Board of Directors

Carole Ward is a missionary, leader, and teacher fostering an indigenous missions movement in Northern Uganda and South Sudan.  She moved to Uganda in 2002 during a 20-year horrific war, where she served and trained African leaders from all backgrounds to pray. Together they saw the war end,  and she began equipping them to reach their own people with the power of the Gospel.

As a third-generation American missionary, Carole grew up in the Philippines in a militant Muslim area, where her parents were Wycliffe Bible translators.  Her grandparents spent 30 years in China, as medical missionaries in Shanghai. Growing up in the Philippines shaped the longing of Carole’s heart to reach the most unreached people groups with the Word of God, and to embrace the oppressed, widows, orphans, and victims of war and suffering.

Carole came to the United States from the Philippines as a teenager, received a nursing degree, and began therapeutic foster parenting for emotionally disturbed and traumatized children. She continued with that ministry for the next 20 years. In addition, she worked as a nurse in home health and hospital settings, and then opened a residential care facility for Alzheimer’s patients. She served in church administration in positions of leadership training, evangelism, discipleship coordination, and city-wide prayer ministries.

In 2002, the Lord opened the door for Carole to serve in Uganda. She was the interim director of a Bible College in southern Uganda and had the oversight of 42 Portable Bible schools in 5 East African countries, through a Campus Crusade missionary work. During that year of service, God began to answer the cry of her heart, “Lord, let me lay my life down for you, where no one else wants to go, and to do what no one else wants to do.”

As the war in the north claimed thousands of lives and saw 50,000+ children abducted, and as missions, government agencies, and westerners were leaving the warzone, Carole moved into the area to pray and to live. Her cry was, “Lord, would you give me a bucket of water and a towel so I could walk through the land and wash the feet of men and women who have walked in suffering that I’ll never understand.”

After 6 months of prayer, Ugandans came to her with desperate visions for reaching their own people with Bibles, discipleship, education, evangelism, and more. The government required registration to work in the high-profile war area, so Carole formed Favour of God Ministries in 2004 and began training indigenous missionaries to run the vision.  Because of desperate prayer meetings, reconciliation, and unity among believers and tribes, God used these Ugandan nationals, under Carole’s prayerful leadership to help end the LRA war by 2006.

In 2007, God led Carole to begin extending the missionary work into Sudan before it became liberated. Again, the cry of her heart, was ‘Give us the lost’. This led to National Prayer Gatherings in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, being mobilized in 2015 and then again in 2019, in order to see enough peace for the Gospel to extend to the farthest regions of the nation, and into the most remote tribes and villages. In 2014, FAMI was birthed as a sister organization to FOGM in Northern Uganda, with the same vision, passion, foundation of prayer, and indigenous leadership development within each country. The vision extended was for every tribe and language to reach their own people and beyond, with the power of God’s Word.

As the Founder and Executive Director of Favour of God Ministries and Favour Africa Ministries Intl, and through the indigenous teams she has raised up and trained, Carole continues to spearhead rural tribal discipleship movements, organizes national prayer events, cares for orphaned and community children, establishes Christian education, trains indigenous leadership, equips hundreds and thousands through Portable Bible Schools and trauma rehabilitation, plants and builds churches throughout the two nations, conducts mobile medical clinics, and carries on with a passion for the unreached people groups of Northern Africa.  Under her leadership, pioneering ministries are advancing the Kingdom of God into remote tribal regions and unreached people group areas that are most needy for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Carole is passionate about prayer and teaching God’s Word.  She burns with a vision to see people walk in a new level of restoration and revival.  She loves God’s people, as well as the lost, and feels deep compassion for the suffering, the poor, and the abandoned. She is an agent of national transformation. For more information, please connect with Carole on LinkedIn.

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Jared is a widely-learned connector and vision builder who serves leaders and organizations needed in the world today. An aspiring polymath who has constantly sought the whole truth, he has given his service to Favor since 2012 to support this unique model of national transformation and to support God’s work through our powerful and passionate family in Uganda and South Sudan.

While serving with Favor, Jared has worked in every position on the US side for seven years and has served on the board of directors since July 2016. He and his wife, Janice, lived in Uganda for 3 months to serve and train the team. Also, US domestic travels have brought him face-to-face with most of Favor’s supporters and followers. Favor Board of Directors  formally recognized Jared in 2020 for his leadership in building the nonprofit’s financial core. Favor’s financial size has increased 20x since Jared started as a volunteer in 2012. ($300k -> $6m/yr donations)

Jared operates a virtual tour technology business celebrating 10 years and is Oklahoma’s longest-running panoramic photographer. For 15 years, he has pioneered ways to tell the whole truth experientially about places to know, and he has photographed over 1,200 locations in seven states for hire.

Jared and Janice are active prayer leaders and disciple makers at Asbury United Methodist Church in Tulsa in addition to connecting several city-wide prayer movements.

