ARTS RELEASE

Meet the leaders

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  BIRTE PAPENHAUSEN - GERMANY/NETHERLANDS - DRAMA/ORALITY

  Birte is a drama therapist (BA) and Theologian (MA). Upon joining WEC International in 2001, she lived and worked in Mongolia for more than 10 years. She then became a drama theologian and her passion and expertise is in communicating God’s truth in creative ways, mainly through storytelling and drama. She has been a member of Arts Release since 2009 and conducts training in drama and orality while using it herself in evangelism, discipleship, and teaching. Having been a guest teacher for many years at Cornerstone, and since 2021 as a fulltime staff on campus, Birte is investing into the next generation of missionaries and hopefully multiplying the number of people who joyfully and intentionally use oral communication tools to reach the unreached. She is available to teach at conferences or workshops on invitation. You can listen to Birte’s podcast, “Discover oral teaching” on iTunes, Spotify and other platforms.

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  TIM FUNG - FRANCE - MUSIC

  Tim is a worship leader. Being of mixed cultural backgrounds himself, he loves fusions of music styles. He joined the first WEC multicultural worship band and caught the bug for releasing heart worship through expressions that most profoundly represent the diversity of God’s people. In 2012, God called him to start Arts Release in France and among French-speaking peoples. He loves facilitating times when God brings into being new songs. He uses multicultural music for outreach and deepening true fellowship within the church community.

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  FIONA FUNG - FRANCE - VISUAL ARTS

  Fiona is a self-taught visual artist who uses many techniques: oil, acrylic, watercolour, acrylic ink, resin, Lino printing, henna..., and loves exploring the visual arts to use in ministry. Art is her passion even though she has a science background, which is complementary to her work. Most of Fiona’s childhood was spent in DRC Congo (Zaire) and Zambia as a child of missionaries. In 2000 she joined WEC International with her husband, Tim, and their 3 girls, working in Chad for 8 years, before coming to France. It was in France that Fiona grew as an artist, developing her artistic gifts in painting and using art to provoke opportunities to share the faith, in discipleship in a church plant and on spiritual retreats. Currently, she runs the online French "Studio Créatif", and organises the yearly Global Creative Studio Day online event, to encourage creatives of all kinds and with all levels of proficiency, in developing and using their giftings for God's kingdom. Fiona also offers workshops on visual art techniques and henna storytelling. In addition to Arts Release, she is also on the WEC France Branch Leadership team, and one of the leaders in a small church planting network in Normandy. To see some of her work check out her Instagram: @fionafungart

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  JUAN ARVELO - SPAIN - ARTS RELEASE CONSULTANT

  Originally from Venezuela, Juan joined WEC in 2008 and lives with his wife Ainara and three children in Spain serving among the Basque People in the north. He holds a Master's Degree in World Arts from Dallas International University and is a board member of the Global Ethnodoxology Network (GEN). Alongside his wife, they have been involved with the use of arts in ministry since 2012 when they organized the first-ever songwriting workshop for the Church in the Basque region. They also helped organize an art competition called “Welcome Donostia,” which was held the same year their city was named the European capital of the culture. Their vision is to see the Church embracing their local art forms to worship God and reach out to others.

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  Chris and Rachel

  Chris and Rachel hail from opposite sides of the world, but a love of the arts and a desire to use it cross-culturally for mission and worship sent them to West Asia for almost 15 years. While there, they used foreign and local music styles for public evangelism for majority Muslim audiences in the region, helped to pioneer worship training camps with national believers, and branched into drama, dance and puppetry in later years for other street-based evangelistic events. Now based in the UK, they serve in a new non-English speaking church plant helping with music, and with the Resonance bands.

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  ANNE SOH - SINGAPORE - ARTS ADVOCATE

  Anne is a music educator from Singapore who taught in a secondary school as well as worked as a curriculum specialist for music in the Ministry of Education, Singapore where she oversaw the publication of music syllabuses, textbooks, and teaching resources. Having completed the MA in Arts with Mission at All Nations Christian College (UK) in 2016, she joined WEC International (Singapore) in 2019 where she now leads the Arts Release Singapore team. Her role centres on mobilising and training artists for mission, and organising local and overseas arts outreach activities. Anne keeps a blog where she occasionally writes on K-drama theology, and other faith and arts-related subjects. She co-edited and contributed a chapter to the book Arts Across Cultures: Reimagining the Christian Faith in Asia (Regnum, 2022), and is also a regular contributor to the Biblical Wisdom for Parents online magazine published by Our Daily Bread Singapore.

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  AMY YEN - SINGAPORE - MUSIC/DRAMA

  Amy has been serving in the music ministry since her teenage days. She and her family relocated to Leeds, UK when they joined WEC International under the ministry of Arts Release in 2018. In the UK, she was the Resonance Band coordinator as well as singer with the band. After attending the Arts for a Better Future course with All Nations College, Amy and her husband, Tun I, started the first Creative Studio in 2019 before moving it online with the pandemic. The training also encouraged Amy to explore other creative expressions like storytelling and drama. Besides her foray into storytelling like using STS, Amy is also an active member of an online Playback Theatre group under the mentorship of Birte Papenhausen. Her time in the UK has opened her eyes to intercultural worship and that has led her to be trained as a multicultural worship trainer. Her passion is to really equip and organise workshops that will help God’s creatives to use their talents for His kingdom.