Missions - Dane & Mirjam Hanson family

Mirjam was born and raised in the German village of Konigbach (translated King’s Stream) in Southern Germany near Karlsruhe. The area where this village lies is in an area known as the Northern gate to Germany’s Black Forest. Her parents were both first generation believers who did everything they could to raise their children in a way honoring to the Lord and always hoped their three children could serve the Lord in some small or large way in their lives. Mirjam has two younger brothers. In 1990, while Mirjam was finishing her nursing studies, her mother was tragically killed by a drunken driver while visiting the OM Ship Logos II in Cameroon, West Africa. Mirjam was with her at the time and she suffered greatly from this loss. Three years later, she followed her mother’s hope for her to serve in missions.

Dane was raised in south-eastern Wisconsin. He is the youngest of five children with two older brothers and two older sisters. His Minnesotan parents encouraged him to return to study at the University of Minnesota. While studying business there, he began to attend Bethlehem Baptist in 1989 and became involved in the International Student Class. He was very challenged in his own faith, and at the same time to reach out to foreigners. The next five years were very much a growing time as he finished his University studies and for the next three years worked for a Public Relations Firm in downtown Minneapolis. As the Berlin wall fell, and the East opened from communism, he made a decision that would truly alter his life plans—to join Operation Mobilization in Eastern Europe. Dane’s connection to Grace Bible Chapel is through his aunt, Iris Hanson and his cousin, Cathy Clark.

After serving on the same team in Albania all of 1993 and 1994, Dane and Mirjam began their relationship and married in 1995 in Germany. Four months later they returned to Albania as a team leader in Durres, Albania, planting a church there. During the next three years, their ministry expanded quickly and their teams were soon involved in four more church plants in new cities and every new place they went, it seemed a few people turned to Christ. At the same time, the Nation was soon in political turmoil when nearly 75% of the country lost major money in pyramid schemes which the government endorsed. This lead to total anarchy in 1997. Much of the later part of that year only Dane was able to live there, given the instability and continued violence which took many lives. In 1998 the Kosovo war brought more than one million refugees from Kosovo into Albania and through this the Lord brought a new ministry among the Albanian Kosovars. Since 1998, Dane and Mirjam have served as OM’s Field Leaders for OM Balkans, which encompasses 10 teams and about 50 adult workers, spread across the Balkans. We see the Lord at work in this part of the world where the Apostle Paul walked and preached Christ. It is a privilege to see again that people respond.

Please pray for the Albanian church. There are 140 small churches spread across this land. Pray for Albanian Church Leaders. About 80% of them are now Albanian and yet many are young and are growing. Pray for the 70% of the population who would call themselves secular or practicing Muslims. Pray for Albanian minorities living in surrounding Montenegro, Kosovo, Greece and Macedonia.