The whole family in ministry.
Dean holding the guitar and Jason circled.
In 1984 the Chollar family accepted the call to international missions during a Sunday Evening church service at their home church, Park Springs Bible Church in Arlington Texas. The original plan was to teach Greek and Hebrew and Old Testament studies at the Belgian Bible Institute with Greater Europe Mission (GEM). Classes were taught in Dutch, however, so the Chollar’s setttled in Schoonbeek and Diepenbeek in North Eastern province of Limburg, Belgium to learn the language and the culture. The whole family began to get heavily involved in local ministry including music, youth, evangelism and churchplanting. The family felt they were making a real impact, and Dean began struggling to read the tiny print in the textbooks. In an unexpected twist, the Belgian Bible Institute found a Belgian citizen with the desire, credentials and support needed to fill the role that Dean had original signed up for. So, the family continued to invest in the local churches in the area and had some success in evangelism and churchplanting, in a very challenging environment.
After serving, evanglizing and planting multiple churches in the for over a decade, Dean began receiving and accepting invitations to teach evangelism from around the world. He carried on doing this, despite his eyesight deriorating little by little until he had to quit driving and eventually became completely blind due to an inherited disease called Retinities Pigmentosa (RP). Dean didn’t let that slow him down, though, and continued to obediently follow the Lord, as he led Dean Chollar to expand to ministry all over the world.
As a result, Dean founded CrossWay International in 1997. In the first years, the main focus of the ministry was evangelism and training overseas, with some preaching and training in the States in between mission trips.
Another aspect of the ministry was the identification of coworkers in various countries, so that we could help support them and their ministries to varying degrees as we worked together.
Over time, seeing the great need, Dean and his field directors in the various countries began to tackle various additional projects such as English Schools for Evangelism and water well drilling. These projects have included Guyana, Ethiopia, Sudan, Liberia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Nicaragua, Kenya, and Pakistan, etc… (Dean has been to more than 50 countries since going blind!)
After spending a couple of decades as a music director in Washington State, Dean’s son Jason joined CrossWay International as a missionary in 2015. Over time Jason took on more and more responsibility until January 2023, when the Board of Directors officially completed the transition of Jason to the role of CEO. You can read more details about both of their stories on the “Who we are” page.
