BIRTH OF A DREAM
About a year later, in September of 1985, the new mission agency was officially organized as Adventist Frontier Missions. Clyde Morgan was asked to serve as president and executive director. After completing his seminary training in December of that year, he devoted his effort full-time, assisted by his wife, Cathy, to its development. There were “lean” months—as financial support cam from voluntary donations, but he Lord always provided for the Morgans to keep moving ahead.
In March, 1987, AFM sent its first missionary family, Marc and Aunie Scalzi with their two children, to plant the church among the Ifugao people of northern Luzon, Philippines. They spent six years there and left a well-established church of about one hundred baptized members as well as several smaller groups under the pastorship of an Ifugao layman whom Marc discipled. The Ifugao church continued to evangelize and grow, and within about two years the membership doubled.
During the next several years, AFM launched more projects in the Philippines, as well as in Papua New Guinea, Mongolia, Cambodia, Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali, Guinea, Albania, Greece, India, China, Thailand, and Nepal.
From the beginning, it has been AFM’s policy to cooperate with the Seventh-day Adventist Church at every level of its work and sign working agreements with each division where AFM projects are located. The help and guidance provided by church leaders is greatly valued as well as the positive working relationships with them and other missionaries around the world.
In the fall of 1991, Brad and Cathie Jolly went to Mongolia to plant the church in that previously closed country. IN October of 1993, exactly two years after the Jollys’ arrival in Mongolia, they had the privilege of seeing the first Seventh-day Adventist Mongolian believers baptized. Elder Robert Folkenberg, president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, traveled to Mongolia to perform the ceremony himself. This event, probably more than any other, showed that AFM could be successful in working among resistant people groups.
In November of 1997, the first Mongolian Seventh-day Adventist
church was established with 26 charter members.
Today AFM continues to target unreached people groups among all major religions
around the world.