John and Beth Muehleisen

Beth was born in South Bend, the first born of 6 in a pastor’s family. She remembers clearly giving her heart to the Lord as a 4 year old child and building and reaffirming that as she got older.

She says “There was never a time that I did not feel called to be a missionary,” and she pictured herself as a missionary nurse.

God answered that prayer and she did become a missionary nurse.

John was born in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. His dad was a corporate executive and his mom was a home maker and tailor.

Although he grew up going to church, he didn’t come to Christ until his teen years in the ripples of the 1970 Asbury Revival.

His first year of college was at the Art Institute of Pittsburg where he was planning for a career in film making and video production, but he felt a clear call to missions at the missions conference at the church he was attending in Pittsburg.

He transferred to Asbury and that is where John and Beth met. During those years they were active in WGM’s Global Cafe ministry (then called Student Involvement). Following graduation, they got engaged while John pastored a church in Mississippi. Beth finished her nursing school and John finished his seminary degree at Wesley Biblical Seminary.

When Beth finished nursing school and John finished seminary, they applied to WGM to be long-term missionaries and were appointed in spring 1985 and started their first HMA that summer.

They arrived in Kenya with their two daughters Holly and Faith (both pre?schoolers) in January 1987 and started learning Swahili. After completing language school, John and Beth pastored 2 urban Africa Gospel Churches for over 10 years.

During their years at Good Shepherd Church in Nairobi they saw remarkable growth, with church attendance growing from 200 to 1,200 in 6 worship services in 6 languages each week. In addition, the church was the East Africa base for Evangelism Explosion where it helped establish EE in 14 new Africa countries. They also started a church planters training school in partnership with OC International and a pastoral training center in partnership with First Baptist Church of Atlanta, Georgia.

Both John and Beth sought to intentionally build multiplication into everything they did, and God has honored that commitment. In every assignment, Beth sought to win and disciple young women in their faith. Watching them grow and develop in Christ has been a major source of encouragement to her.

John stepped down as senior pastor of the church after about 10 years and his Kenyan assistant became the new senior pastor. John and Beth continued on staff and concentrated on church planting projects and got more and more involved in training, coaching, and mentoring Kenyan missionaries.

Then, in 1999 John and Beth came to work at HQ for a few years where they served in the International Ministries office. In 2004 they returned to Kenya where John worked as a trainer for the Africa Gospel Church Central office.  They then were asked to transfer to Uganda where they started the Community Health Evangelism ministry with the Africa Gospel Church Uganda. They stayed in Uganda for 10 years until they returned to HQ again to work in training and Human Resources.

This is their 41st year with WGM and they plan to continue working with the mission on a part-time and or volunteer basis after retirement.