Brief biography on Mitch Schultz

Mitch Schultz grew up in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, where his parents John and Janine Schultz, were missionaries for the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA). He graduated from high school in Dalat School in Malaysia and then attended C&MA Toccoa Falls College in Northern Georgia, USA, where he graduated with a degree in Missiology. The degree emphasis was on Church Planting. During his Toccoa Falls years he met his future wife Elaine. Elaine came from a Christian home in Indianapolis, USA. They married in 1983.

Upon graduating from College the young couple began their ministry as full time youth pastor in a C&MA church in Hendersonville, North Carolina, USA. Their oldest son, Travis, was born there in 1986. In later years they were blessed with a daughter, Breanna, and their youngest son Brett. After two and a half years they began the process towards missionary work with the C&MA, which process took them to Indiana. Mitch attended a year of graduate studies and thereafter moved to Forth Worth, Texas, where he assumed the servant position of senior pastor in 1988.

After these years of preparation they moved to England to pastor the Birchwood Evangelical Church in Warrington near Manchester. They were involved in evangelism in the local primary and high schools and also spend a fair share of their time and resources discipling and training leaders, and coordinating a theological extension program for lay people.

Just several months before a planned return to the USA Mitch' wife, Elaine, fell into a coma. She was suffering a brain tumor. She nearly died but then embarked on the road to recovery. She spent two months in a Liverpool hospital before finally moving back to the USA. As Elaine struggled through therapy to regain memory, speech, reading and writing, their oldest child, Travis, was diagnosed to have a brain tumor as well. The tumors were medically unrelated. Travis' tumor turned out to be an inoperable terminal tumor in the brain stem. He died less then a year thereafter in August 1999.

Mitch has authored a book titled "Does God Care?" It relates his experiences with God and his family as they wrestled through the days in the midst of suffering.

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