The Reeves Family

David, Becky, Hannah, Elijah, Gabriel & Caleb

Dave and Becky are both Harding University graduates. They moved to northern Togo to work among the Kabiye in 2000 and have continued there in ministry until present. They plan to move to Rwanda sometime in 2011.

Missionary Work Among the Kabiye of Togo, West Africa

The original Kabiye team had five families: Kennells, Millers, Neals, Reeves, and Rieses. Over the years several families have joined the team and several families have transitioned to other works in the States. Currently there are four families working among the Kabiye: the Emersons, Kennells, Millers, and Reeves. Two other families, the Hangens and Heads, are preparing to join the team later in 2008 and 09. The Ries family are in the process of transitioning to the States and will leave the field in May of 2008.

From the beginning, the team's vision was to begin a Christ-ward movement among the Kabiye through evangelism, discipleship training, and church planting. Beginning with our end goal, 'churches that plant churches that plant churches,' we have worked hard to ensure that our methods were dependent upon the Spirit's power and not on American finances.

The team has made great progress in the first three stages of a church planting movement: Learning, Evangelizing, and Maturing Leadership. As churches have started to mature, our role as missionaries has shifted from being the primary church-planters to training and mentoring men who are themselves planting churches. Currently 16 men in eight churches are being trained as Shepherds/ Leaders/Evangelists with more training groups planned in the near future. In the areas where we have been working we are simply advisers, helping the Christians to walk through their opportunities and challenges.

At the same time, God is opening doors to new un-reached regions of Kabiye land where our Kabiye brothers and sisters have asked us to begin planting new churches while they continue to evangelize the areas around them. A new phase of our team began this year with the arrival of the Emerson family to the field in January 2007, followed by the return of the Kennell family in 2008 and the eventual arrival of the Hangen and Head families. These families plan to continue to train and encourage the existing Kabiye churches while opening up new areas of evangelism among the Kabiye and neighboring people groups.

In light of this time of transition to a second phase team among the Kabiye people, the Miller and Reeves families have committed to extend their initial commitment until at least 2011 to ensure a smooth transition and continuity of ministry. This will allow them to complete the training of leaders in the churches they have been working with for the past seven years as well as help establish the new team members in their ministries.

It has been a great joy for us to be a part of bring the Word of life to the Kabiye people and seeing God raise up strong workers for him from among them. There is no great joy than that of working together with God to bring people from darkness into His Eternal Light!

Rwandan Call

Our call to Rwanda began during a survey trip to Burkina Faso in 2003. Sam Shewmaker, a missionary-trainer and friend, joined us in Burkina just after a survey trip to Rwanda. He began praying daily for God to raise up teams of missionaries to minister in Rwanda. Murphy Crowson was especially touched by this call and immediately began praying for god to provide $5000 for a survey trip in a way that would increase faith and confirm this call. He received a check for $5,000 within four weeks (unsolicited) and began praying for God to raise up two other men willing to go and "spy our the land." Within six weeks Matt and Marty Koonce approached Murphy and said, "We should go see Rwanda."

Two years later, in 2005, David Reeves joined our group and the four of us spent two weeks surveying Rwanda with Sam Shewmaker and Dave Jenkins. We went with curiosity and returned with conviction. God was calling us to minister in this dark nation. More specifically, God was calling the four of us to minister together in the Musanze valley, a densely populated area in Rwanda with over 1 million people.

Transition to Rwanda

2008-2011—The Millers and Reeves will continue on in their ministry among the Kabiye of northern Togo, focusing on completing the maturing and training of the churches they have planted as well as establishing their new teammates in the ministry to new areas of Kabiyeland and north Togo. They will take a family survey trip to Rwanda in October, 2008

2011—The Millers and Reeves plan to take an extended furlough of at least 6 months to refresh and renew relationships and retool before the transition to Rwanda.

2011-12—Depending on the exact dates of their furlough, the Millers and the Reeves will return to Togo and then move to the Musanze valley. (This timeline is tentative depending on the needs of the work among the Kabiye. Both we and the Reeves are committed to a healthy transition to ministry by our new teammates among the Kabiye before moving on to Rwanda).