Happy New Year, Rosedale Network of Churches!
I pray that you have enjoyed time with family and found moments of rest and reflection during the holiday season. As 2025 came to an end, I’m sure many of you took the time to share a recap of your year with friends and family; in that same spirit, I’d like to reflect on God’s faithfulness to Rosedale International (RI) in 2025 and look ahead to 2026.
This year, we celebrated new beginnings.
Six interns joined us in January, followed in August by fourteen REACH participants—the biggest teams since 2021 and 2019, respectively. We welcomed three staff members to our team in Columbus: Sophia, Hospitality Coordinator; Yemiru, Immigrant Church Growth Consultant; and Lloyd, interim Director of Rosedale Business Group. We celebrated as several staff and worker families grew. We also celebrated new spiritual life, seeing over one hundred baptisms across the regions of the world where RI workers and local partners serve!
We traveled countless miles.
RI staff visited five schools and twenty-six churches, attended five conferences, led four retreats, and hosted three special events across fourteen states. We traveled overseas to see workers in Spain, the Mediterranean, and West Africa, and spent time in Europe praying for revival. During the summer months, seven worker families returned to the States on home assignment. We also celebrated the twentieth anniversary of Ride for Missions.
We ended 2025 in the black.
As I write, it appears that RI will finish the year in a good place financially. We are grateful to our Ride for Missions, Missions 101, and Antioch partners for helping us meet the deficit in our general budget every year. Thank you to each church and every individual who supports, prays, and stands with us in ministry; we could not do this work without you.
We said goodbye.
After eighteen years with RI, Garret, former Director of Communications, felt God calling him to something new. Larry & Dot, who led Rosedale Business Group for the past twelve years, retired in October. These goodbyes will follow us into 2026—we anticipate several transitions in the office due to retirement, growing families, and new opportunities both home and abroad. We will also see transitions on the field as Angel & Sydney return from Ecuador, and Tom & Candice complete their time in Thailand.
Looking toward 2026, we are excited to see new workers launched in the Mediterranean and North America. We are excited to welcome a new team of interns this month and to reunite with the REACH teams in early May. We are excited to meet the new staff we know God will provide, and to rejoice with our former coworkers as they head into new areas of life. We are excited to travel, both in the U.S. and internationally, and look forward to spending time with many of you in your churches. We are excited to host Family Challenge in the spring and City Challenge in the summer. We are excited to watch Ride for Missions continue to grow even after twenty years.