Jared completed courses of study in Multimedia Production, Christian Philosophy, Music Performance, Literary Writing, and Mathematics at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa and Marquette University in Milwaukee. After producing projects and teaching courses at ORU in graphic and web design, new technologies, and international missions, Jared left in 2009 to start a virtual tour business. His awards include National Merit Scholar (2001), Outstanding Graduate of the Year, ORU Communication Arts Department (2005), Google Business Photos Top Performer (2012), and the City of Broken Arrow Independent  Business Owner of the Year Award (2014).

Jared currently serves as the chair of the board for Favor International and is running for the Tulsa Public School Board.

For more information, please visit www.jaredbuswell.com.

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Dr. Vilma Vega is a board-certified infectious disease physician and a certified HIV specialist. She also is a certified personal trainer and certified health and wellness coach. She has a degree in ministry.

A native of Peru, Dr. Vega is an internationally known speaker on various subjects, including infectious diseases and HIV/AIDS as well as faith-based subjects, such as global missions, integrating medicine and faith and the role miracles play in medicine. She felt a call to missions since childhood, eventually co-founding Hearts Afire in 2006. This Sarasota-based non-profit organization sends doctors, nurses, ministers and others on short-term humanitarian mission trips to Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Fluent in English and Spanish, Dr. Vega has been involved in clinical research trials for more than 20 years. She has served on various pharmaceutical advisory boards and speakers’ bureaus on the subject of HIV. She was a 2008 recipient of the Frist Humanitarian Award.

Dr. Vega received her medical degree from the University of Illinois, where she developed a passion to practice infectious disease. During her training at Jackson Memorial Hospital/University of Miami, she felt a strong calling to care for HIV/AIDS patients at a time when it was not popular. After her residency and fellowship in infectious disease, Dr. Vega joined Infectious Disease Associates in Sarasota, Florida in 1995, continuing her efforts to fight the disease that ravaged so many. She served as the medical director for the Community AIDS Network Clinic in Florida and also as a clinical research director for the Infectious Disease Associates Center for Clinical Studies.

Dr. Vega believes strongly that “God is the eternal healer. He is the divine healer.” She uses medicine as a tool to love people like Christ loved others. More info: www.vilmavega.com.

Alex has over 25 years of financial and executive experience providing finance, accounting, and strategic leadership for growth-oriented private, non-profit organizations, and non-governmental organizations.  Alex – who has lived and worked in Asia, Latin America, and Africa – brings mission knowledge and hands-on experience serving in both start-up as well as sophisticated international non-profits. As a Favor board member, he brings Chief Financial Officer expertise and oversight. Alex holds an MBA in Finance from “Thunderbird” (American Graduate School of Intl. Management), speaks Spanish, and holds various IFRS Accounting Certifications issued by the AICPA.

Recently, Alex was CFO of a $160M medical and social services non-profit organization where he was responsible for all financial operations and accounting matters. There he contributed to the strategic decision making of the organization and supported a diverse management team with financial and accounting services -including reporting, funding, tax filing, and financial compliance. Previously, Alex was CFO of portfolio companies for Millennium Capital Partners, a boutique investment group that provides direct investment and private placement capital and equity financing services. There Alex oversaw strategic turnaround of accounting and finance operations, capital formation, SEC and foreign finance & trade compliance administration, helping stabilize and grow portfolio companies (ranging from start-up to multi-national in size). Some of Alex’s earlier career roles include VP Finance & Accounting for Venture Strategies Innovations (an international non-profit), CFO of UWD Group (USA and Germany), Head of Trade Finance for Honda Motor Co., and Chief Credit Officer for CNH Capital.

Alex has served on several boards during his career including Hearts Afire and The International Visitors Council of Los Angeles, and he was nominated Chair of the Global Initiatives Council for the LA Chamber of Commerce (a group of over 570 companies). Alex was also named as one of the most influential people in international trade in California by the Los Angeles Business Journal. To learn more, please connect on LinkedIn.

For 37 years, David worked at Fort Knox as an operations research analyst, conducting cost effectiveness studies of potential new military equipment, and as an “urban planner,” monitoring design and construction of construction projects on Fort Knox. David has served in leadership for Residents Encounter Christ (REC), providing weekend God-encounters within prisons in several states.

David and his wife, Sandy, have extensively traveled on short-term trips in the western hemisphere and for 3½  months in China in 2017. They have two children, 37 and 35, and faithfully serve many ministries in retirement.

    Lisa Coggin was born again into the Kingdom of God through her belief and acceptance of Jesus as our Savior and now lives every day in unswerving allegiance to Him.

     
     Lisa and her husband Keith have been married for 42 years and have four sons and 3 grandchildren. They are originally from Mobile, Alabama.  

