Tom and Cheryl Rees
Tom and Cheryl were born and raised in Southern California. Tom accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior in 1975 and Cheryl in 1964. After Tom came to Christ they became good friends and more importantly close brothers and sisters in Christ. In 1977, they were married at Southern California College in Costa Mesa. They have three children, Sean, Sara and Melissa.
Tom continued college in Northern California to become a Respiratory Therapist. Cheryl worked at a preschool until they began having a family. Upon Tom’s graduation they moved to the Northwest with their growing family. At this time, the Lord led Tom and Cheryl to start home schooling their children. After a few years, they moved to Montana where they started attending a new church led by a missionary from Japan and Russia. This pastor/missionary planted the first thoughts in their hearts about becoming missionaries.
Years later, the Lord opened the doors to move to Murrieta, California so Tom, Sean and Sara could begin attending Calvary Chapel Bible College. One evening, Wes Bentley was speaking to the students about the situation in Sudan and the cost of serving Christ. Wes presented an opportunity to pray about God’s will in serving in this area of the world. Tom was immediately drawn to go and in a short time was on his way to Sudan and Uganda.
Life would never be the same after experiencing life with the people of Africa. Tom grew in his love and commitment to serve the Lord wherever He would send him. After much prayer, God sent their whole family to serve in Jerusalem, Israel for fifteen months. Living in Israel made it very clear that loving and serving in other cultures can bring many trials, but even greater joys. Two years after their return from Jerusalem, Tom and Cheryl met Wes Bentley again and they were once again thanking Jesus for the opportunity to serve in Africa.
Their vision is to always be found in Christ, ministering to whoever God places before them, as well as receiving ministry from others, and building Christ-centered relationships.
- To be humble, broken servants, submitting to God's will, and acknowledging Christ as the head of the church.
- To live their lives simply, boldly sharing their faith in love, discerning and using wisdom to be sensitive to each individual and situation by the grace of God.
- To lead others to Christ and equip them for the work of the ministry.
"But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death." Philippians 3:7-10