René Dekker - CEO Global Disciples

René Dekker, Global Disciples CEO

On October 1, 2025, René Dekker joined Global Disciples as the new CEO.

René is a native of The Netherlands and has held a variety of leadership roles in international organizations. Most recently, he served as the Lead Pastor of the Evangelical Church of Bangkok (ECB), Thailand-an international church with over 70 nationalities.

René says, “Discipleship is the heartbeat of my ministry. I am grateful and excited to come alongside the Global Disciples team, as their core ideology of reaching the least-reached across the globe with the Gospel of Jesus strikes a deep chord in me.”

René also has 20 years of experience as an international business leader working in finance, strategic planning and implementation, business development, and organizational leadership for various international organizations including Synova, Nidera, Sara Lee, and Eli Lilly. He holds a Master’s in Business Economics from Erasmus Universiteit in the Netherlands, and a Master’s in Ministry Leadership from Crown College of Minnesota. He is married to Gonneke, and they have three daughters—Emma, Elize, and Noortje.

V E N E Z U E L A

Reaching the Forgotten People

Global Disciples trains leaders living near least-reached communities to multiply disciples.

One of those leaders is Jose who lives in Venezuela. He has access to the Waraos, a poor and often forgotten people, despised by their neighbors, and with little love for outsiders. According to Joshua Project, the 44,000 Waraos are considered minimally reached with the Good News of Jesus.

Jose focused on an unreached Waraos community of miners and farmers high in the mountains near the Guyana border and at least 100 kilometers from any church. This is his story:

“We started our training with great joy and expectation because we knew this was coming from God’s hand. He is our provider. We had most of the needs covered for the disciples who participated. When the outreach time began, we knew we had to go and share the Gospel, pray for the sick, and announce Good News to the needy.

“This was a special moment—we visited with some Waraos as they were walking home from a day of farming and construction work. It was getting dark, but we were not afraid. We approached this group, all muddy, some without shoes, and sometimes they work without a t-shirt. “We greeted them and started to talk about God’s love for them. After we shared the Gospel, most of men in this group accepted the Lord as their Savior and turned their lives to Jesus!

“What a joy! The Waraos are mostly a forgotten, unreached people. Almost no one wants to go near them, and there are no churches among the Waraos in this area. Well, not anymore! We are very happy to have planted our first church to reach more Waraos!

E S W A T I N I

Embracing God’s Love

Dinah’s story is just one of many. At the Annual Equipping Event, leaders from across the world are strengthened and renewed in God’s truth, they then return home to bring transformation to their families, churches, and communities. When one leader is set free, the impact multiplies—peace spreads, forgiveness is extended, and the love of God reaches farther than we can imagine. This is why we equip leaders: because their transformation changes nations.

T E X A S

What We Saw

Josh and Christine Cairns, Global Disciples partners from Texas, travelled to Nepal on a Global Disciples vision trip. As they prayed about going, they sensed it was God’s invitation to step into something new. They believe God brought them together as a couple for a Kingdom purpose, and this experience underscored this conviction.

“We went to Nepal with few expectations and an archive of Global Disciple’s God-stories running in our brain. And a niggling question: Did the dramatic, miraculous God-stories really happen? Would we come home with our own dynamic God-story to tell?

On Sunday morning, we joined a local church service outside of Kathmandu. At the end of the service, Christine and I were invited to pray specifically for healing. What happened next was completely unexpected.

Men, women, and young people came to be prayed for. We prayed for more than two hours! And it seemed like ten minutes.

Exhausted and elated, we went to the local pastor’s home for lunch. After lunch, he invited us to come and visit a woman battling ovarian cancer. We were shocked when we saw her—pain and suffering evident on her face.

Her daughter and four aunties were with her. We anointed her with oil and prayed. Her daughter spoke English. She told us that she didn’t believe in Jesus. She wanted Jesus to be real, but she wasn’t convinced. She shared that her father had left the family, and her mother could not forgive him.

And we prayed.

The Holy Spirit gave us the words to speak. We asked the mother when she first experienced hurt. We could see that the question took her back to another place, and the Holy Spirit was beginning to work in her. Then we asked Jesus who she needed to forgive. She raised her hands and began to pray. She poured out her heart and prayed with the power of the Holy Spirit. She forgave her husband and his family who had hurt her. She repented of her own sin. She prayed for seven or eight minutes.

As she prayed, one of the aunties vomited violently. Shocked, God’s Spirit enabled us to pray against the evil spirit within her. We also prayed that the daughter would know Jesus and that He would be real in her life.

After we returned home, we received a video from this family. Our new friend is regaining her strength. When we saw her face, we were thrilled to see just how much stronger she looked. God’s healing power is at work.

We are grateful that Jesus invited us into the story of the Nepalese church. We met ordinary people just like us who accepted the invitation of Jesus to be a part of building the Kingdom of God in their community. We experienced the power of prayer and healing. We shared meals with men and women persecuted for their faith yet never relenting in their desire to share Jesus and invite others into the Kingdom.

We have returned home changed. Most of all, we clearly heard the invitation of Jesus, ‘Come and follow me.’”