Love for the Lord, Love for the Lost

Suzanne Pearson • Jan 09, 2024

Love, family, and dedication to the Lord’s work form the heart of Matteo and Althea’s life and ministry.

Hollywood screenwriters would swoon over a love story like Matteo and Althea’s. Picture the movie trailer that introduces us to them: Matteo, a hard-working and kindhearted man who has come to live and work on an unfamiliar island; Althea, a young schoolteacher, looking for adventure and a way to provide for her siblings and extended family. Matteo sees her and is smitten; Althea is shy and not so sure this older gentleman is the man for her...

The film would be a blockbuster for sure. In reality, this sweet couple lives a simple life of love, family, and dedication to the Lord’s work. Their adoration for one another is evident to all those around them, but their commitment to the Lord is even greater.

The Great Imbalance

For Matteo, the call to missions came after a difficult childhood and coming to know the Lord as Savior in his youth. Matteo grew up on an island in the Indo-Malay region and attended Bible School after becoming a Christian. It was there that he first heard the term, “The Great Imbalance,” which refers to the underrepresentation of missionaries among unreached people groups. Specifically for Matteo’s cultural context, this is manifested in that very few global workers were reaching Muslim populations. “Only a few [workers] were reaching Muslim people,” Matteo says. “The Lord touched my heart in that, and my love for the Muslim community grew.”

Matteo worked in church planting among non-Muslims for seven years, but he continued to be drawn to work cross-culturally in other areas of Indo-Malay. Finally, the Lord began to open that door. Matteo completed missionary training as well as two years of cultural and language studies.

Soon the only problem left was to figure out where God would send him among the many unreached Muslim-background communities in Indo-Malay. “Where do I go? What people group will I serve?” Matteo recalls asking the Lord. “I prayed for many weeks, asking the Lord to lead me where He will use me.”

The Lord was faithful in leading Matteo to the island where he would serve for the next 17 years. Not only would he be used greatly by the Lord to reach the people for Christ, but he would also meet and fall in love with a certain young schoolteacher.

Beauty from Ashes

Althea also grew up in the Indo-Malay region of the south Pacific. Her father was a devout Sunni Muslim, well-respected at the mosque and in the community. Her mother was a homemaker, caring for Althea, her three sisters, and one brother. When Althea was only eight years old, her father died suddenly, leaving her mother in a deep depression with no way to provide for her children.

Althea and her siblings were sent to live with an aunt who could care for them. Despite this tragic turn of events, God was about to bring beauty from ashes. “The Lord was so good,” says Althea. “My auntie put us in Sunday school, and we were introduced to Jesus Christ.” At first, Althea says she listened to the Bible stories, but really only continued going to church because she had to obey her aunt.

But then when she was in 6th grade, Althea attended a youth camp hosted by the church. She recalls a particular challenge given to the group by the speaker as they sat around a bonfire. “The pastor asked, ‘What is your burden? Write it on a piece of paper and throw it into the fire. Surrender all the burdens that you have in your heart to the Lord.’ At that time, I surrendered the loss of my father.”

That experience was a catalyst that drew Althea into a saving knowledge of Jesus as her Savior, and she was later baptized as a young teenager. She developed a heart for missions and after graduating, Althea was sent to a nearby island to be a schoolteacher.

Althea encountered the Holy Spirit as a young teen at youth camp near her village, igniting a new spark for Gospel work.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Meanwhile, Matteo was thriving in ministry, but there was a void in his life that he was longing to fill. For over twenty years, he had been praying for a wife. He even enlisted help in this regard in the form of TEAM global workers and supporting churches in the U.S. - raising up an army of prayer warriors on multiple continents to pray for God to send him the perfect helpmate!

Those prayers intensified when he met Althea. From the time he saw her, he prayed that the Lord would make her his wife. But Althea needed a little more convincing. She had grown restless in her work on the island and wanted to return home, saying that she hoped to “forget” Matteo because she didn’t believe he was the man for her. But it must be true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, because when she got home, she recalls with a smile, “I could not forget.”

Despite objections from her mother and aunt, Althea knew that she loved Matteo and that she was called not only to continue ministry but also to serve alongside Matteo as his wife. They were married in 2017 and now have two beautiful boys.

