Dave & Connie Patty were sent by Grace Church of DuPage to the Czech Republic in 1993. There they sought the Lord to help churches establish strong youth ministries. Now, Dave is the Founder and Executive Director of Josiah Venture, a ministry that is flourishing in 14 countries in Central and Eastern Europe. We have been blessed to partner with them in the raising up and sending of various team members, church planters, and short-term youth teams to join in this movement of God in Central and Eastern Europe.
Updates & Prayer Requests
It has been twenty days since the unimaginable happened when Russian troops invaded Ukraine. Our brains are still trying to comprehend this unjustified, unthinkable, and already devastating war.
JV Kids made the tough call to transition from their annual JVK Camp to an online "JVK Camp Experience", which will take place August 19-21. Amidst the regulations and travel restrictions of COVID-19, they are grateful to be "together" in this way, across many countries.
This season of the unknown, in different ways, is familiar to our Josiah Venture team here in Slovenia. In light of COVID-19, our short-term missions teams, interns, and camps have been canceled. This unique season and rare window of opportunity to partner with new churches and spread the seeds of the gospel among youth in Slovenia... and many other factors... have led us to try something new and step out into the unknown in faith.
As the new year approaches, we rejoice with our Global Partners in the work the Lord has done through their ministries and through His Church. We hope your heart is encouraged by looking back on some of these stories from 2019.
Almost two years ago, Claire Patty went out from our church to serve with Josiah Venture. She works with the children of JV missionaries in Central and Eastern Europe. Having grown up a JV kid herself, she is uniquely equipped by the Lord to minister to these kids while they serve on mission with their families.
JV Team Members from Grace Church of DuPage
Grace Church began supporting Dave & Connie Patty in the Czech Republic in 1993 to help churches establish strong youth ministries. Dave is the Founder and Executive Director of Josiah Venture, a ministry that is now flourishing in 14 countries, primarily in Central and Eastern Europe.
Josiah Venture (JV) exists to establish a movement of God among the youth of Central and Eastern Europe that finds its home in the local church and transforms society. The focus of JV has been to train up youth ministry leaders and to evangelize the youth.
LEARN MORE & SUPPORT DAVE & CONNIE'S MINISTRY ➝
We are blessed to have Theresa Kerns serving with us from the states as she supports the work God is doing through Josiah Venture from their home office in Wheaton, IL. Theresa began serving full-time with Josiah Venture as Human Resource Director in 2002. Theresa builds relationships with Josiah Venture team members by providing admin assistance to those on the field and by preparing new workers for the field. She also spends time visiting the JV women overseas, encouraging and helping the women better serve the Lord, their families, and the nationals.
In addition to her work in Eastern Europe, Theresa has also conducted women’s seminars in Israel in conjunction with the Kashtan Family.
Short-term global outreach teams have four subordinate aims in light of gathering Christ-worshippers. Short-termers go 1) to support, encourage, and edify Grace Church global outreach partners, 2) to prepare the ground for the potential establishment of a career global outreach team, or church partnership, 3) in response to a discernible leading in their lives in pursuing a potential career ministry in global outreach, and 4) to become vibrant, passionate world-Christians who feel the urgency of the spread of the gospel.
Our goal in short-term outreach is not to take the place of long-term outreach, but rather assist bridging the gap between the nation and the local church through this ministry partnership with our global outreach partners. Our short-term teams must have a strategic evangelistic outreach to the nations. Our passion is to see all peoples shout to God with loud songs of joy (Psalms 47:1)! We seek and desire to be used by God to bring people to repentance, and a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that through these global outreach projects you would personally experience, even for a brief time, what world-outreach really means, and as a result, that it might spark a fire for you to see the importance of global outreach, and possibly be used of God to direct you towards being a career global outreach partner.