For more than 40 years, Mark and Diane have poured their hearts into theological education, convinced that deep biblical training is vital—not just for today’s church leaders but for the next generation of pastors, missionaries, and church planters. Their ministry has taken them across five continents, where they’ve invested their lives in personal discipleship, church planting, and seminary instruction. Through their faithful service, a growing legacy of gospel-driven leaders continues to impact churches around the world.
Q: How did your journey to missions begin?
Mark: Growing up, I knew for certain that I’d never be a missionary. It wasn’t a question of willingness; it was a question of ability. All my attempts at public speaking were disastrous, and high school Latin classes convinced me that I could never learn a foreign language. Before going to university, however, I attended a Bible college for a year, where a chapel speaker challenged the students to commit to praying Jesus’ prayer request (Matthew 9:38) every day for a year. I happily prayed that the Lord of the harvest would send laborers to the mission field. I even made suggestions to God of who those people could be. By the end of the year, God used that experience to call me as his harvester.
Diane: God led me into missions one baby step at a time. I was teaching at a Christian school in New York when ABWE missionary Ron Washer called me out of the blue through a family connection to ask if I would go to Togo to fill in for another teacher for a year. While preparing to go, I met Mark at an ABWE Missionary Enrichment conference. We were engaged six weeks later and married the next year after I returned from Togo.
Q: How have you trained leaders and planted churches throughout your career?
Like Aquila and Priscilla in the book of Acts, God has sent us many places. Mark began overseas work on the Amazon River in 1983, learning from veteran missionaries about multiplication church planting. Ministry there included starting two churches (one for the deaf), evangelism and discipleship on the river, and teaching at the local Bible institute. After our marriage, we headed to Santiago, Chile, where we focused on theological education and inner-city church planting. Throughout our 11 years there, we experienced many blessings, including the birth of our two children, the birth of a church, and fluency in our second language.
We were then invited to train pastors in a new field for ABWE, Nicaragua, which was recovering from recent civil war. For the next 17 years, we collaborated with national pastors to start the Institute of Church Planters. As that work was turned over to Nicaraguan leadership, we asked God where he would send us next. After our children attended the Greek Bible College in Athens, the president of Hellenic Ministries invited us to train church planters as a follow-up to country-wide Bible distribution that put New Testaments into 1.5 million homes. We also helped start a Bible institute for Muslim-background refugees, which led to church planting efforts in three refugee camps and opened the door for a move to the Middle East, where we focused on pastoral ministry and mentoring.
Q: Much of your career has focused on theological education. How have you found this approach effective?
God’s church must not only grow wide; it must grow deep. In the book of Acts, we see two complementary paradigms of growth: the church grew in numbers as people’s knowledge of the Word of God grew. We both emphasize teaching what we feel is the most important life skill for ministry: principles of Bible study. We’ve done that effectively on five continents, including in several creative-access countries. More gratifying still is to see former students now ministering as pastors, church planters, and evangelists throughout South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Q: What is a highlight from your ministry?
Diane: The Nicaragua Institute of Church Planters (ICP) is one of the most gratifying. Three ABWE missionaries joined five national pastors to open the school. We prayed for 10 students. Not only did the first class have 17 graduates, but the two-year training has operated continuously since 2007. The national church has fully embraced church planting, starting more than 100 church plants, and satellite church planting institutes have begun in several other Central American locations.
Mark: Highlights of ministry always include watching those we disciple grow beyond what we’ve taught them. On one of my visits to Cuba, I saw several pastors whom I had had the privilege of teaching. Every one of them immediately recited to me the basic outline of Inductive Bible Study. Boldly, I said to one of the pastors, “That’s great! But are you using what you’ve learned?” I was stunned when he said, “Oh yes! I just finished writing a series of 52 lessons on the book of James for our church plants.”
Q: What have you learned through serving in so many different regions of the world?
Each place has been a steppingstone of growth for the next phase of ministry. In Peru, we learned the importance of partnering with nationals right at the start of a church plant. As guests overseas, we are not there to make ourselves look good but to help local leaders build a true local church. In Chile, we learned the value of robust theological education, not only for training current Sunday School teachers and Christian workers but for investing in the future, as many graduates became pastors and missionaries. In Nicaragua, we took what we’d learned to challenge young people to start healthy, theologically sound churches that reproduced from the beginning.
Q: Your spiritual legacy includes not only the church leaders you’ve trained but also your own children. How are they currently serving the Lord?
Our son, Andrew, and his wife, Anna, are faithfully ministering and raising their family in Larnaca, Cyprus. Our daughter, Suzanna Bartos, and her husband, Asa, are preparing to serve as ABWE missionaries in Lima, Peru. Q: What advice would you give someone considering cross-cultural ministry? In your ministry, seize some impossible ideas and opportunities. Take some reasonable risks. Pray, plan, consult with national partners and missionaries, but don’t fear failure. If everything you do in ministry is successful, you probably haven’t stretched your faith very much. Let God do what seems to be impossible— then it’s easy to give him all the glory!
