Global Mission Partnerships

Ruth and Izaias Daniel de Assis

Working with Latin Link (Brazil)

Ruth has been a St Giles supported mission partner since she first went to Brazil in 1992 to work with street children. In 1997 she married Brazilian pastor Izaias and they set up Mission Ver ‘Life and Hope Restored’ in the city of Belo Horizonte.

To learn more about their work please click here.

Alf is Anglo-Chilean and an ordained Anglican minister, and Hilary grew up in South America where her parents were missionaries. They have lived in Santiago since 1975 where they started by forming a church in a poor area of the city. They then discovered their call to live and work in an upper middle class area where there was no evangelical witness. There they have built up the thriving, and still growing, church of La Trinidad which focuses on evangelism, discipleship, and training, and has in turn successfully planted a number of other churches which have become self- supporting. Alf is preparing the church for new leadership in 2021.

In March 2014 Alf completed a four year term as chaplain to the president of Chile, during which time he played a key role in mobilising prayer for the trapped miners. Currently he is again part of the presidential chaplaincy team.  He has an international ministry in teaching and evangelism and in March 2016 was consecrated auxiliary bishop with responsibility for church-planting.

They have 4 adult children and a growing collection of grandchildren.

Vera works in Russia organising activities in the Bible Centre for Christian families, young people and adults. Her team also run summer youth and family camps.

In recent years Vera has overseen the refurbishment of a house in a village known as The House of Faith and this is now a centre for retreats, training events and camps. Vera has developed an outreach ministry to the people in this very needy village where many families are affected by alcoholism and children are vulnerable.  She and her volunteers also support a local children's home and a centre for the disabled.

The Vriend family served with YWAM in Penang, Malaysia for 6 years where they pioneered work in counselling, prayer ministry and training others in this work. They ran 3 YWAM ‘Foundations for Counselling Ministry’ courses, an intensive full time 12 week course, followed by a field assignment, seeking in particular to enable the trainees to minister God’s healing love and power to others. They had a mix of ongoing and one- off opportunities, including among migrant workers, trafficked women, refugees and Christian workers and Peter was able to offer administrative help to YWAM.
In August 2013 they relocated to Chiang Mai where their roles have diverged. Peter is using business skills primarily in managing the finances for a Christian counselling and support agency.  Gill’s focus is training in mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing and she has run short training events to resource Christians to minister to their own people in Thailand and in several south-east Asian countries. More recently she has become part of a team under the umbrella of an organisation called Living Wholeness and during the travel restrictions of 2020 has developed online resources.

Their children Dave (1999) and Jessica (2001) are at university in England and Canada respectively.

In March 2018, in response to a call from God, Richard and Frances moved to live in Hungary and seek mission opportunities there. They have grappled with learning a difficult language, bought a house, made friends and are supporting the work of 2 different churches. Richard is using his ability as a teacher of English as a second language both with individuals and in running an English club for young people.  They are self- supporting financially.