WARSAW — Mark Sponseller spent many years in Mexico and Argentina planting churches, spreading the good news and watching “a lot of miracles and signs and wonders.”

Through his evangelistic efforts, he realized something. “What I personally received being God’s representative and messenger to foreign people in a foreign nation is that God is not an American.”

MARK SPONSELLER

Sponseller, who now manages the preplanning department at Titus Funeral Home in Warsaw, was quick to add, “Not that America is bad, but it doesn’t work in a foreign land.

“I could not preach the gospel of Jesus Christ with American stories, cliches or parables. It forced me to reduce the gospel to its core message.”

He said he had to “make big internal decisions to divest myself of American identities,” including “losing the smells, sights and sounds that make up our personal identity.”

Sponseller, 70, was born and raised at Big Barbee Lake and graduated from North Webster High School in 1966. He attended Ball State University, earning a bachelor of science degree in biology, chemistry and philosophy.

He married Susie in 1972 and after three years in the Muncie area, where he served as a pastor, they moved to McAllen, Texas, where they both attended King’s Way Missionary Institute, taking “three years of college Spanish tucked into nine months.”

Sponseller was valedictorian and Susie ranked third in their class. “She would have beat me,” he quipped, “but she was pregnant during the nine months of school.”

After four years as missionaries in Mexico, the Sponsellers “entered Argentina as permanent residents” in 1981.

They planted several churches and still visit the country every other year “to greet the churches and oversee their wellbeing,” said Sponseller. “We meet with them on live streaming once a month, holding services and conferences in Spanish from our house.”

Sponseller recalled several powerful miracles in those foreign countries.

“We prayed for a man whose father, grandfather and uncle had all died of stomach ulcers by the age of 50. He was diagnosed with same condition and the doctors were ready to operate to try to give him a few more years of life.

“A couple days after we prayed, he returned for another series of x-rays. Where there was an ulcer was now a scar,” as though the surgery had already taken place. “He is alive today and an elder in the church.”

They also prayed for “a man who was the town crazy. He would run up and down the streets screaming at the top of his lungs day and night. He was healed of demonic activity in his life. The whole town was awestruck.”

Once he was preaching in a soccer field of 2,000 people.

“On the horizon we saw lightning and huge black clouds,” signaling 100-mph winds from the Andes. “It was time for the altar call,” said Sponseller. “I got mad, stopped preaching and rebuked the devil in a loud voice,” also commanding the storm to dissipate.

“At the edge of the field the wind and rain split in two and we remained dry while it was coming down in sheets 100 yards behind us and on either side. The people, including me, stood there with our mouths open. More than 500 people gave their hearts to the Lord that night.”

The Sponsellers have four grown children and five grandchildren.

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