     
     For 17 years they lived and served the Lord in Uganda and East Africa. Prior to coming to Uganda, they were both trained for 6 weeks at Equip International, for cross-cultural life and work. They also completed a course from Prairie College on The Biblical Theology of Missions.

      
     Lisa traveled to England and took a course in Language and Culture Acquisition from The Wycliffe SIL Institution. In addition to that she self-taught a course in child-development, child-development in Africa, curriculum development, and Steppingstones to Curriculum. Lisa also served on the board of the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) in Uganda for 2 years.

     
     Since 1991, Lisa has traveled to Honduras in Central America on mission trips. Later in the 1990’s through the year 2000 both Lisa and her husband Keith visited Honduras, Ukraine, and Uganda. In 2000, Keith realized through a Bible lesson, that God was telling him to go to Uganda to serve full time for His Kingdom. They surrendered to Him fully July of 2002.
     
     For the first 4 years in Uganda, they worked at an orphanage in Jinja called The Good Shepherd’s Fold Children and Babies Home. They served alongside 9 other missionaries there and worked with the youth preparing them physically, mentally, and spiritually to live outside the orphanage as they neared the age of being on their own.
     
     After the first year, they became the directors of the Orphanage. During this time, Keith and Lisa learned that the children in the school were not learning. Many of them as old as 5th graders could barely read and could not comprehend most of what they were reading. This prompted Lisa to research the school system to see how they could improve the education of these children.
      
     This led to a discovery that the Ugandan education system is one of exclusively rote learning directed at a standardized test at the end of the 7th grade.
      
     At this time, they also learned that the northern region of Uganda was experiencing a horrible rebel insurgency (the Lord Resistance Army), and that there were only a few missionaries serving the Lord in this war-torn area. Carole Ward was one of those missionaries. They met Carole in 2005 and have a long history of friendship and serving the Lord together in Africa.
      
     For the next ten years, Lisa and her husband self-educated to meet the needs of bringing improvements to education in Uganda. While doing so, they have served alongside Ugandans who love the Lord and who have been instrumental in establishing a Christian School. Their main goal was to educate the children through better methods of teaching/learning and helping the children develop a Biblical worldview through a Christ-centered curriculum.
     
     Since there was no curriculum other than Government issued rote-based curriculum, they set out to research how they could create a Christian curriculum legally and from the perspective of Africa. They called the curriculum Roots to Fruits Christian Curriculum (R2F). The curriculum was in 50 schools this past year and there are even more schools requesting it.
     
     They have received requests for R2F from several schools in other African countries such as Liberia, Zambia, Rwanda, and South Sudan! Lisa and her husband have relocated back to the States to continue developing the Roots to Fruits Christian Curriculum and to seek further funding and establish connections with organizations that will help distribute it to other countries.
     
     Lisa counts it a privilege to serve on the board of Favor International.

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Martha Mott has been an international conference speaker and Bible teacher for over 28 years. As a licensed and ordained minister, she has served on various ministry boards and compensation committees. In 2012, Martha founded Hearts Desire International Ministries, a 501(c)(3) organization to establish and strengthen believers in their faith and pursuit of their destiny in God, and she serves as the organization's President. In Bible schools, ladies’ retreats, ministry conferences and churches, Martha has taught extensively on prayer, the power of confessing the Word and the victorious faith walk.

Martha was Executive Assistant to her late husband, Virgil, for over 25 years, in his various business enterprises–commercial real estate development, oil & gas operations, and partnerships in landfill and mortgage company day-to-day operations. Many doors of opportunity opened over the years for marketplace ministry.

With a B.S. in Secondary Education from Dallas Baptist College (now University), her fields were History and Political Science. Martha considers her study of the Bible and biographies of heroes of faith a very rewarding pursuit for life and ministry.

About 14 years ago, missionary Carole Ward became a focus of prayer, ministry support, and friendship. Martha was impressed with the purity of Carole’s heart: her zeal and dedication to the people of Uganda and South Sudan, and the enormous task that she had embarked on as a true nations-changer. She has counted it an honor to serve Carole and the Favor ministry vision in various capacities.

After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, Mike Blickensderfer attended and graduated from Ohio University in 1974 receiving a degree in business administration. He subsequently attended Seton Hall University School of Law, receiving his law degree in 1985. Mr. Blickensderfer is admitted to practice law in Florida, New York, and New Jersey, being admitted in New York and New Jersey in 1986 and Florida in 1987. He has been a Board member for the past 2 years.

Pastor Louis Kayatan has been a pastor and in ministry for more than 50 years, during which he faithfully raised up churches in Ohio and other states. He has mentored his sons who have now taken over leadership of the churches, and Louis serves as a consultant to pastors. He has known Carol and Favor for 18 years, has been to Africa for training pastors and leading marriage conferences. He & his wife are Carole’s personal pastors and spiritual covering. He has served as a board member for 1 year.