World Changers International (WCI) formed in 1986 with a vision to serve where needs were identified and there were invitations to partner with others in places deemed challenging and/or difficult. In these early years, WCI’s focus began to shift from being “another sending mission agency” to an organization identifying specific, resistant, challenging people groups: urban poor, countries where Christians numbered less than 1% of the population, countries with rising incidences of Christian persecution, and places where a small, Christian minority group needed resources, personnel, materials, and encouragement.

Through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Urbana ’87, our director heard God saying to WCI and the global church, “Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4.11).

At that point, WCI exerted its energies in Kathmandu, Nepal; Diyarbakir, Turkey; Bangkok and Pattaya, Thailand. Always responding to insights, we realized much of our Eastern and Southern Turkey outreach duplicated current efforts by others. This evoked us to then affirm and encourage these mission strategic partners while redirecting and infusing increased focus on Nepal and Thailand.

Our outreach partnerships in Nepal began with local churches and expanded to recognize the need for sustainability…viable ministry must eventually be indigenous. The progression began with planting local churches in the great city of Kathmandu and starting dozens of orphanages. This led to a vision for small farms, small businesses, micro enterprise loans, a home for the abandoned elderly, and then a response to the growing knowledge of the devastation of human trafficking: group recovery homes and rehab training centers (ages 8-19). After 20 years of intense devotion, energy, and resources to the churches of the Evangelical Christian Fellowship of Nepal and the Nepal Christian Society, WCI disengaged. Our goal from the onset was to allow trained, capable Nepali partners to assume leadership.

Concurrently, our strategic partnerships in Thailand grew, as did the Thai church following the 2004 tsunami. As the work continued to solidify in Nepal, we realized that God had opened a broad door of opportunity in Thailand to work with street kids, rescued teens, HIV/AIDS orphans, local churches, and those trafficked on the streets of Thailand—doing this purposefully, alongside other effective NGOs.