Larry and Barbara (Bentley) Stucky currently serve in an urban setting in French-speaking West Africa. Their respective paths to both marriage and joint service took them to various countries and peoples over the last several decades of serving with WorldVenture. They thank God for global partners who have walked the path with each of them, and now both of them, since the 1980s.
Larry and his first wife, Dana (now with the Lord), were appointed to plant churches among northeast Brazilians in 1982. They branched into seminary teaching and leadership development over the ten years they served Brazilians. From 1989 to 1991, Barbara Bentley taught the Stucky children and others in a one-room schoolhouse as part of her first overseas assignment. In 1993 and continuing until 2011, the Stuckys were reassigned to plant churches and develop ministry leaders among Albanians in the aftermath of the atheistic communist regime.
Barbara continued her teaching of TCKs (Third-Culture Kids) from various sending agencies in Brazil for several years after the Stuckys left for Europe. Once she had finished serving the remaining TCKs in Northeast Brazil in 1998, Barbara transferred to Argentina for an itinerant TCK-teaching ministry in various provinces; this continued for 16 years, until she had met the teaching and learning needs of this larger group of TCKs.
In 2011, the Stuckys assumed a diaspora-focused ministry to peoples on the move, based in California. Larry accepted the invitation by WorldVenture to become the Global Coordinator of Diaspora Initiatives. Dana Stucky passed away in 2018. Larry was later asked to help form a task force focused on the Unreached as part of the Tri-Strategy team.
Meanwhile, Barbara finished her teaching ministry in Argentina and accepted the invitation to begin teaching TCKs in West Africa.
At the suggestion of Larry’s grown children—two of Barb’s first students in 1989 in Northeast Brazil—Larry started both courting Barb and exploring a return to field practitioner status focused on a frontier people group in her West African setting. He moved to Africa and began to study French in late 2022, anticipating a mix of worship ministry, leadership mentoring and training Africans for cross-cultural impact. Barb and he were married in 2023 and returned to West Africa to continue their respective ministries.
Initial fluency in French has allowed Larry to participate in the church planters’ meetings. He is also spearheading the launching of media ministries in the church movement, including the mother church and several daughter churches. This also dovetails with mentoring of African leaders and cultivation of worship ministry.
Larry and Barbara thank God for their committed global partners in Kingdom ministry.
Videos and Blogs on WorldVenture.com
* How to Practically Help Refugees
* Critical Understanding of People Groups for Disciple-Making and Gospel Impact (1 minute video)
