Avant Ministries

Since 1892 Avant Ministries has focused on planting and developing the church in the unreached areas of the world.

Through church planting, church support ministries, media, education, camp and business, we hope to establish churches among the unreached: mature, nationally-led churches that desire to plant more churches, first in their own city, and then all over the world.

Avant trains, sends and serves missionaries in 50 countries globally. Learn more about Avant by visiting their website at avantministries.org.

Avant is one of the Missions agencies that Grace Church supports annually. Sheldon and Laurie Rempel are missionaries from Avant who have spoken at Grace Church several times in the past. They are involved with coaching their friends in Paris, building mission/church partnerships and doing member care for colleagues in France and North America. To contact Sheldon and Laurie please email them at srempel@avmi.org.

Who is Jon Luesink?

Jon Luesink is the husband of Jill for 27 years and they have 4 children. While this primary ministry has been going on, he was also a youth and worship pastor for 12 years at Sardis Fellowship Baptist in Chilliwack, BC. Then they became church planting missionaries with Avant leading the team in Prague, Czech Republic for 8 years. Now Jon serves as the Director of Mobilization for Avant Canada, helping to raise up the next generation of missionaries.

Sheldon and Laurie Rempel

Laurie is a missionary kid who grew up 1000 kilometers South of Timbuktu in Mali, West Africa. Sheldon’s parents were in the pastorate and he grew up in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.  They both attended Briercrest Bible College, which is where they met. The Rempels have since studied French and Bambara (an indigenous language from West Africa), and they have both have seminary degrees.

Sheldon and Laurie were married in 1991 and they joined Avant in 1994. Since then they have lived in Saskatoon, Albertville (France), Bamako (Mali), Saskatoon, Bamako, Steinbach, Paris (France), Abbotsford and Paris – in that order. They returned from Paris to Abbotsford in July 2018. The Rempels have four children ages 13-26, plus a son and daughter in law.

Currently, Sheldon and Laurie are still serving with Avant. They are involved with coaching their friends in Paris, building mission/church partnerships and doing member care for colleagues in France and North America.