About two million people of Arabian ancestry live in the United States, and nearly 25,000 of them call Toledo, Ohio, home. This year, Mark Clausing and Nashwan Saadoon, began leading an outreach called New Life, or Hayat Jadida in Arabic, in the Toledo area.
Mark Clausing developed a passion for Arabic people while he was teaching math in Dayton, Ohio. When he was hired as the middle school pastor at Crossroads Evangelical Church in Wauseon, he brought his passion for Arabic people, too. There, he met Nashwan Saadoon, an Iraqi Christian who came to the U.S. as a refugee. After meeting Nashwan and hearing about his ministry in Toledo, Mark said, “Fire went off in my heart.” In 2020, Nashwan began training at Crossroads as a pastoral resident. After working with Nashwan, Mark believed that God was asking him to help establish a church in the Toledo area, too.
Currently the group meets in a local business and is focusing on hospitality, one-on-one discipleship, and evangelism. Their first outreach to the community was a “School’s Over” party in a local park on June 24. They played games and brought clean, “halal” food to share with their neighbors. The New Life team will continue to create opportunities to invite locals to gather for conversations and build relationships.
To subscribe to the New Life newsletter or to give financially to this ministry, visit www.crossroadswauseon.org/newlife.