A Package Deal

Today Matteo and Althea minister to Muslim communities in a variety of ways – some together as a couple, and some individually. Together, they have a dress-making outreach to provide a source of income, and more importantly a source of hope, for women in need. Althea teaches them how to take people’s measurements properly as well as how to cut and sew the dress designs. And as the women sit together and sew, Matteo tells them stories from the Bible. One of the women in attendance recently said it best, “This is a package deal. We are learning in our physical body but also in our spiritual body!’”

Matteo and Althea are a bit of a package deal themselves, always supporting and praying for each other – even when they must be apart. One of Matteo’s ministry initiatives is to deliver food packages to island communities by way of long, overnight journeys in a small boat. Althea and their two small boys are not able to travel with him for these treks, but they gather together daily to pray for Matteo, his ministry partners (including TEAM), and their ministry to Muslims.

Althea has plenty to keep her busy in ministry as well (as if raising her two boys was not enough!). She is often called upon by others in the community to lend a helping hand. One of her ministry partners says that Althea is seen as a “mother” to many, always caring for and encouraging those in need.

“Monday is our Day.”

Because Matteo travels so much for ministry, the couple recognizes the need to prioritize their time as a family. For that reason, they organize their schedule to protect one day a week together as a family. “On Mondays, we are family together,” says Althea. “We cook, we have a movie marathon, and we eat together. We talk about many plans – a dream house, the future for the kids, things like that.” Then with a silver-screen-worthy smile of reflection, she adds, “Monday is our day.”

When asked what has kept Matteo and Althea faithful after so many years of Kingdom work, Matteo sums it up this way: “Love for the Lord and love for the lost, that's the secret for remaining.”

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Loving Like Jesus Cross-Culturally (Part 1)

By Megan Lunsford • 23 Apr, 2024

When seeking to serve cross-culturally with an authentic love for others, there’s no better example for us than Jesus. If we sat around a table and threw out the question, “How do we love like Jesus?” I think we would have several commonalities as we respond. For example, Jesus loved all people right where they were. He loved those who were deemed the least, those hardest to love, or those who were His enemies. These are all beautiful realities of the heart of Jesus. When we step into relationships, it can be easier to take on the warmer, more gracious gestures of Jesus’ love, especially in cross-cultural relationships. Think about it––when doing life with those who look and act differently than us, we are already out of our comfort zones and would rather keep things as simple and familiar as possible. But there are other facets of Jesus’ heart we often overlook that can transform us and others even more into His likeness. Jesus is love because God is love. Everything Jesus did was out of love; it’s the mere definition of who He is. As followers of Jesus, He calls us to the same: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John:7-12) Every display of love we offer to others is an opportunity for them to encounter the ultimate love of the Father. That’s a pretty big deal! In this article, we’ll look at three expressions of Jesus’ love that we tend to overlook when engaging others cross-culturally. (Next month, we’ll look at three more.) 1. Jesus loved sacrificially. Everywhere Jesus went, crowds followed Him. We even see times in Scripture where Jesus had plans to step away for time alone but those who were hurting found Him and He had compassion on them and stayed with them. Can you imagine rarely having any time to yourself but, instead, constantly being surrounded by crowds of people wanting help from you? Jesus loved sacrificially. He welcomed all who came to Him with love and compassion, never turning anyone away. “When He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36) In the same way, we can make room in our lives for Jesus to bring sacrificial interruptions which, in His eyes, are orchestrated encounters to transfer His love to others. It can be tempting to be so “on mission” that we are full steam ahead and find ourselves frustrated when the Holy Spirit sends an interruption into our path that we feel we don’t have time for. Or, perhaps, we have scheduled a meet-up but it’s the norm in another culture to be 30 minutes or an hour late. We anxiously think through how it will affect whatever we have planned next. While it’s normal to feel a little stressed, what if the very "interruption” standing in front of you was really a divine appointment sent by God? Or what if that person running late experiences how peaceful and gracious you are in adapting to their culture and therefore, they can encounter a beautiful display of Jesus’ love? To truly represent Christ, we should remain ready and willing for each assignment the Lord sends into our path, no matter the cost or how much we will have to re-route our day. He is always a hundred steps ahead and will work all things for His glory and our good. 2. Jesus loved by discerning each situation well. Think about how many situations Jesus had to respond to on a daily basis. We read in Scripture that there were lines of people waiting to be healed by Him, talk to Him, hear His teachings, or simply touch the hem of His robe. Jesus was fully dependent on His Father to discern each situation before addressing it. “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” (John 5:19) Another temptation we can have when in a relationship with those God has sent us to is to think we already know the solution or what God wants to do before we’ve even asked Him. We believe we are full of knowledge, so we just pull from the bank we have stored within and go with it. However, when we access what is familiar to us as our default, we risk missing out on a God-given solution that might truly be the key to unlocking whatever challenge is in front of us. What does this look like when interacting with others? We can simply ask, “God, what is on Your heart for the person standing in front of me?” Then we listen and respond as He speaks. When we make it a daily habit to pause and hear God’s heart for each situation before responding, we are guaranteed to be effective in loving those around us. He knows the heart of every person that will cross our paths. Imagine how impactful we can be if we first lean on His wisdom and discernment before moving forward. 3. Jesus loved by speaking truth. Most of us are familiar with the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. If we are honest, this conversation makes us a bit nervous as none of us would be comfortable with Jesus calling out intimate details of our lives that we would prefer to hide. But Jesus went further than just airing her dirty laundry. He offered her the hope of the Gospel and a relationship with Him - a divine fulfillment that could never be found in an earthly relationship. Jesus modeled a powerful example of loving others well cross-culturally. He took the low place and spoke truth, truly out of love––speaking to her heart from His. Like Jesus, our goal in sharing the truths about Him and His Word is to bring hope and satisfaction through Him alone. When we speak truth from Scripture, we are calling others higher into all God has for them. The tricky part here is we should avoid speaking truth if it isn’t first fueled by compassion. If it merely comes from a place of judgment, condemnation, or self-righteousness, it will fall flat 100% of the time. But if it truly comes from love, you are likely to not only win a heart back to the Father but, like the story of the Samaritan woman, even an entire village! If you see someone living outside of God’s best for their lives, ask God to show you your heart before engaging theirs. Once your heart is properly postured, you can speak truth out of an overflow of God’s love and trust Him for a transformation in their lives.

