnering with indigenous ministries and connecting followers of Christ. Previously, he served the Lord in a successful 28 year career in senior leadership with Hewlett Packard and Procter & Gamble. The Lord led him to take an early retirement from the marketplace in 2012, to seek and fulfill a deeper calling to serve the Lord’s mission to “make disciples of every nation” more intentionally. Throughout his marketplace career, he served in a number of equipping and discipling ministries in churches both in the US and Asia. He was born and raised in Sacramento, California. He studied Business Operations Mgmt. and Mgmt. Information Systems at CSU, Sacramento, and then completed his MBA at CSU Chico. He has been married to Bethanne for 32 years. They have four adult children: James, Timothy, Rebekah, and Jonathan. He serves as elder and various discipleship initiatives for the North Church in Spokane, WA, and also serves with Serve Spokane, and organization focused on serving the needs of marginalized communities.

Dr. Marvin J. Newell, Senior Vice President of Missio Nexus

mnewell@MissioNexus.org Missio Nexus is a network of evangelical mission agencies, churches and training centers in North America. Previously Marv served as a missionary in Papua, Indonesia, and as a mission administrator, professor of missions, and director of a missions association. He is the author of A Martyr’s Grace, Commissioned: What Jesus Wants You to Know as You Go, Expect Great Things: Mission Quotes that Inform and Inspire, and Crossing Cultures in Scriptures: Biblical Principles for Mission Practice. Marv is also adjunct professor at Moody Theological Seminary and Western Seminary, and sits on the board of five different mission organizations. He and his wife, Peggy, have been involved in missions for 40 years.

Greg Kelley, CEO of World Mission

greg@worldmission.cc Greg has served as CEO of World Mission since 1997. A Grand Rapids, Mich.-based nonprofit focused upon providing hope to those living in the most unreached and persecuted nations in the world, World Mission has 75 employees and over 200 volunteers in the US serving the international ministry and running its seven thrift stores. In addition, Greg oversees an indigenous partnership network that is active in more than 25 countries, where he visits and speaks on a regular basis. World Mission’s primary tool of ministry is a solar-powered audio Bible (The Treasure) available in 6,000 different languages. Currently more than 1.5 million illiterate and oral-learning Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists are participating in World Mission listening groups. In addition, World Mission has a thriving water ministry, Zoe Waters, focused on providing clean water to those in the most vulnerable locations of the world. Greg’s greatest passion is his family, which includes his wife, Kathy, and their five children. They reside in Byron Center, MichI. Greg is a graduate of Western Michigan University, where he was a team captain and MVP of the 1991 Bronco football team.

Ruth Kramer, Executive Producer of Mission Network News

ruth@mnnonline.org Ruth began a career in media in 1985 with her first paid print news story. She went on to work for an NBC affiliate in Toledo, then as an announcer at WCDR in Cedarville, Ohio. In 1990, she worked for the LeSEA Broadcasting Network in FM and shortwave radio and television. That was followed by a five-year stint behind the news desk at WUFN in Albion, Michigan. Ruth joined Mission Network News in 1997. Today, Ruth handles the overall sound and feel of MNN as they use radio and web to bring glory to God by telling the stories of His work around the world. MNN aspires to activate the body of Christ to pray, give, and go. Ruth also serves with the Alliance for the Unreached and sits on the board for FMI (Forgotten Missionaries International). Ruth and her husband, Warren, live in Norton Shores, MI. In her spare time, Ruth coaches a high school cross country and track team, is a masters sprinter and sings tenor. Her husband plays a mean jazz guitar and they have three adult children who have flown the coop.

Wayne Pederson, Global Ambassador for FEBC

wpederson@me.com Wayne began his radio career in 1967 as an announcer on KTIS in Minneapolis. In 1997, he was promoted to Executive Vice President for Media at the University of Northwestern in St. Paul, Minn. During those years Wayne also served on the board of NRB, and as Executive Director of the Christian Music Broadcasters and President of the Mission America Coalition. In 2004, Wayne was hired by Moody Broadcasting, where he eventually became Vice President of Broadcasting. In 2008, God called Wayne to serve as President of HCJB Global, now Reach Beyond. Since “retiring” in 2016, Wayne has been serving on the boards of several international ministries, including the role of IDU Global Ambassador. Wayne and his wife, Willi, live in Colorado Springs, Colo., and enjoy spending time with Wayne’s two daughters and nine grandchildren.

Dave Meyers, President of ZimZam Global

davem@zimzamglobal.org Dave is known for his love for people, Chicago sports teams, anything barbecue, and hanging out with his family! Dave served for nearly 30 years with New Tribes Mission – a global church planting ministry that focuses on unreached and unengaged people groups without access to the Gospel. He has served in various leadership roles as Int’l Mobilizer, President of a Training Center, Director of Development, Mobilizer, and Mentor to new cross cultural missionaries. Speaking, training, and serving others in +70 countries over the past 35 years has given Dave a unique perspective on cultures, communities, and global causes. He has a passion for unreached people groups and children worldwide to have a healthy growing church in which to worship God. Dave is now focused on the vision of a church for every child by multiplying healthy churches among all peoples through children, youth, and families. As a life-long learner, and aware of the changing global landscape, Dave has studied Global Leadership through Fuller Seminary. As a founding partner of ZimZam Global, Dave is impassioned with casting vision among global leaders; creating global opportunities for leaders to plant churches; and helping children, especially those with disabilities, to come to know, love and serve Jesus. Dave and his wife Carolyn met in college in TN and have been married since 1984. They have three adult children, one of which has special needs, one daughter-in-love and three precious granddaughters, one who is in heaven. They make their home in the Valley of the Sun in Phoenix, AZ.

Dan Scribner, Team Leader of the Joshua Project

dan@joshuaproject.net Dan serves as the Joshua Project team leader. Joshua Project is a research initiative of Frontier Ventures seeking to highlight the people groups of the world with the fewest followers of Christ. Joshua Project’s purpose is to help bring definition to the unfinished task of the Great Commission. Joshua Project works closely with other global unreached peoples research efforts such as Finishing the Task (FTT), International Mission Board (IMB), World Christian Database (WCD), the Ethnologue and Operation World. Dan has been involved with unreached peoples for over 30 years serving with the U.S. Center for World Mission (now Frontier Ventures), the AD2000 and Beyond Movement and Joshua Project.

Dan and wife, Mary, live in Colorado Springs, Colorado. They have four adult children and one grandchild.

Lee Sonius, Regional Director with Reach Beyond

lsonius@reachbeyond.org Lee Reach Beyond Regional Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, based in Accra, Ghana. Born in Africa (Sierra Leone) to missionary parents, he developed his interest in radio growing up at ELWA, a large missionary radio station (shortwave and medium wave) in Liberia run by SIM. He graduated from Huntington College in Indiana with a B.A. In Radio Communications. Lee and Michelle started out as missionaries back at ELWA where Lee served as the radio station manager. They later joined Reach Beyond and served in Cote d’Ivoire before moving to the current regional office in Ghana. Lee serves on the Board of Reach Beyond and he and his wife Michelle have two boys, T.J. (24) and Kyle (18).