ADVANCE 2025

Nikki has served with Global Partners for 26 years, first for several years in Eastern Europe and then for the last ten years as the Director of Learning & Leadership for Global Partners. She coaches, equips, and partners with organizational leaders worldwide to design and deliver transformational training experiences and multiplication pathways for missionaries and church leaders. She loves coming alongside church leaders to facilitate shared respons-ability, resources, and relationships to reach the unreached with the good news of Jesus for God’s glory among all peoples.  

She and Trent have been married for 27 years and have been members of the Tri-State District of The Wesleyan Church for about as long. Together, they have two adult children: Ariela (soon to be married to Vinny) and Luka (a student at OKWU). She enjoys a good cup of coffee with a piece of chocolate. She tends to relax her brain by doing something active like working on a home improvement project.  

Dr. Wayne Schmidt is the General Superintendent of The Wesleyan Church, a role he was elected to on June 6, 2016, by the North American General Conference in Buffalo, New York. He was re-elected on May 23, 2022, at the 14th General Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Previously, he served as the chief administrative officer of Wesley Seminary at Indiana Wesleyan University from 2010-2016. From 1979-2009, Schmidt served first as a co-founding pastor and then senior pastor of Kentwood Community Church (KCC) in the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area. He contributed leadership in planting the church and growing it to a multiethnic and multiplying church, taking a lead role in planting 10 daughter churches during his tenure.

He and his wife, Jan, have been married for 41 years, and their three children and their spouses and seven grandchildren all serve the Lord.