Hospitality, Help, and the Hope of the Gospel

By Suzanne Pearson • 16 Apr, 2024

TEAM Canada provides warm welcome and trusted friendships for diaspora populations living far from their native countries. As TEAM Canada workers Peter and Ruth (names changed) drive from their home to a nearby community center, they pass numerous apartment buildings and townhouses. Most of the families who live there are immigrants. They’ve left their countries of origin due to political unrest, trauma, and other difficulties. They’ve left family, friends, homes, jobs, and personal wealth behind. They search for peace, justice for the oppressed, and rest from fear and weariness. And as they adjust to a new country and a new language, they are often very isolated from others around them. “The sad reality is most immigrants are never even invited inside a Canadian home,” says Ruth. Peter and Ruth and their team try to change that reality. For the last nine years, the team, which includes workers from partner organizations as well as volunteers, has held English classes at the community center. Three days a week, over 60 students from more than 20 countries come together to learn English as well as to fellowship together and receive practical help in assimilating to a new normal. Meeting Needs and Building Trust That practical help may come in the form of procuring furniture, clothes, or dishes for newcomers, assistance with creating a resume and finding a job, or teaching people how to navigate Canadian laws and the medical system. As these tangible needs are met, relationships are built. “We invite them into our homes for meals and games,” Ruth shares. “We take them on hiking trips, picnics, outings, and out for coffee.” This is particularly important in this type of ministry because most immigrants come to Canada from cultures that value hospitality. Conversely, Canadians do not typically prioritize hospitality and consequently many newcomers feel lonely and isolated. Inviting folks to various gatherings and outings allows the team to spend extended time hearing people’s stories, struggles, hopes, and dreams. When she speaks about building friendships, Ruth’s heart for the people she serves is evident. “Hearing their stories, it’s easy to love them, and many have become close friends,” Ruth says. “We recognize the value of steady one-on-one relationships.”