Village2Village began in the heart of our founder, Craig Smith, in ministry over a half of a century. Following numerous short-term mission trips to various countries, he started V2V for the purpose of trying to help a few of the ministries he had been drawn to, visited, and established good friendships.

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Uganda, however, was where V2V began to focus and experience visible traction. The past fifteen years through partnering with George and Rose Nsimbi, the directors, a small school of approximately 20 children who began in a tiny primitive room, has grown to two, three story buildings with an average of 300 children and students per semester. This location is where they receive their primary meals for the day and a faith-based education from primary school to the eighth grade.

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There is not only the school, but also a growing church, and a small tract of land nearby where crops are grown to supplement food for the children. The Nimbis have reported hundreds of wonderful stories which exist of how lives were helped and dramatically transformed. The need is still great, the vision is growing, and nothing is impossible with God.

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Reaching and discipling children for Christ is also our focus in northeastern parts of Thailand, considered an area of unreached people with the Gospel by modern missiologists. Our very skilled team leaders, Manit and Hannah Attakul, have been faithfully committed to their ministry assignment and are seeing remarkable results in a very difficult region of the world to sow the message of Jesus.

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In El Salvador V2V began Ninos de Esperanza (Children of hope) through Anamim Garcia, a Salvadorian woman who along with the support of her husband, has been sharing Christ with the children in a difficult community of San Salvador for many years. Our dream is to one day see a far better facility for the Garcias to gather the children of the region to receive hope, help, and the message of Jesus. 

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Our newest partnership ministry is in Athens, Greece, a city of five million with an evangelical presence of less than one percent. Emmaneul and Bethany Tsoutsas are the leaders of the ministry there. They are standing fast in faith with our shared vision of seeing the ministry there develop into a hub where many come to Christ, are well discipled, equipped, and helping other ministries throughout their region establish and grow.

Famous nineteenth-century pastor, evangelist, and author, D. L. Moody once wrote, “If I could relive my life, I would devote my entire ministry to reaching children for God.” This is how our current mission base in Arkansas also began, reaching out to help children at risk in our community. The ministry to children was spiraling upward until the world was introduced to the term Covid-19.

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Village2Village had obtained twelve acres and was in the process of remodeling a large building for multipurpose ministry use to accommodate growth. However, everything came to a standstill because of the pandemic.

We used the time to pray and better define the purpose for the Village2Village location in Arkansas. The vision has expanded to become a place where we gather people to Christ, inspire them to be like Christ, equip them to serve Christ, and send them to declare and live the way of Christ. This is our pursuit locally and globally. Our hearts are still toward the ministry of children, but we have sensed God’s call to expand our vision and mission, and we are adjusting to pursue his call whole heartedly.