New Missouri Synod missionaries from Illinois set to begin service abroad

Photos available upon request.

ST. LOUIS—July 22, 2011—Four Illinois residents recently accepted appointments from The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod to serve as missionaries and human care workers.

George and Shary Frahm of Palatine, Ill., will serve as GEO (Globally Engaged in Outreach) human care workers in Cambodia. GEO personnel typically serve between one- and two-years. Hannah Kiefer of Bonfield, Ill., and Eric Kunkel of Bolingbrook, Ill, will serve as a GEO missionaries in Macau, a special administrative region of China.

George and Shary Frahm, whose home congregation is Immanuel Lutheran Church in Palatine, will be responsible for supervising the Angels Dormitory project in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city, through a partnership with Concordia Welfare and Education Foundation. As a part of launching this project from its beginning, the Frahms are carrying out its construction and eventually its operation as an outreach and mercy ministry among its student residents and their families. The Frahms are founders of Valley International Student Association, an international student ministry at Saginaw Valley State University in Saginaw, Mich. Previously, the Frahms served as dorm parents at Universitas Pelita Harapan, a Christian university in Indonesia.

Kiefer will serve with fellow missionaries at the Concordia English Center, where she will teach English, provide tutoring and help plan, and host social events that provide outreach opportunities. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from Illinois Wesleyan University. She is a member of Zion Lutheran Church in Bonfield.

Kunkel also will serve at the Concordia English Center, where he will teach English, lead Bible studies and plan social events. He graduated from Joliet Junior College in Joliet. His previous mission experience includes a week in Guatemala through a Habitat for Humanity project and a week in Biloxi, Miss., in 2005 through LCMS World Relief and Human Care to provide post-hurricane disaster response. He is a member of Bethany Lutheran Church in Bolingbrook.

The Frahms, Kiefer and Kunkel are among a group of more than 30 new missionaries and human care workers who were formally commissioned during a sending service July 15 in the chapel at the LCMS International Center in St. Louis.

To find out more about these LCMS missionaries and others, or to support their efforts, download their prayer cards from the LCMS website at www.lcms.org/prayercards.

The LCMS has been involved in mission and outreach since 1851 when it established its first mission board and sent its first overseas missionary to India in 1895. Today, the LCMS trains, sends and supports called and appointed career, long-term GEO and short-time missionaries throughout the United States and in various countries around the world where there are mission stations, partner churches, schools or mission relationships. Missionaries serve as God’s instruments in His mission as they carry out the “good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do,” (Phil. 2:10). By God’s grace, missionaries share of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ in words and acts of loving service.

LCMS missionary teams are made up of people who focus on building relationships and supporting local believers as they gather and reach out to their own communities. Some of the international work they do includes planting churches, leadership formation or some type of locally-initiated holistic services in areas of health, agriculture, community development, English-as-a-Foreign-Language classes or partner support activities. Missionary teachers also serve in international schools where missionary children, expatriates, and often national children attend. Agricultural and medical missionaries are also part of the global team as their mercy work strategically contributes towards reaching and gathering communities of believers, so that churches can be planted and sustained.


About The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), is a mission-oriented, Bible-based, confessional Christian denomination headquartered in St. Louis, Mo. Founded in 1847, the LCMS has more than 2.3 million baptized members in some 6,200 congregations and more than 9,000 pastors. Two seminaries and 10 colleges and universities operate under the auspices of the LCMS, and its congregations operate the largest Protestant parochial school system in America. The church broadcasts the saving message of Jesus Christ over KFUO Radio, and it has relationships and active mission work in 89 countries around the world. In the last five years, the LCMS has awarded more than $35 million through more than 900 domestic and international grants for emergency response and disaster relief. Today, the LCMS is in full doctrinal fellowship with 33 other confessional Lutheran church bodies worldwide and is a founding partner of Lutheran Services in America, a social ministry organization serving one in every 50 Americans. For more information, visit www.lcms.org.

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